Wednesday 30 August 2006

Bad weather =bordom = modifying


so sat at home bored, raining out, can't go anywhere coz I've got work to do on the Audi( which I can't be bothered with at the moment ), so I set about doing some mod's I had planned to do before I finished my bike but never got round to doing...
first up the fork top bolt, hated the look of this so I filled off the edges and mirror polished it.
next the brake lever, hollowed out and removed all the excess material I could, then mirror polished. these may look simple but they had taken me f**cking hours..........

Tuesday 29 August 2006

'Ultimate weekend' trip...

Guest appearances
(in alphabetical order)

Alex
BobK
Chris
DaveC
Mike
Ray
Sboy

Flying visit
'Bristols' Mikey & Emma bird

...oh yeah & me...

Well the old timers finally got round to doing a road trip & I have to say (& I think all there will agree) it was a wicked day out! Leaving Banbury with an Audi estate packed to capacity, Chris, Rayo BK & I were hitting up the M40 south bound around 8am.

Hooked up with Al, Dave, Sboy & Mike @ Wheatley services & after a brief exchange of pleasantries, we were fueled up & off to the legend that is Romford skatepark. Trip down was good & seemed to fly by, helped somewhat by a viewing of Baco 10 & RideOn on the old portable DVD player & chewing the cud over what the day ahead would hold...

After a near miss of junction 29 we were homing in on Romford & cutting our way through town to the park. Man if you didn't know exactly where Rom park is & how to gain entrance to it, I'm certain we could still be driving around there now!! props to the navigators for getting us there without a hitch then. With excitement building from all, we were all scrambling to bolt on front wheels etc & get in on some BMX freestyle action!

The guy on the door was well sound, eating his toast & butter & talking about where we had journeyed from & giving info on the park (always makes a difference when the people running the place give more than a shit for who's actually paying to ride their park). Upon crossing the threshold, approximately 20+ years of expectations of Rom were realized - holy shit! those bowls are deep! After establishing a base for all our bags & a few yoga stylee stretches, it was off exploring what was on offer today & I can't see anyone going away, disappointed, from this place...
We all worked our ways around the park checking out each bowl with large grins on faces, a few trains here & there, steady down the snake run, trying to get the bottle up to roll into the big bowl (er..no) & generally having a blast. My problem with places like Rom is I get far too excited & usually end up over doing it, going & going & going until I'm completely fucked! well today was no exception & I'm still recovering 2 days later...ha!
The day was a complete success, everyone rode well & had some good stuff down, the weather was good, no 'local' attitudes at the park & it put us all in the 'must do this again soon' frame of mind...
Thanks to Alex for getting the thing organized, Ray for the driving down & back, everyone that came for the good time & Milkey for trekking across from Reading Fest for an all too short session.
cheers all!

---------------------------------------------------------

where's my bike at?
Milkey trying to look happy with soaking wet feet!
chill out time
Base camp
Alex - text book table
Sorry I didn't get fotos of everyone, I'm hoping Sunil's superior camera skills will provide all the evidence required but safe to say, everyone rode well & had a good time.

Thursday 24 August 2006

POOR PICTURES, GREAT MODS






Ian's been asking for some pics of the mods on my bike so here they are....
you can if your interested cross ref with the previous post on my bike for all the details

Tuesday 22 August 2006

Zen & the art of bicycle maintenance...

Bit of a strange one this, I love working on my bike. I know everyone doesn't like to spend an age dialling in their ride as they would rather be out riding (you can tell from the rattles & clanking that emanates from some of the bikes I see at the ramps ;-) but I can't seem to stop messing with mine! Is this some form of O.C.D? Or a substitute for various 'habits' of my formative years?!?

Whatever, I find myself wanting to take stuff apart all the time & try to find ways of making it better or modifying it in some small (or big) way... I spent far too much time fitting my cranks last weekend, they had to be perfect, I can't abide anything that isn't just right on my bike, it plays on my mind... But do you really need a vernier, a slide rule & a quantity of graph paper to fit a set of hollowbites!?!?! (OK - I didn't use a slide rule or the paper but you get my drift...)

