SBC BOOZE CRUISE 21/03/09

Thanks to everyone who came on the SBC Booze Cruise, It was definitely a fun time and very entertaining! Rad!

WAIHEKE RIDE 28/03/09

Here is the final build on my new Masi.

Frame: Masi Speciale Fixed 56cm
Hubs: White Industries
Rims: Velocity Deep V
Crank: Truvativ Omnium
Pedals: MKS
Bars: Nitto T19 RisersStem: Masi
Saddle: MasiSeat
Post: Miche Supertype
Chain: Gold KMC Kool Hollow Pin
Other: Vitt Rando Rear, Hutch Equnioux Front, Ti H/Set Spacers, 48-17t Gearing, Ritchey H/Set

Mud Guards to come & beer rack to come…

The Turvativ Omnium cranks are seriously the fucking shit!.. thanks T-White.

One of my favourite things to do when Im not riding bikes, bowling, eating burritos or working on bikes is drink.
Oh yeah and play games on this…

For people who dont know what “MAME” is its a computer program that’s free to download that lets you play copy’s of all the original arcade games. “Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator” And what you can do with MAME is to hook a computer up to an old arcade machine so instead of having one game, you have … well all of them.
Seriously its the best thing ever. Up there with google street view, spotify and uhhhhh …… lol cats?
So heres a little run down on my set up…

I bought it as a working Ms Pacman for 60 squids off Ebay. Cost me 20 pounds to move it across London. I got a Jpac with it for an extra 30 quid
and bought a arcade VGA card to run the monitor. I got an old pentium 3 computer with a 40gig hard drive and recently added another hard drive which gave me extra 80gigs to add more emulators and some music so we can use it as a jukebox aswell.

Its running MAMEWAH front end so it boots straight into the menus when you turn it on and you can navigate through all the games and different emulator menus just but using the joysticks and the buttons.

Ive got emulators and most of the games for
NES (FCE Ultra)
Super Nintendo (Zsnesw)
N64 (project64)
Sega Master System (Mekaw)
Sega Mega Drive (GensFE)
and of course Arcade (MAME commandline version)
Im running arcade jukebox as a basic jukebox mp3 player. I have a two computer speakers and a small sub hooked up inside so the sound is ok.
Other additions are bottle cage drink holders on each side, whiskey dispenser and eyeball lights.
yeah… anyway its fucking awesome and so worth the effort.

So go jump on your trademe/ebay and hook one up. You’ll have combos for days bro combos for days.

Thanks to everyone who turned up.. was a definitly a fun ride!

Group photo thanks too Hagan Hill.. dectoneproductions.blogspot.com

More photos from the ride to come.

Finally got my crate rack racer together. Think I need something to pad the bottom so my beers don’t get fizzy. It’s a beast to pedal up hill, but it flies once up to speed.

First of all watch this the whole way though. No matter how painful.
Cringe, laugh and feel embarrassed at the same time.
I love weird original bikes and these guys are on another level.
Now go check out there website www.erectusbike.com they are serious.

Hopefully now my dumb ideas will pale in comparison.

Ok heres my “mountain fix” with its new wheels

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They are 48hole deep Vs laced 3cross with powdercoated spokes and anodised nipples.
The front hub is a Peregrine with a 14mm x 10mm axel. The rear is a cheap Keyin hub I found on ebay. It has a Londonfixie bolt on cog mounted to the disc brake mount.
There are of course better alternatives if you wanted to do this (Im not suggesting you should). Spend a bit more money and get a 48hole front disc hub. The flange spacing will be better and make a stronger wheel. Or spend even more money and buy some profile hubs.

Ok heres another bad idea Ive been doing for a while.
Putting BMX cranks on fixed gears.
This is how I get it to work. First off you’ll need short ones so you don’t get too much toe overlap and pedal strike, if its a track bike 165mm is good, a lot of downhillers used short cranks to stop them bottoming out on there massive suspension rigs. Also kids sometimes use them for bmx racing as there legs are short. If your using a mountainbike frame you can afford to run slightly longer cranks as there is more clearance up front with a longer top tube and more ground clearance with the raised BB height.
Profiles are easy because the tpi on the sprocket bolt is the same as crank bolts, as you can see here.

