MAYHEM SESSIONS FINAL!!

And what a night it was. Gayle said that someone did a rough headcount and there was around 140 people in there. I’m pretty sure that venue hasn’t seen that many people since it was a masonic lodge. All walks of life and all circles of cadence were present and clearly having a great time of it. There were some certain stars of the ‘urban’ cyclists- in fact there were many. I held Adam Yearsley on his bike while he charged through to one of the fastest times of the night. Ken Beans was excelling himself in the spin. Danger finally stayed in his clips and killed it! Teva was a board shorts clad beach warrior, Alister had a valiant attempt, and Mike won the footdown! I say it was a triumph! A victory for the urban urchins, the street spinners, the pavement pedallers! Justin Grace still won. But his Star Wars Obi Wan fighting Vader display probably didn’t win him any time advantage – it was awesome to watch. Electrical Tape man scared us a tad. Our table went silent for a bit -but hey all in good fun….  I’m pushed for time – there is a load of stuff I will add later but it was a great night – massive ups to Solo and Gayle and John Bridges for getting a seriously amped crowd going and putting on a great event. Dave Benson – you rule because you set this all up and you fell off the stage.

Rolls recovered by Adam

Adams whip

Adam pushing steady

Adam and Steed

Brendan and Mike

Ken going hard!

Teva gets ready

Teva full flight

CJ going wild!

Rohan Rowan !!

Dangerous telling it

Jeff and his wife

See how fast Adam went?

John Bridges has been awesome

Mike killed it in the foot down - but he is the best

Mike Lawrence - none betterAllister repping!

TFT Megamix

 

It was cool to hang out and ride with the crew last night for Tank Farm Tuesday. Some new faces too- Ming came along with his nice pink rig with the wheels off a MASI. And we ran into a guy called Darren who I have seen blasting around Ponsonby but never seen stationary. He rode past us and came back to ride for a bit and ask questions about where the hell we all came from. My camera was dead but Teva and Hagan had theirs so I’ll post a bunch of their shots instead. We had 16 people at one stage. Started out doing the tankfarm loop then Westhaven drive and some sprints on the way back. Frank joined us with his nice new sparkly paint job and we rode up Nelson street and messed around in Aotea before bombing Queen St and heading back to Vodafone for some beers. It’s becoming the ride of choice – I’m loving it. Jeff had his stealth bomber flat black Genius. Everyone wanted to borrow it to do barspins. Justin – we miss you! Don’t injure yourself snowboarding. It felt SOOO good to push some pedals again.

It’s the last roller racing night tonight for the Mayhem Sessions and it looks set to be HUGE. There is talk of lots of prizes and some special ones for the street faction. It’s time for us to team up against the lycra warriors! So hopefully see you up there from 7pm at the Winchester Club on St Benedicts St at the top of Newton Gully. Shit is getting serious! We are not sure who is going to ride – email banter today has suggested we are all a little scared.

And here are some tricky shots from Hagen and his mad fisheye lens set up on his Canon:

I’m into using other people’s shots – makes the whole blog look better. My camera is charged up for tonight though. Should be some strenous output captured in clips for tomorrows post. Especially since everyone is pumped up after watching the track at the Olympics. We were riding Westhaven talking about trying to do slingshots last night. It will end in tears!

LEADER Frame YEAH!!

Hey. I am back in Auckland and catching up with desk work. I was so stoked to open up by boxes and get to fondle the Leader frame. It has bottle lugs in the seat tube that I wasn’t expecting – but I’ll just fill them before I get that puppy sprayed. More updates on the build soon. I took our box of Millwaukee / Bens cycle orders to Mike’s work and he is stoked with his stuff. We both got some of the Milwaukee Bike Co sprockets and they are damn good. Mike’s bike should be up and running for the weekend. Mine will be at least another week:

 

I got a cool email from Darren who runs Fixpatrix in Singapore. Some seriously rad youtube clips on his page. Some stickers going his way and he has some dope Fixpatrix deep V stickers coming our way to NZ. Go the international track bike community!