So is this normal? Have I taken leave of my senses? Or is this some form of 'addiction' to bicycle maintenance? I don't smoke or drink alcohol & have absolutely no desire to do so either but I find myself becoming irritable if I can't twist a spoke wrench, torque down a few wheel nuts or spend the odd couple of hours toeing in a brake block or two. I think that part of this is because I don't have my bikes at home due to my housing 'situation' at present.

Obviously some of my friends find this beneficial, after all it saves them having to learn the intricacies of building a beautiful, perfectly functioning BMX bike...

Wednesday 16 August 2006

Jam write up...

Upon going online today, I got a mail from Ian asking for a bit of a write up on here on the jam...so here goes i guess!
The day for me kicked off getting up at an hour I previously was unaware existed to help Ray take some stuff down the park. We stealthed it in with Rays illegitemate key that he had 'aquirred' from somewhere...once all the cars were unloaded we hastily departed, and I went home for an hour or two of kip.
On returning to the park, I was greeted by a great amount of riders already gathered eagerly. Once the PA was sorted with a cable I got from a man about a dog, the youngest age group kicked off. I can't really remember what went down, but I'm sure some good stuff happened, fair play boys...
This was (i think...) followed by skateboard. Always amazing to watch, the highlights were Vinny and Beanie getting some pretty dope stuff done, as was Johnny killing himself as usual. I don't know the names of the trickery that went down, but I do know hes nuts on a plank, deservedly winning himself a much needed new deck courtesy of SS20 in Oxford.
Following this the day started to hot up, figuratively and literally...the next event was highest bunnyhop. With a large amount of entries, this was sure to be good. I myself was the first out unable to make 6", but hopefully I'll practice for next year. The majority of people were still in at 15 or 20", but after this the competition was soon broken down into a smaller and smaller group, until Team Halfords of Brackley, Craig Gorilla and Lewis Domino were left as the last pair. Both clearing 32", neither could make 34, and after several tries each it was left to a crowd decision. Obviously, Lewis took a clear win with no one wanting that bowlegged tailwhip kid to win anything.
I saw the mic on the side and made an impromptu anouncement for a best tabletop comptetition. It wasn't proper, but was pretty cool watching loads of people hitting the box and doing loads of tables, some proper good ones went down, best trick ever.
After this we moved into the second highlight for me, the long jump comp. Simply drop in, pedal like a AA pro, and huck off a 2 foot high kicker as far as you could was the game. All sorts of madness went down including loop out to bike throws, sideways high speed skid crahses, over the handle bananas and more. In the end Eddy chaffes first jump took the win, a good 20' or so. I don't know how he does it, I couldn't make within 2' of there. Go race MTB's boys and you might be as good a rider as Chaffe one day if you're lucky.
At some point which i can't remember when, ameteur happened. Highlights included Rorys supermen and whips, Richy P's transfers, Gunnys tables, turndowns and general flow, Gilroys 540 air and 3 fakies, Gregg trying to go spine to box deck to 180 onto the grass(!) and a bunch of stuff I can't remember. Don't know who won either, sorry, too much landing on my head lately i guess combined with with my apparent ADHD. STOP PRESS: Greg, Rory, Rich 1 2 3 I'm told.
Finally, the pro comp. I obviously entered this being very pro. Me, Ollie and Chaffe started this part with Chaffe doing lods of nice transfers (whilst pissed), some big double cans, no foot X's and tables, and me and Ollie doing tables and turndowns I think.
I can't remember who else rode with who, so heres a few highlights...

  • John: Big transfer, huge airs and a few flips which were nuts.
  • Lewis: Huge table airs and lots of flow.
  • Craig: Backboard wallrides on the mini, 360 whip, turndown airs, whip to disaster, spine twists on both spines, etc etc...
  • Casper: 360 whips the nicest i've ever seen, 3 from spine to box landing (nuts), huge airs, tricks from tranny to tranny transfers, usual dope style, twists everywhere.
  • Stratford crew: Loads of good stuff, 270 to smith, icepicks on sub, handplants on spine, whips, tricks in 3's, etc etc.
  • Melon: Going nuts, crashing dropping in!
  • Crazy Pete: Didn't enter, but best tables ever.

