Monthly Archives: November 2008

Council has almost approved the plans to rennovate the house (it’s only taken them a good part of the year) and so Mum and I went to order tiles for the 2 new bathrooms, as well as paving for the paths outside the house.

We dropped in to see a friend of Mums Michael at Stoneworld, all the way out at Girraween. Their warehouse is ridiculously massive (I dream of owning one of those hangers to store collector cars in!).

Choosing tiles was super hard. Initially I felt like giving up before even trying but with a bit of persistance I managed to find stuff I was happy with.

The showers will not have glass boxes around them, instead they will be open walk in showers with mosaic feature walls.

I tried to avoid all the creams. Grey floor tiles and white wall tiles are a little cold but these little mosaic tiles add that tiny bit of warmth I was looking for. Chrome fittings, towel rails, charcoal basin drawers and doors, wooden bench, red towels. It’s all in my head.

Inspired by watching Road to Roubaix I’ve ended up deciding to pave the outside paths in cobble stone!

Didn’t get to ride today due to crappy weather, so instead Zi and went for a bowl of Ramen at Ichi-ban Boshi (Tan tan men FTW!), we dropped in to a small cake cafe called 85 Degrees Coffee in Kingsford on the way home. A few months ago Charles and Zi had a hankering for this shit after an exxy meal at Prime. We walked all the way from Prime to Chinatown for it. No seats, just a tiny shop selling cakes and Coffee served at an apparently perfect 85 degree tempterature. I’d seen crowds of people in front of this new shop in Kingsford on my way through for the past week and now I know why.

People were stopping to see what other people were looking at (the cake display) and then reading the signs people were reading out loud “85% off!”. Zi lined up and ordered away, even saying to the lady “and um, one more surprise cake, choose whatever!” thinking hey at 85% off that’s only cost me $4 all up, to his shock then it was $15 all up and when asked what about the 85% off discount she said “85% OF”! Now that’s great marketing lol!

Cakes in the window facing the street.

Rumour has it the cake’s are imported (is that a good thing?!).

I smell chain store explosion. Like any other trend food store (Easyway anyone?) it’ll explode, then most likely dissapear just as fast. OK I’m off to have 85% of my Chocolate Valentine slice… it better be good.

Jazz get’s a 20,000km service. Deddy’s the man at Top One and he’s looked after my daily drivers for a while now. He’s fast, very thorough and just an excellent guy.

Top One.

Deddy using an air compressor to dry off the Jazz’s engine bay after a degrease and wash.

Advan RS rims = yum.

Flush Aerocatch bonnet pins on Eddy’s Jazz.

Stack dash unit + cage in Eddy’s Jazz (hardcore much?!).

I scored this amazing NOS (new old stock) set of Dia-Compe Aero Gran Compe brake levers off eBay for my whiteout Paino road bike for $50. What a steal! They even come with plastic cable guides (which go under your bar tape) which will allow the brake cable outters under the bar tape to move (ie: smoother braking). I couldn’t resist buying a pair of matching old skool Adidas Samba’s too, only to be worn when riding the Paino of-course!

Bye bye Talon.

We sold Christina’s Giant Talon on eBay this weekend. It went for $1025 which is great and it’ll help to fund her road bike (which is on order and will be here in Feb 09), and potentially also this bike. :)

Suga and I were invited to our next door neighbors party (3 birthdays under the one roof). I’m not usually a fan of dress up parties but this one was literally next door so Suga and I went to town with it!

We dropped into the Costume Shop on Cleveland Street (check the speed racer helmet!).

Pretty funny.

This is next door’s back yard from our lounge room.

All dressed up and ready to go lol.

This is a shot of our wild jungle of a yard from next door’s party. So strange to see our house from this perspective. I couldn’t stop staring at my own place for a while. Great people (some who haved lived on this street for over 20 years), great conversations, never ending champagne, great party!