I’m trying to finish up work so I can get down to Tank Farm Tuesday’s ride. Will be good to see the crew again! I have my frame in the car and I want to show it to Jeff. Might see you there then.

Noah Hickey joins the ranks

Noah is bumped in officially – he has been tearing up the Deflux office on a childs bike with flat tyres, some serious feeble grinding and hopping going on. Noah says he is experimenting with low pressure in his tyres to increase his purchase on the unforgiving ground of the parquet tiles of the Deflux office. Please witness the fitness:

Simon got backwards and it was pretty funny.

More real pedals soon my friend!

Grid City

Hey peeps! I’m in the Deflux office hanging with Simon and the crew having Friday drinks. It seems like there is alot of drinking on the blog and not alot of riding. It’s actually doing my head in – my new frame arrived in Auckland – I ordered a Leader frame online and some goodies for Mike and I from Ben’s cycles and they are sitting in boxes back up in Auckland ready for my new build project.

http://www.leaderbikestore.com/pd_ld_735tr_2008_track_frame.cfm

Now – the next stages for my new bike are not quite as extreme as this guy. Justin was wandering around the blogs and found a link to this dude’s flickr on Hong Kong fixed. I’m hoping that I am this enthusiastic about my bike when it’s finished. Might grow my hair maybe…. buy a gym and rip myself up and ride around shirtless yelling shit for no reason, put some raw eggs in a camelbak… YEAH!

Deep Dark South

This post has little to do with riding bike because I’m in the snow in Queenstown, we had the new Travis Rice snowboard movie world premiere in Wanaka last night. It was freaking awesome. You should check the trailer: www.thatsitthatsall.com The movie was brilliant, the audience went nuts and the party was insane. Justin and I left around 1 am on the coach back across the crown range to Queenstown. Before we even left the movie venue the crowd got through 10 cases of vodka. By the time we ended up at Red Rock things were pretty crazy with alot of pro snowboarders and skiers. I had PDiggs from Shapeshifter MC and DJ the party- he was going nuts all through the movie being the keen snowboarder and all.

Travis and the movie director Curt, pulled out a large wad of currency notes in a stack, and got behind the bar and proceeded to serve the entire party with free drinks. Huge armfulls of beer bottles jugs of beer – whatever. It was hilarious, and it got out of control. I just heard that the place got pretty trashed. The owner is stoked though said it was a great party. I’m glad we got out of there, Justin and I have to fly to Christchurch today. We are setting up for some events over the weekend. I’ll definitely be able to do some posting of the pushing pedals nature from there.

The raddest thing that we saw while down here was in Wanaka. We past some guy riding a dope track bike along the road , a black alloy number with rider bars and he had a snowboard strapped sideways across his shoulders, it was so rad! We did a U Turn and tried to chase him for a photo but he smoked us. Here are some shots from last night:

Nick Gregory (just bruised his heel really badly) Jake Koia, and Curt Morgan the director

Jake, me and Curt

Mayhem Sessions 2 – rollin’ steady…mostly!

It was pretty packed in the Winchester Bar last night for the second SOLO Mayhem Sessions race series. And there was lot of serious track racing contention. Alot of big names that I wasn’t familiar with but alot of matching lycra and treetrunk thighs got on their bikes and ran the shit out of those wonderful rollers. It was an awesome night. Lots of money raised for kids on bikes – which is a charity to educate kids on riding safely (probably will not include a tutorial on riding brakeless fixies though). There were a few of the crew there representing the streets and flying the flag for riding in denim. But all in all the lads were a little intimidated by the seriousness and the shinyness of the competition. I say next time more flat bars and jeans! The streets is always listenin’! Boon from Hedgehog on the Shore got in there but fell prey to the evil roller bite. Danger was up there giving it some serious courier action with a 53/15 gearing. I was holding his bike and he was going nuts.