In the end, John won, with Craig and Chaffe second, and Casper third (so I'm told).
The comp was followed with loads of beers and getting proper wellied, which was a treat. Big shout to Ray for sorting shit out, all the prize givers, MC Munter for keeping it real on the mic, Josh for the tunes all day and his mate for the cables needed, teenage girls for sitting on the grass, Boozies for selling cheap beers and Bicycle Union for making 'EAT SHIT' stickers.
All in all, a much better day than I had expected, fully enjoyed by everyone I hope I know i did.

Tuesday 15 August 2006

blood sweat n tears!!!





well here it is, my new ride is finished.
started it around feb time (collecting parts that is)
so its been a long time in the making.
FRAME; flybikes mosca 19.8tt, int/headset, spanish bb, Chromed.
BARS; odyssey cilvilian sevlte, Chromed.
BARENDS; loophole nylon w/ti bolt.
GRIPS; easton ID with flange's cut off.
STEM; ody elementry hand polished with Knight watson wedge & ti bolt.
STEM STACKERS; 5mm carbon fiber.
HEADSET; FSA internal.
FORKS; odyssey race, Chromed.
FRONT WHEEL; ody race vandero hub, Knight ti axle, 7075 cone nuts,
knight ti 10mm nuts, ti drilled washers, ody chrome 7-ka rim,
stainless spokes, 36 h.
REAR WHEEL; ody hazard 06 cassette hub, BSD hollow ti axle, RNC ti driver 9t,
knight ti 14mm nuts, drilled ti washers, ody chrome 7-ka rim,
stainless spokes 48h.
CRANKS; RNC race 175mm, hollow 19mm square ti axle,
7075 arms anodised black.
PEDALS; did have DK distortions (14mm ti axles mag body)
now running gusset slim jim's mag sealed.
CHAINRING; RNC ti 24t lite.
CHAIN; KMC cool SL, titanium nitrade coated.
BRAKE; dragonfly dohc lever w/ti bolt, nokon polished outer cable,
stainless inner cable, cable tidy Bicycle union modded glove, aluminium adjuster on frame,
Knight stadle hanger, ti finish flybikes brake, clark's brake pad's w/ti nuts & drilled washer's.
SEATCLAMP; RNC ti
SEAT; macneil sl w/ti bolt
SEATPOST; macneil, shortened & hand filed & polished.
TYRES; KHE premium park.
INNER TUBES; KHE fatty lights.
other mod's include;
Frame, lower cable stop removed (cut off then filed for around 2hrs),
dropout slot's cnc'ed 6mm deeper to reduce backend length.
Axle's, all machined downso as flush with axle nuts, ( shitting myself as
this was done coz they flexed so much the machine guy thought
they may just snap!! ).
Barends, shortened internaly to allow for a shorter ti bolt.
lever adjuster, locking nut replaced with smaller polished one.
all none ti bolts were hand polished.

When I started this project I new all the parts that I wanted,
now this shouldn't really be a problem, unless the parts you want to use become
no longer available, ie RNC going tit's up!
but where there's a Ray there's a way as I like to say...
I got the ti driver from Germany,
the cranks from the liqidators state side, Bob knal sorted the chainring
through flatland fuel, oh and the seat clamp, good old Ebay.
if that was'nt enough, suddenly there's a world shortage of titanium!!!
so I had to try and get a BSD axle, somewhere,
tried all around the UK but no joy, it had to be a BSD one
as there hollow.... then one came up on Ebay, gave my miss's
strict instructions not to be out bid ( told her to go up to 150 quid) .
and I got it... a snip at 50 quid.

BIG THANKYOU'S TO,
Bob k,
George at Knight bike co.

Monday 14 August 2006

back to BMX...

Hey doods!

Been in Newquay for a week, very nice it was too ;-) saw some guy cruising around town on a Diamond Back Viper, all chrome with laid back post, Skyways, number plate, all good! was gonna stop him for a foto of the bike.... So how was the jam? I see nick put some fotos up but can anyone tell me what went down??? need some 'bike fix' if you catch ma drift!?!? looking forward to hooking up with you all soon then...

cheers

Sunday 6 August 2006




some pictures from the jam today
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