It was raining Saturday morning, huge shame as the Deus Ex Machina bicycle swap meet was on. They started at 7AM, super early for a weekend but I love the spirit of it, getting in there before everybody else to pick up the best stuff is what great markets are all about. Shame then that Suga and I got there at 10.30 (lol), but even so we spotted some beautiful metallic blue alloy mudguards on the ground at one of the stalls, and upon closer inspection we just had to have them. The stall owner said they’re from the 70’s and let us have the set for a mere $20. They’re so pretty we’re going to build a ladies bike around them!

Obligatory name dropping: I ran into Tom who runs Hell on Wheels (be sure to check out the store, it’s killer) and Carby who runs Deus (I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before but I used to work along side Carby when I was a design junior, he’s just one of those guys that has “it” and has only gone from strength to strength).

Rained out, and we were late, but it was still such a cool place to be. I can confirm that there will be more future bike swap meets in 09!

Stalls were free. I have to admit I was tempted to set up and sell/swap the shitload of gear I’ve got lying around.

See those shiny blue things?

They’re mine!!!

Lovely aren’t they?

Can’t go wrong with baby blue + white.

Fang it!

God Speed.

So many nice bikes in such a small space.

Surfboard carrier (so cool).

For sale in Broadway.

Crumpler shopfront.

Suga and I dropped into the ZanziBar for a drink before heading across the road to the Bank Hotel for Thai. Both venues were haunts of mine in the early to mid 90’s but back then they were the seediest, grungiest rock’n’roll punk venues around. How things have changed! (PS: the Thai food was awesome despite being 3 times the price).

Valet bike parking!

What a sight.

Newtown RPRSNT!

Win a Surly!

Grant from MC Cyclery on the mic.

The Sydney Bicycle Film Festival started last week. Christina and I checked out the opening session on Friday night with a mate Ben who I hadn’t caught up with in 9 months (he’s a running and cycling nutter!). Grant from MC Cyclery was sponsoring the first session, and giving away a Surly bicycle to one lucky punter.

There were 3 films: Standing start was an arty (tried a bit too hard I thought) short film on Olympian and World Champion Track Sprinter Craig MacLean. Millar’s Tale was a short film on a Tour de France cyclist’s confession (and thoughts) on doping and the feature film was Road to Roubaix which was great (if a little long).

What was cooler was just being there, in Newtown and seeing how many people that live there ride bicycles as transport. BMX riders, fixies, commuters on junk bikes… ALL of them taking ownership of the road in peak hour traffic. The valet bicycle parking outside the Dendy was a nice touch too :)

I was a little hurt to find out the other day that my dream bike, the Yeti 575 (worth about $7500 with the pro-spec build) was made in Taiwan.

I know that 90% (if not more) of the world’s bicycles are made in Asia. Giant are the world’s largest bicycle manufacturer and their mega factories in Taiwan and China produces bikes for Specialized, Avanti, Trek, Scott USA and Iron Horse. I also found out after reading this article, that Italian dream road bike brands such as Colnago and Bianchi also make some of their frames in Asia.

I suppose when you’re paying a premium (in this case, the most you could possibly ever want to pay for a bicycle) you’d want to excpect the very best, with absolutely no compromise, but I consider that making something in Asia because it’s cheaper to make it there as a massive compromise, one which I find hard very hard to swallow.

I can’t be sure, but I doubt $20,000 Hermes handbags are made in Asia. If Hermes started making their goods in Asia, would they expect their brand to uphold their prices?

It’s all a bit shocking to me at the moment, shattered dreams and a hard hit of reality. Maybe I’ll end up making my own frames? (I need a new dream afterall).

Andy, Zi and I did loftus again this afternoon. The traffic was pretty shocking on the way there, must have been an accident somewhere. We started at about 6.30 I think, and it got dark just as we were finishing up. Great ride as always, we just push ourselves harder every single time we go out there which makes me super happy!

Zi pulling a face. We’re just getting silly now going up and down these rocks like they were gutters.

Eyes Wide Shut Andy was strong today.

Get in there! Andy’s poor Type R.

The Thule rack has been awesome but I’ve got to do something about my plates.

Home time always feels great after a good ride.