Busting out

My wife went on a training course and I was to meet her in the hotel lobby. It was raining and I wanted to get out of the rain. I rolled down my cycle mode shorts into pants and rolled my short sleeve jacket into a respectable soft shell. I made sure I had ridden slow enough to not get the dreaded water splatter along the butt seam of my pants and back. I sat down and realised that the lobby probably never looked as good.

Also, Shifty who was very important in the creation of the event that was CMWC 06 that was of course the best ever event of its kind .. yeah ever and in the future too. Anyway, Shifty left the city of Sydney with a rounding of the troops to wish Sifty a great farewell. I have pictures of him crying and it was not in pain.. or even self inflicted pain. He is now scaring the drivers and pedestrians of BrisVegas..yep he is crying in this pic. (Shifty in green)

The SYDBMA is holding the Courier Cup...the fastest over 2 events will get free return tickets to ACMC in Perth over the Easter long weekend

Last month my son turned 4. He fetured on my friend ohoh2's blog ... Those kids had a suprize visitor in the shape of SPIDERMAN. All the little girls were scared and all the little boys loved it.
SpiderMan towards the end of his routine made all the kids swords out of balloons. He then somehow managed to get them to beat me up with them. After standing in front of a BBQ and making enough sausages and fish to fedd an army I really did not feel like being pushed about by a squad of malicious balloon wielders. My son's friend Oscar was a little out of order when he started to punch me in the nose no less than 4 times then run off (stage left) fast. He hit me in the face on 2 different occasions and also started to lay into my gut on another. Lil bugger was hitting hard. How does a 4 year old learn that? I was wondering about approaching his dad who did the dump and run thing. Bahhhh later.

There are some things I really like. One of them is bikes and girls who ride them. You might have noticed that I often have a pic or 4 of a lady on my bike. Well I have some more now too. I would like to mention that I got my inspiration from TC from fyxomatosis. A few years ago i got a postcard info flyer of his exhhibit CIAO! I was hooked. I do not pretend to compete or even come close to the quality of his art but I dream too. Have a look at his site,well travelled in the bicycle courier world. Andy White (Track Cunt) has made the bike THE art form itself.

My attempt to be less "Still Life" and more "in the street". I wish I had the equipment.. sigh.

Speaking of photographers. My friend Peter's site is constantly being bombarded with hack attacks and other malicious net beasites.... What the real problem about that is Google black lists it and makes it hard to even view a picture. with its MALICIOUS warnings on sites that might have been hacked but are now fixed. It is like the warning is the virus. Also, who let google warn you with a big stick... Google did that's who. It's not really very fair. We are building him a new site with a new IP. So perhaps Google can just piss off.

Over the last few weeks I have met a fewNICE GUYS some of them were even riding fixies. The guy on the right was from the States and his bike had really lovely lugs I might be wrong but the badge on the head tube said ARAYA. Now as far as I knew they built rims and wheels in alloy. The badge did actually look just like the old PANASONIC head tube badge that looked like it would be more at home as a ring on some big guys finger. If you're into head badges look at this (just found it randomly).

The bike in question is the red one on the right it has mud guards and a nice easy ratio. what I really noticed ws the great lugs. I was really weirded out becuase the lugs looked a bit like a Colnago Arabesque (take a look at the unpainted pic on the left).
Also I managed to find more info that Araya did infact build bikes. But, I still dont see Japanese frame makers of the era taking the time on their lugs.

Also met a few more Sydney riders who once again prove that its not the bike but the ride.



Christian Carter on a bigger gear than me and no clips or cages... doing it fixed on platforms.. like the cool kids in France....




John Remi on his Elsworth with road slicks. He was commuting on a Sunday and was really happy to stop and say hello. Nice bike mate. How bout you come with us and put some fat rubber on that sucker?

Well the silly season is over.

I spent most of it Just north of Byron Bay, at a place that was just magic. I am not gonna tell you where strictly cause I do not want to see anyone I know there as that is its charm. It is not on the main traps and its a sleepy place that was exactly what we wanted. I did Learn about "HARD LANDINGS" (not the economical version) at Gold Coast airport, talk about scary. your landing and the nose of the plane is definitely DOWN and not up and slowing down. Hard landings are apparently better but they scare the religion outa me.

I was in a town where I could have found a bike but I made the comment to my wife that "I was not getting a bike for the whole week so I could just spend time with the kids and her and not piss off". Browny points achieved. I noticed quite a lot of bike activity there, mostly cruisers and rust buckets that where left out in the elements. One of the rust buckets had Cross Max wheels in a realistic state of disrepair, others where being ridden to the beach and tasks like going to work and being left in front of the shop all day... Kind of like an old western movie where the cowboy gets off his horse and throws the reigns over a fence and parks there as is.

I was lucky to snap this pic of a local who was on her way for a surf. Apparently she left to Tamworth to do some Coutry and Western the next day. She lives in the sleepy town.

A week in this place was awesome. they even had electricity, mobile phone and internet and even had plenty of places to eat. Although the prices in all the cafes and restaurants where sydney prices at least. what was really, really amazing was the attitude of a group of roadies I met. here in sydney there is the snobbery and the attitude you must fight if you wanna talk to the riders. I met a small group who where on their return leg back to Byron Bay. I imediately noticed a fine ALAN bike. simply said these things rock and they still look great. If I had a bike and it was innovative I would want it to look this good and be this respected after 30 years. Alloy tubes glued together. Today they use this sort of thing on carbon onto ally.
I mentioned just before about the group of roadies. This group on their return run home had stopped at a cafe just near where I was staying and I was getting a cup of caffeine. I stated snapping away. The riders where super friendly. WHAT A SHOCK compared to their Sydney counterparts. They where funny and cool. It did not matter if you rode a 100 buck rust bucket or a 10 grand weapon they loved to ride and enjoy the day together on a ride. WHAT A FRESH BREEZE this was. One of the guys had a nice pendant and it looked like a crank set, prolly campy 30 year gold edition for people from Lilliput. yep if you want some bike jewelery of the real kind not just a cog on a leather strap I recommend you hit up EDGE JEWELLERY DESIGN also in the group pic just here on the right side you can see a woman waving away, well she was just walking past. The place had vibe man.. you know what I mean?

Kids spent the days on the beach or seeking adventure on the bridge. After snapping away for a few minutes the kids pointed at me and where jeering me to "fuck off you perve" I mean these where kids and I was taking action pics of them jumping off a public bridge. Where do these kids get these ideas? it frightens me cause this group of kids might have been 12 years old max.

This was the Christmas holidays and really apart from jumping of bridges there was nothing for them to do but do what they where doing. Nothing quickly and lets hope they don't get to bored to quickly. reminds me of the killer kids from DOGMA










I found one night a bit of noise and cheering coming from the park just a block away. The NSW Axemen Association tee shirts where everywhere. Fancy being in a group called THE AXEMEN ... how cool does that sound? anyway they where having a competition and it was new to me. Choppers (the axe men) start on a handicap start. with the worst starting first and the best starting last. In the pic you can see a guy in black and a yellow stripe. He was last to start and is on his very first swing. He won by a convincing margin. Also trend setters, most of them wore Dunlop Volley shoes

Yet another great bunch of art from FYXOMATOSIS

http://www.fyxomatosis.com/gallery.php?gal=30#709

sometimes bikes and girls cross paths in the most sensational way.