Charge Plug, Titanium frame

Charge bikes are doing some big things out there and the global track bike scene seems pretty turned on to their Plug frameset. With a pretty great UK team including the infamous Super Ted the frames have been through alot of smash testing and R&D. The standard versions are due in NZ as complete bikes hopefully in time for Christmas but maybe January for between a grand and $1400. They have a ti version of the frameset that they made for Super Ted. I just heard that the importer brough a ti frameset in and someone actually has it and presumably ripping around on that thing. Does anyone know who it is? I want to check it out and do a write up and take some shots. I think a few of the crew are looking to switch when the Plug gets here. Strong bike with relaxed geometry and barspins with a 700c wheel. But I also found out the titanium version would retail around $4,000. That is for the frame and fork only. Someone out there is a baller!

http://www.chargebikes.com/products/parts/plugti.php#

Mike is BUSY

You probably thought Mike Lawrence must just trick around on bikes to be as good as he is. He does pretty much live and breathe bikes. His dayjob is running Triplesix. A very very good BMX distribution company here in NZ. They do ‘We the People’, Macneil, Shadow Conspiracy, Subrosa, Forgotten, and Flybikes. This is Mike’s warehouse at the moment, he has been wrestling bike boxes:

I neglected to mention that Mike runs the whole ship ALONE, by himself. Sales, marketing, accounts, and warehouse. Justin and I sometimes go in there and hang out but we just distract him rather than adding to the headcount or productivity.

Goodbye to Frank’s Condor frame and HED Trispoke

Luckily Frank wasn’t hurt in this little crash. We were all ripping down Rosegarden hill in Parnell on Tuesdays ride, Justin and Frank were at the back of the pack. Frank was drafting a little close and silently behind Justin and when Justin speedchecked it closed Frank out on the inside. So to avoid a parked car Frank rode into the curb and scorpioned. Being a fully trained Ninja Frank disengaged from his pedals and managed to roll out of it unscathed. The trispoke took all the impact directly on one spoke so the energy transferred right up and crushed his frame like a toilet roll tube as you can see…..whew. I heard a yell and turned around and came back to take these shots. The trispoke is mooshed too.

You can see from the skid lines how close to each other they were.

Luckily Frank has his new Brooklyn Machine Works frame at the painters and might even have it ready for the weekend. Frank got a couplme of H+Son rims too – and bilt them onto some Level Hubs. Tight setup. But …. did you see the H+Son rim on Prolly’s blog? Lets hope this isn’t a common occurence:

Frank is already joking about grenade bikes.

Choose-day

We rode TFT last night. Instead of actually riding the tank farm we rode uptown to check out Teva’s art exhibition in Newton.

Since we were uptown we rode to see Tim White at his store on Symonds Streeet then bombed down into Newmarket. From here we headed back down to the waterfront down Parnell Rosegarden hill, THIS is where things got a little freaky! Stay tuned for my next post where you can see what happened to Frank’s bike and luckily not to his person!

Mike and Miscellaneous

We had a cool ride trying to dodge the wind on Saturday. Then we got prepared for Justin’s party. I hooked up a slushie machine that we loaded with vodka Red Bull punch. Went down a treat- singstar madness ensued!

Mike Lawrence and Sophie arranged an awesome gift for Justin. Mike got in touch with Mike Martin from MASH to get a hi res version of his shot of the Hella Trispoke a la Duchamp. Mike kindly sent it over and Soph arranged to have it screened onto canvas and it looks amazing!

The whole night was great fun. Surprisingly the hangovers the next day by all reports were mild! Go the slushie machine. It might be the secret key because we went through 7 bottles of vodka in 2 slushie barrel loads. It could probably have powered all the taxi’s home.

Hey – weather is looking OK for TFT tonight. I think some peope are keen for a little spin and a few laps. Nothing too strenuous. Might see you there then?

RVCA / Cinelli Ltd Edition Tees

Pauls Strong from RVCA got in touch and let me know the new LTD tee colabs between RVCA and Cinelli are in town. There are small numbers of most of the designs available at Dead Modern on the corner of Ponsonby and Richmond roads. Get on up and get your mits on one or three. Check out the PDF for the lowdown.

rvca-x-cinelli-limited-edition-t-shirt-series

Jeff’s Raceline

I had to zip down with my camera to take some shots of Jeff’s new Raceline. I just saw it – FUCKING SICK! He’s got his new White Aerospoke on the back and it looks so good. All stickered up.

So weather is as fine as it gets today. It’s not going to last all weekend though. Looks like it’s going to  turn nasty Saturday afternoon so lets do a lunch ride. Justin and Jeff are doing a roadie ride in the early morning and Danger is racing at the track. So if they all have any energy left we can have a street ride. If it’s wet lets do a TF session at Unitec I reckon.

Whatever you are doing – ride safe and have a great weekend!

New Enthusiasm

I’ve been geting a few emails from some people getting hyped up on riding and summer coming. It’s great. Justin Souter from Huffer owns one of Justin Sweeney’s builds. He just threw some white Randonneur’s on the white deep V’s and it looks MINT. In fact it sounds like almost all of the 40 tyres came in are gone.

Ian Ferguson from friends of design has been ripping around on a dope yellow and red track frame build that is really nice- the one at the back in this shot he sent in:

Tank Farm Shots

 

We had a fun ride last night. Just really good to hang with everyone again too. Didn’t get alot of riding actuon but as usual Mike Lawrence was killing it. Mike’s forks were bending about 5mm per minute as he tricked around. Mike needs a sponsorship deal with Brooklyn Machine Works or Charge! I think I have personally watched him destroy 3 or 4 sets of forks watching from behind the camera. I saw the new Titanium Charge that they made for Superted from Fixed Gear London. Looks really good. The new MASI alloy frame is due in December too, that looks awesome and retails under a grand.

White Vittoria Randonneurs!

Firstly : Lets ride Tank Farm Tuesday tonight! Jeff, Mike Lawrence and Justin are all back in the country and keen to ride so I’m stoked to be getting the O.G. crew back together. Vodafone Building Halsey St between 6 and 6:30.

Secondly: I got an email from Adam at Bike 75 saying he landed his order of white Randy’s!! The history of this white run of Randonnuers is quite cool; they did a limited single run for Japan and a store in LA got hold of some. They sold out immediately and they are not making any more. Adam used to be the Vittoria rep and worked his contacts and grabbed 40 tyres ready for you to skid through to your hearts content. Bike 75 is where Biciclette used to be at 76 Sales Street behind Victoria Park. Get in and swoop some while you can! Or call Adam and ask him to put one aside for you: 09 966 0494 or email him: adam@bike75.co.nz

Adam has a rad track bike commuter rig, it’s a custom ordered Landshark from the US. Campy record and Chris King sealing the deal on a nice build: