It’s Justin’s wife’s (Kirstin) birthday so we are heading up to Omaha to the beach for the weekend. There has been a couple of beach houses booked for a while, and a whole bunch of friends are getting together. Unfortunately there is a cyclone coming through tomorrow so it’s dice and card games I think. Jeff and I are heading up after work. check Jeff flipping the bird in the photo.
This is a clip I hadn’t embedded yet of Mike Lawrence down by the viaduct- Have a great weekend!
While Simon is in Christchurch welding together Columbus frames like the artisan he is, we are up in the lab in Auckland planning some fun during the Easter week for you. Expect some fun riding events, races, art shows and possibly some special guests to be announced soon.
Also – just a heads up – the week will end with an alleycat race on Sunday April 12- Easter Sunday! So if you are in to race get training and I’ll keep you updated.
I hooked up some more henry james lugs from on old local frame builder on Sunday and started cleaning them out and scribing the Columbus SLX tubes for the miters, got a few things that are going to put me in the deep end on this build but with a little help on some details it should turn out real bad ass, Jon from Jonny Cycles has passed on some knowledge and plans for some pieces to the project and I’m getting these bits made up by Chris and turned out by Adam.
Where it all starts… a plan and some metal.
I should have Deflux number 1 on the road in about a week in raw finish till I find some 4130 cromo tubing to make icing for the cake before I can take it to paint – Can’t wait to burn tires on it!
Will keep you’ll posted on this build process incase anyone is interested.
….where else can you stumble across an old bearly used ’60s outdoor banked ROLLERDROME?
Anton got wind of the ledgend of an old outdoor rollerskating rink that was in the outskirts of crimeschurch, apparently it was used for the world champs of speed skating some 40+ years ago and had banked corners…. to Chris and I it sounded like a bad ass sprint track waiting to be ridden, so on Sunday thats what we did.
A little bit of research and searching on google earth the STEADYROLLERDROME was located, Anton had dad like things to take care of so Chris and I hustled out not quite knowing what to expect. I was half expecting a small circle track potholed to shit, all tagged up sort of peewee land with cattle running around rusting slides and abandoned junglejims, I couldn have been more wrong! We rode right past the grandstanding entry which was slightly shrowded by over grown trees, we double backed and stopped for a snap of the camera thinking it would be worth shooting this thing even as a joke about the 60’s rollerskating graveyard, and the sign was kinda cool.
We still couldn’t see the track, there was this long gravel kinda driveway we walked down then rounded a corner and saw some rusty corrogated iron fence but the closer we got we could see through an old hammered chain fence this sweet concrete MINIDROME with banked corners, and just long enough straights, and a good sized pad in the middle all in smooth well maintained condition – JACKPOT!
After a quick walk around to see if we could politely enter or find someone ask what the deal was we decided to find our way in to do some track testing. Wow what a cool spot, just short enough to hammer out a good number of laps at pace and the corners were just sketchy enough to make you consider the pace at entry and exit, the berms were bumpy but that was what made it even more fun, you could get a good stride down the straights laying the pedal down out of one of the corners high on the bank felt like it would not let you make a mistake as it dropped rather fast but I love it and will be going back for more.
There is talk of organising a monthly or something, want to talk to the roller people who run the place still so they can open the club rooms up and get the bar going for an evening.
Christchurch rules, little hidden gems like this and the bar we went to after for a cold Carona make me love this city to death!
This is Scott Kara who writes for the NZ Herald newspaper. We took him out for a spin last night and he was skidding by the end of the ride. An ex-trackie he picked it up quickly. We might have another edition to TFT rides soon!
Mike doesn’t fall off much. Rare photo.
Pretty bumper turnout for TFT last night- it was nice and fast. Got a bit fractioned up because we passed Teva and didn’t realise he had a flatty. So we did a quick circuit up Hobson to Mayoral and down Queen. We looped past the train station and Vector Arena where nine inch Nails were playing. Certainly were a few goth / dungeons and dragons characters walking around, I think I saw Dumbledore from Harry Potter movies. Check out Ken’s double light setup, we thought it looked like Johnny Five from that (pre Pixar) movie Short Circuit.
This is Woods from China (kneeling centre shot). He came up to is at the end of our ride yesterday and introduced himdelf. He’s down with the HK Fixed guys. Super nice guy – over here or his sisters wedding.
This trick is now called the mountain goat.
Hey all. I just got back from my missions down south. What a ride that was. Just saw Miles Daisher off at the airport. I’ll post some shots from the wilderness human-flying-squirrel jump fest on my Qubic blog on Monday. Pretty stoked to be back and be able to ride a bike again. It’s the weekend and if we have some luck it will be good riding weather and I’m keen to do a bit of a stretch. Lots to fill you in on> especially a week of riding and events in April- will keep you updated.
Todd Erickson recently went back to Salt Lake City. He had been riding with us over here for ages and was a familiar and fun face on the scene. We really liked hanging out and riding with Todd. He went back to spend some quality time with his family and is already riding up a storm back home. Here is a flyer for the Salt City Sprints he sent in check his exertion! :
On a side note and rant- I went to the doctor to check out a neck issue I have, I have been getting a gnarly headache for a few weeks. He referred me to an osteo but I was traveling and only got to see one in Queenstown yesterday. Looks like a bunch of falls off my bike on my left side in the last few months had a transference up into my neck. I always fall on my left knee or hip – guess it’s because my right is my drive leg and the left takes the grief from being at the top of the cadence. Anyway the osteopath was a MTB lady who was telling me about riding position. And it turns out that riding my KHS Aero track with the Nitto Jaguar stem was not such a good idea for my neck. Riding a steep geo pursuit frame with a deep angle quill stem meant I was constantly riding like I was looking up at 60%. I rode that thing lovingly for years. Now I have my Leader with mellow angles I’m loving it.I also fell off my skateboard when I was a bit boozed and jared my hip. ANYWAY: I”m going to change out that Jaguar stem with a flat Pearl on the KHS. Danger – if you read this – make your street bike less of a spine destroyer- I know you are young, but that shit is intense: get some riser bars or stop buying 51 frames and putting drops on them.
And Todd- we miss you. I hope all is fair with the family Erickson.
I’m off back down south to work on some more aerial shenanigans. Here is a shot from last week in Fiordland:
I rode my KHS on the weekend scared the shit out of myself! I bombed College hill and realised how low it is on the front of that bike with the Nitto Jaguar on it. I’m used to my Leader now and I can’t believe I could throw that red terror KHS around like I used to.
Al in Melbourne has got his rig together:
Sick build Al. I’ll be back up in Auckland on Friday. Missed 2 TFT’s – looking forward to getting back amongst it.
I’ve been down the line all week in Queenstown preparing for a wingsuiting project I’m doing down there. (I’m directing – not jumping) Flying squirrel suits and BASE jumpers leaping like lemmings off isolated cliffs in the Southern Alps- fun stuff! But not alot of track biking. I’m back down there on Monday but up for the weekend so planning to do some riding. Mike and Justin are heading off to Taupo to a BMX jam, so hopefully Jeff and Frank are up for some riding.
Simon Courtney from Deflux has secretly been whittling and welding away on being a frame builder. He did a pretty comprehensive study and course on frame building and welding. Some sneaky sneak previews of the steel joy coming out of Christchurch? OK then:
So Rad! You thought Vanilla and Hufnagel were sought after frames?? Shit – you’d better get in line for one of these puppies! the waiting list will fill out for years on these works of art!
STEADY ROLLIN 
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