Category Archives: Uncategorised

MWG suggested Star Enamellers for painting frames ages ago. I called them in regards to the Reign but they spray, not powdercoat and I believe mountain bikes need a stronger finish that powdercoating gives. Since then I’ve had frames powdercoated on the cheap by Mr. Clean, and on the not so cheap by Grip Sports but the Paino is a roadie and doesn’t need to be powder coated, she’s getting the Royal Treatment (as Matt puts it).

The guys at MCC helped me take off the headset and bottom bracket (I didn’t have the tools). Grant at MCC also said that I had no say in the matter at all, and that powdercoating it would be sacrilegious! He said I had to take it to Peter of Star Enamellers if I wanted to do it right (Grant has his own paint guy but still suggested Peter from Star Enamellers do the job).

I drove out to see Peter in Blacktown and was greeted by perhaps the nicest guy I’ve ever met. He instantly recognised the Paino, and said he knew Frank Paino but hadn’t seen or heard of him in a long time. He also commented on how Frank Paino made amazing frames but the best bit of news after a bit of an inspection was that Peter thinks he was the guy who painted this very frame back in the 80’s as he did a lot of work for Frank Paino back then!

I couldn’t be happier, the frame is in great hands. It won’t be cheap, or quick but I’m happy to pay and wait.

Yesterday Zi and I hit Loftus and did a bit of discovering instead of doing the same old route. We got lost, we found a couple of dead ends, it was heaps of fun.

Zi’s sporting a new bling polished Thomson stem.

Me – what a view.

I also dropped in to see Grant and the boys at MC Cyclery. As of now I’ll be running their new web site (which was designed by my mate/fellow INfront member Damien Aistrope who did a cracking job on it!). I’m already filling it up with content, she’ll be live in the next few days!

MCC has this nice wall at the rear of their shop and it’s probably the wall we’re going to use for all the bike photos for the site. MCC are giving this Surly fixie away at the Sydney Bicycle Film Festival.

And in other news: SUGA has officially been reincarnated! The plates have come off the MX-5 and are now on the R32.

Zoom zoom?

I got a white bottle cage for the Paino, the white-out continues.

Off topic: I saw Jess (Chirstina’s little sister) doing her homework and the sight of it made me feel sick in the tummy. WTF is all this complicated for complications sake shit good for? I never did math in high school. I failed every single exam, never learnt my times tables and I completely ditched it in year 12 (I didn’t even do maths in space, or maths in the beer garden).

Peppa’s legs. The most artistic shot I’ve taken all year lol.

The feel of steel makes it real – Ex-frame builder Dave Moulton (who has made bikes that have been ridden in the Tour de France, Olympics and World Champs) wrote this little insight in 2006. “He told you so”.

Sadly Dave’s stopped blogging (after an amazing 3 years/286 posts). You can check out his amazing site here.

Christina asked if I wanted to adopt Chewy, who keeps her company at work. Of-course I said yes! He now keeps me company whilst I’m on the PC. I think he loves me too, maybe he’s bi?

PS: I slept early last night and I’m feeling fine today!

The gong ride was great. It was definitely a different experience to how I remembered it in 1990 and 1991, there were so many more people (11,000), so much so that we couldn’t even ride for a while, and had to walk the first kilometre before finding some space to actually get rolling. The officials stopped us (for great lengths of time too) so many times, in the end it really was a cruise more than anything else.

We started as a group. Richie, Jing, Felix and Eric and I rode together and there was hardly any pedalling at all for the first 30km’s (coasting and stopping!). We stopped off at Loftus to take a pee break (thank God we managed to skip the lines to piss on trees) and then headed for the crazy downhill twisties through the national park. My brakes were on as hard as I could grab them at times, the bike’s fantastic but the brakes are so poor I just had to do a brake burner all the way down. I stuck to my game plan though, which was to take it easy on the downhills and absolutely hammer on the uphills, and that I did.