(that other bolt is one I found used to mount indoor rock climbing holds)

using a tapered profile flush bolt or something similar means the the bolt is really jammed in there with no room for any movement which causes it to undo. Just file out a little bit of the back of the chainring to get the bolt to fit snug.

use a bit of locktape or locktight on the threads and do it up as hard as you can before bending the allen key.

Its also a good idea (unless you wanna be riding like a cowboy) to get the spindle machined down as much as you frame allows. This can be tricky to determine but basically if you cranks are on all the way and are still 15mm from you chainstays on either side with a bunch of spacers in there, you can take it to a machine shop and get them to lathe off 12mm either side. Profile spindles will have enough spline on them to do this, other spindles like some DMR ones taper from 19mm to 22mm so you cant cut them down.

Of course easiest way is to use the splined tree sprockets but they only come in 36tooth at the moment and are pretty much sold out everywhere. This way will work and you can use your favorite sprocket/chainring/wheel whatever you call it.

Thats enough blah blah blah from me, most of you know this shit anyway. (Or know enough not to bother) So check out my new beer getter setup.

And I got my track bike set up like a track bike now too

unfortunately while working on another bike I forgot I borrowed the crank bolt off it and on the way back from the pub the crank arm fell off Being too drunk to ride it with one leg and no brakes I ended up skooting it to stratons work and riding one of his bikes home.
The next day it was delivered home. Thanks Straton!

Here’s a pic I drew at the pub.

Mad plans.

Jumped on google maps yesterday, as I do every time I need to go some where new in London, and found the AWESOME new STREET VIEW! This is so rad.
I’d heard they planed to do this and I have seen the cars driving around but thought it might take a couple more years before they got it something online. There’s a hell of a lot of London Mapped already. Check out our old flat in Kings Cross with our blurry faced flatmate outside.

I really want to find myself. Im sure I saw these cars a couple of times when I was riding around town.

This is great not just for finding your way around or as a fun time waster but is perfect for finding new spots to ride.

Oh and don’t forget the BOOZE CRUISE this weekend. It should be a doozy.

I got a new Masi frame the other day to build up… I wasn’t sure how I wanted to build it so I just started piecing it together quickly with parts from my stash. It looks kinda cool, but kinda ugly at the same time, I’m really not sure whether I’m going to run this setup or not.. but thought I might as well post some photos of it.

I’m thinking of taking it out to Chris @ Onehunga to get some lugs brazed on to the drop outs so I can run mud guards for wet winter rides.. and also thinking of switching out the RNC BMX cranks to some proper track cranks…

SKULL BIKE CLUB BOOZE CRUISE SATURDAY 21st

• 7pm Start
• Meet at the top of Western Park, Ponsonby Rd
• All bikes welcome
• Beer race, sprints & pass the parcel
• Proudly supported by T-Whites-Bikes
  

Be there, tell your friends, have fun.. ride bikes!

So far the idea is to meet at Western Park.. from there head to Tole Street Bowl.. then down to West Haven, Under the Harbor Bridge, along the water front to the bottom of Parnell.. then up through the Domain, across Grafton Bridge and back into town.. with plenty of stops and fun along the way!

Then this straight after. (The order is important).

Looks like a fun time…

Check the details at:
http://steadyrollin.wordpress.com/
http://solejam.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=4426

Check out this rad robot phone I scored the other day…

Anyway sorry for the lack of updates.. been pretty busy with things.. out shooting photos, been doing allot of updates and work on zombiebmx.com, and have had events most weekends to go to.. so not much time for Skull! but winter is coming, the bike building and beer drinking season and I have plenty of things to work on..

Not really a SkullBikeClub type update but here is some photos I took in the weekend from a MTB jump event.. cant complain to much.. drinking pure in the bush is fun!

In other non bike related news I have just about finished my bathroom which I’m pretty happy with.. check the pics… also im working on a new site so keep and eye out for that!

BEFORE

AFTER

Straton just sent me this awesome pic he drew at work. We’ve been talking about what he should do with his pursuit frame now that hes riding my old mountain bike frame.
Some more exciting pics coming soon now that we have upgraded our web server plan.
hot new wheels
homemade racks
bikes for the ladies
post winter winter bikes
and a kitchen mame check
so stay tuned and keep the rubber side down.