Upper Harbour Shore Loop Ride

 

Upper Harbour Drive on the North Shore is called that for a reason. It’s a very high part of Auckland. You can see both sides of the harbour – to Greenhithe and North and back to the city on the other side of the road. I had a catch-up-with-a-brother ride with Justin on Sunday. We hooked up with Jeff and Callum and decided to hop on the Ferry downtown. Callum aka Calashnikov was already in Devonport. The climb out of Devo from sea level is pretty drwan out and not too bad. Cal got a flat in Takapuna and we rode slowly to Hedgehog Bikes to get him an new Ultrasport and tube. then we climbed up Wairau road and I got a glass puncture in my front wheel. being a Sunday mornning there was shitloads of glass on the roads near the curbs from the Saturday night booze hounds throwing bottles out car windows, lame. I fixed it quick and we climbed on through up to Greenhithe and along the flat on Upper Harbour. the views were stunning – it was a bluebird day with a chilly SW wind which was good. We rode down the new Greenhithe bridge cycle path that was smooth and lightning quick – that was the funnest part of the ride, Justin hammered down there. The climb through to the highest point before Westgate at the end of the Westen motorway was brutal to be honest, my legs were feeling it. We had a sandwich at Westgate and then through Massey and down into Henderson and along the cycle path on the side of the motorway back through to the city. Around 50km all up and my legs are a little tight still.

But It’s looking great weather for TFT tonight. Sounds like a few new people are coming along. So if you are keen – between 6 and 6:30 at Vodafone. Should be a fun ride!

 

Have to say it was one of the hardest 50km’s I’ve ridden, but by far one of the funnest.

AKFixed Alleycat

Last nights race was fantastic! It started at Alex’s place on Beach road and made it’s way through the city with 5 checkpoints. There were over 30 people racing, it was really cool hanging with a crew that size. Negotiating the pack on the roads was interesting at times. The route went from the corner of beach road to the stall outside Vector Arena – this was a clusterfuck is was hilarious> Everyone got there at the same time and started clambering over each other to get a flyer out of the envelope. Next stop Vodafone Plaza on Halsey Street. This was a great sprint and the pack broke up alot. I almost T-boned another rider coming out of the plaza, quite alot of near collisions of riders on corners happened, infact Teva rode into Shaun and his Vivalo. next stop Fort Lane Angus Steak house, then up Queen St to Aotea square where Alex’s wife Corallee was waiting with the next flyer. On to the old Art Gallery and down back through Shortland back to the start point. Everyone was seriously buzzing when they got back. I’m not 100% sure what happened on the placings but apparently Tim White of T-Whites Bikes came back first on a fixie cruiser. Tim put up a bunch of prizes from T-Whites bikes as did Jeff from Vans which was such a good thing for the race. Danger came a close second but officially won due to being brakeless. He was a bit scratched up but was running a 53 / 15 gear – which is like a 96 inch rollout – GNARLY! Genna the female courier world champion came in next – so cool. Then the pack came through in lumps. Thanks to Alex and Corallee for putting on an excellent race!

Christchurch Alleycat

I’m about to race off down to Beach Road for the AKFixed alleycat but Simon just sent me a link to some shots from last nights alleycat they held in Christchurch. It looked really good, I’ll update this with a story from Simon on Monday and a full run down on tonights race downtown. It’s set to be a fine weekend with much riding – pretty excited…. oh and I got my Leader frame back from the painters. So I’ll take some shots. These shots are taken by Paul Petch of Tim Kelleher & Matt Wilson’s 1hour domination, and the rest are up on this flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/timkelleher/sets/72157607496066889/

Hope I see you out there riding tonight and on the weekend! Have a good and safe one!

FIXPATRIX Site Running

Darren from Fixpatrix in Singapore has launched a dope new website, celebrating all things fixed and in the process paying Steady Rollin some pretty awesome props! I think we need to organise a Fixpatrix / Steady Rollin filming trip in Auckland and Singapore.

http://www.fixpatrix.com/

Check out his latest clip:

AK Fixed Alleycat Race Friday

Alex is putting together an alleycat:

The first AKFixed alleycat is all set to go for Friday 26 Sept. Would be rad to see you guys all there. It’s deliberately super easy so all can be involved.

It’s all go for next Friday (26 Sept).

Since we decided to do this I spent some time and made up some bits of paper you need to collect at each checkpoint. I’m pretty much all prepared!

There are 5 checkpoints in total – all in the CBD. The next checkpoint will be revealed as you get to the one before it. So no-one will know the course prior (although, you will all know the locations well).The ride measures in at ~7km. It basically took me 20 minutes to ride cruising pace at lunchtime today. It will be perfect for those who want to charge hard. But I’ve designed it in such a way that it will also be perfect for people just to take it easier too if they so desire (you can just think of it as a treasure hunt for grown-ups ).

It would be rad if heaps of us took part (I did make 28 copies of the slips you get at each checkpoint!) Gather at my carpark about 630pm after critical mass (160 Beach Road, behind Mag and Turbo). I will hook up a chilly bin or my fridge for drinks and stuff.