Beans was also representing – and he nailed it:

Shaun took his shiny Vivalo onto the stage and rode the rollers for the first time – narrowly beaten.

Justin Grace got up to defend his title against another teammate from Calibre Cycles (I should really get all the names off Gayle)- this time his outfit was not future-velo, he was taking it back to the eighties. I say he won it easy but the clock stuck and there was calls for a rematch. I was holding the back of his bike and pushing forward onto the front roller. The deal was this- the rollers- being from the ’50’s were made for track bikes with a longer wheel base. So today’s short bikes were coming up short and squirrelling back off the front roller. There were some tyre blowouts and less than elegant dismounts which all added to the fun. junior track ace Alex Cull turned up with his vintage Cinelli. He got it off ebay and it’s numbered somewhere in the first 15 bikes handmade by Cinelli lovely polished lugs. Anyway he tore it up- check the blowout his opponent had – $200 tyre goes bye bye – watch his front wheel drop. Alex rules by the way I hook him up at Red Bull.

So after the rematch call – Justin Grace went up to went to get a beer jug incase he needed to puke in it but both riders were dead on their feet. So the call was instead of racing there would be an arm wrestle to decide the champion- this is where it got a little weird!

It was hilarious, Frank got some great shots that will be on www.solejam.com but his face says it all:

Some great prizes and fun had by all. Big thanks to Gayle Brownlee and Paul from SOLO and John Macdonald the MC who did a brilliant job. I’ll be in Wanaka at the Travis Rice movie premiere next week but I hope you all have a great time there – there is a girls section next week including a short skirt rule. Bummed I’ll miss it!

And a special thanks to the track master Dr Dave Benson – here is his adjusting the rollers.

Also I was right- Frank has an update on solejam that kicks ass!

http://solejam.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2195

And Dave Benson has uplaoded photos too:

http://retroride.blogspot.com

We may have been motor skill impaired…

It might have involved wine and a late night Nintendo Wii session on Mario Kart with Mike, Sophie, and Kate. We had breaks in the mancave doing backwards circles and stuff; staying out of the rain. Ever noticed how much you run around and fluff up your carpet when you play Wii?

Shredding the Rad

Check out the quality difference with the same clip file in vimeo!

 
Steady Rollin mini wheelie clip – Mike from Mike Lawrence on Vimeo.

A clip and some shots of Mike ripping around. Wheelie front wheel grab niceness. Was nice to have a ride with Mike, Jeff, and Pepe.

Weather was a bit crap for Tank Farm Tuesday but Mike Davies went out there for a ride. I’m stapled to my desk at work still. Looking forward to the Mayhem Sessions tomorrow night to get our roller racing on. I won’t be making the next week because I’ll be in Wanaka in the snow so I’ll make an evening out of it tomorrow. Hope to see you down there.

Check out this shot of Mike doing a nose wheelie:

Mayhem Sessions shots

Riding on rollers is harder than you think. Or is was alot harder than I thought! The Mayhem Session went off on Wednesday night. For a first event it was huge. Really cool to see people come out and ride the hell out of the old set up. Us street urchins had a go- it’s scary, but fun as hell.

you can read more about it on the Solo site but Justin Grace the track Champ and owner of Calibre cycles came out with a show and a preformance that had the room cheering. I bet that dude was running on 60% and he smoked it. We are planning to make the next sessions even bigger so stay tuned to the blog and come along!http://www.solocc.com/clubroom_article.cfm?cb_id=65

 

 

Teva has long hair. Alex is going to ride next time and so is Jeff aren’t you Jeff?

Hey Sunday is looking MINT so we are going to do a nice long ride and some filming. So I’ll send the text out – would be rad to get loads of people involved.

There is a road in Westmere by the Zoo with a big hill I want to bomb and a nice bank to railway hop.