On the 1st big hill I got out of the saddle and just attacked it and never looked back. I must have overtaken over 100 people through the national park and I didn’t let up until I got the finish line (I only counted 7 people overtaking me in the last 35km’s). Going solo was super fun and I got to have the best of both worlds (riding in a group for the 1st half and alone for the 2nd half).

I finished the ride in 4hrs 8minutes with an average speed of 20kms/hr. All in all it was a great ride despite not being able to pass most of the time (apart from the uphills) and to top it all off Richie and I were picked up by the girls at the finish line, that was an absolute life saver! Onto the pics:

6AM rise and shine. Bowl of cereal, coffee and a bananna and I was off.

Richie managed to borrow this lovely old steelie off a mate. Reynolds tubing and old school dura ace gear on it too.

Start line.

Guy doing it on a BMX. I even saw a guy on a unicycle!

Was so packed that it took a while to actually find some space to get rolling! (photo by Jing).

Richie, Eric and Jing at Loftus.

The paino did so well. It’s so damn fast going up hills. I got used to, and now love the friction gear shifting, the saddle/bars set-up was perfect and I only felt a bit of tightness in my shoulders and neck but not on my hands. The brake levers being so far away from my bars are complete rubbish and I’m very tempted to do something about them as they’re the only thing that let me down.

Spectacular views at the end-ish. (photo by Jing).

Me – Jing – Beers – Finish (thanks Andy and Miki for the beers and food! MUCH appreciated!).

Some amazing cars turned up to the JDMST EOMM as usual. I always feel good coming home from one of our meets, getting people who share a common interest is always a good thing.

Amazing carbon fibre blended into grey paint on this S15.

Chesta’s amazing FD.

Clean Supra’s are hard to come by these days.

RX7 – timeless shape.

Puddy in my hoodie :)

I have a little sticky note on my desktop where I paste in funny MSN conversations which literally make me laugh out loud. Here’s a few recent ones:

matthew willis says:
we would love a girl to balance things out but not going to take the chance of having another boy. shit man – 3 boys… that would be nuts!
justin says:
many little nuts
matthew willis says:
haljdljaljfkla

Christina says:
what was on oprah
justin says:
Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts new film
justin says:
They were both on the couch sucking Oprahs cock

Jing says:
59kg for me depending if i crapped
justin says:
1kg crap?
justin says:
You must be full of shit
Jing says:
HAHAHHA

www.matthewmead.net says:
just went for a bike ride
justin says:
And theeeeeeeeennnnn?
www.matthewmead.net says:
lol
www.matthewmead.net says:
haha

Day after Zi’s 1st ever mountain bike ride:
z10@JDMyard says:
legs are ok ass is fucked..

Time’s running out to get the setup right for the Gong ride this weekend but I think I’m pretty much there.

I was feeling a bit of numbness and pain in my hands from holding onto the brake hooks, and this was only after 10km’s! So here are some changes made on today’s ride:

Green – Saddle is now 1cm lower and also level to stop me from sliding forward and putting more weight onto the bars.

Blue – Bars are tilted up some more which in turn brings the brake hooks closer to me (I am less stretched out). MWG suggested to point the end towards the rear axle as a general rule of thumb.

Red – As a result from the changes, the brake levers are too far away for me when I use the drop bar position. Not sure if there’s any reach adjustment at all on these Suntour Superbe Pro levers.

ʎɹɐɯ ǝuo uo

on one mary

Whilst I’ve been busy on my ‘white out’ Paino project it hadn’t occured to me that I was building a bike that resembles a “Ghost Bike”.

Ghost Bikes are small and somber memorials for bicyclists who are killed or hit on the street. A bicycle is painted all white and locked to a street sign near the crash site, accompanied by a small plaque. They serve as reminders of the tragedy that took place on an otherwise anonymous street corner, and as quiet statements in support of cyclists’ right to safe travel.

Click here for some images.