We’ll kick off the race when you’re feelin’ it….730ish I reckon.

Hang outs, movies, trickery and whatever in the carpark afterwards.

Around Town

The ride last night went well. We did the loop with the usual suspects and then some. When we got to Aotea Square Teva took the camera and went taking mugshots of everyone and counted 22. Which is awesome. I don’t have the time to throw all of them up today but here are some shots. By the way the sculpture is now gone and just a patch of shitty asphalt remains. Good spot for a game of footdown though. Justin is finally back with us! Alex has an alleycat race planned Friday night, I’ll post the details tomorrow. When we were leaving Aotea Square Jeff called for a ride uptown and down through Grafton and Newmarket to the Rosegarden Road and back to Vodafone. lets make that the plan for next weeks Tank farm Tuesday ride.

Grid-City Chapter

Simon sent in some shots from his group ride in Christchurch last week. Simon, Anton, Matt and Tim went out for a spin.

Some words from Si:

eh bro here are a few shots from the sony form lastnight, the rain was out, and most of the guys were out of town or out of touch but shit the 4 of us had a good time. Kick off was a chilled ale form the bike thief then the square was on the list – grubby up the shiny tiles, off to thrash through town and then to what is quickly becoming our local: Harvey Normans upstairs car park for some undercover tom foolery. After much randomness and skids we hit the skatepark for a laugh: surprised we all stayed upright as it was super slick. Then to checkout the polytec to see if there was anything interesting to play on before racing through the streets looking for sneaky alleyways in anticipation of dodgy backdoor shortcuts for the Alley cat next week. A bit of indecision lead us to a banquette at the Excelsior sports bar consisting of jugs and a Fisherman’s basket…. about as good as it sounds, but the service was impeccable.

Auckland Harbour Bridge and Shoreside

I got a barrage of text messages on Sunday morning at 11 saying that there was a cycle over Auckland Harbour Bridge at 2pm. I thought; WTF, that is awesome, but how is it possible? I have spent 4 months of this year campaigning and working to get a legal 2 hour closure of 2 lanes of the bridge in December for a cycle leg of a multisport race. And I got shut down by Transit even on reapplication and with some serious funding available for resource consent. So I got word that Jeff and Danger were already on the ferry over to Devonport so my girlfriend Kate was going to drop me off with Callum on the shore. I got a text from Jeff saying they are at Onewa road, and they just missed the pack by a minute. Right then a cop car comes speeding past on Jervois Rd towards the bridge. I get another text from Jeff saying that it turns out 40 or 50 cyclists in a pack got on the motorway at Onewa on-ramp for an illegal protest ride and caned it over the bridge. 40 made it and a few got detailed but released, sounds like an Olympian or 2 were in there protesting the lack of support by Transit and the Council to add a cycle lane to the bridge. Good on them! Pretty glad that we didn’t tag on and slog up the bridge at snails pace on track bikes only to be arrested at the top! Check out the Herald article:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10533446

So instead we went for a ride through Northcote and Milford, up through Takapuna and on to Devonport where we got the Ferry back and rode around Tank Farm and Westhaven. We ran into Teva who was getting goodie bags from the open days from fashion week. And I got my second puncture in 2 days and called it quits. Riding this summer is going to be amazing!

UNITEC Saturday

We seem to be gravitating back to the old hood at Unitec. Had a pretty mellow ride on Saturday with Jeff, Mike, and Danger. I got a flat in my tubular on my Spinergy so had to trek home and grab another bike.

Silver Flakes and Blue Pearls

My Leader build is moving along behind the scenes. I’m STOKED. All my parts have arrived and everything is scattered around in different places getting laced, sprayed, converted and constructed. The only thing I am waiting on is the paintjob on the Leader frameset. I’m getting it sprayed at Auto Colour Matrix on the Shore who do alot of hotrods. I have gone for a gun metal grey / graphite colour with a pretty big metal flake and blue pearl put in the clearcote over the top. The frame is going to take another week to finish – it needs 7 coats of clear ontop and has to harden.

But I wanted to throw up a couple of shots today – First I had them paint my Deep V rim the same as the frame and also throw the clearcote and flake over my carbon Trispoke wheel. I needed to get the rim laced to a Level hub, and a Surly Fixxer replaced through the axle on the Trispoke so I can run it on the back to make a super rigid back end so it’s locks the fuck up and is really responsive. I can’t wait to ride this thing!

Chris at Hedgehog in Onehunga is the master wheelbuilder of doom. He went to the US and did a full wheelbuilding course early this year. It’s on Onehunga Mall just by the roundabout if you need artfully built rocksolid wheels go talk to him. Noah Picked up his Masi today, he is stoked. Looks like his entry to fixiedom will be Tuesday for TFT.

The weather is due to get better and be bluebird for the weekend can’t wait to get out there and ride in the sunshine. If you haven’t seen it already – check out the new MASH trailer on the revamped website:

http://www.mashsf.com/

If that clip doesn’t make you want to get out now and ride as fast as you can, nothing will. How awesome is the Lance Armstrong cameo too?