Foodage!

Back to Wagaya again! It's loud, and young... but I love the touch screen ordered system, food and beers.


We made a booking for Richie and the Japanese lady at the counter had troubles spelling his name :)


Breakfast Pizza at the Pool Cafe (my local).

Bikes Move Us

Our decals are in! Buy one for your bike and/or car today!!!

Strida!

I took delivery of my Strida last night and I've already started to tinker with it. All the pics are up here.

Get into it!

Not so much a huge revelation, but worth mentioning.

When I got into cycling again (in March last year) it was straight into tinkering with the bike I found under the house. Instead of simply riding it I stripped it apart and built it up from frame up to be a work of art. In the process I got really into bikes, and learnt a lot about how they work, as well as modern bike culture, terminology and trends.

Skills wise I pretty much picked up from where I left off as a 16/17/18 year old, and felt like I hadn't really lost any of my bike riding abilities, but one thing was really missing for the first few months, and that was the actual love of riding.

Sure. I was into doing up bicycles, buying and trying new bicycle parts, tooling with them and doing countless hours of research on the internet, as well as reading magazines and watching movies, all in relation to bicycles, but I actually did a whole lot more of this than actual riding.

I'm not sure exactly when things changed for me but all of the modifying and the researching has taken second seat now to my love of riding. If I don't ride I feel fat even though I'm far from fat. I feel bad when I don't ride and I'm always feeling "itchy to ride". When I'm riding I'm happy and sometimes I even feel naughty... it feels like a treat! (like dropping the clutch and doing a burnout, knowing that you're not meant to be doing them!).

Having said all that, there's nothing at all wrong with being into bicycles for whatever other reasons apart from just riding, it's normal. Any which way to get into it I say. But I hope this transformation happens over time to you guys and gals who are just simply starting out riding for fitness, or for the fun of something new.

Catchups

I caught up with 2 close uni (BA Design) friends last night. Kellie Bates and Simon McIntyre. We'd messaged each other on facebook a couple of weeks ago (hey facebook works!) and we hadn't caught up with each other in a long while so it was high time.


Trinity Bar in Surry Hills.

Kellie and Simon are both 34 and kidless so far (I find that almost unusual as most of the friends I've got my age have kids). To be honest, the fact that both of them haven't yet had kids made me feel less silly about my situation but having said that, both Simon and Kellie are married (not to each other!) and that's something I've yet to do (one day?!).

The catch-up was great.

Kellie's always been a full time worker bee but she's quit and she's starting her own business where she digitally paints portraits (nice!). Simon's lecturing at UNSW College of Fine Arts (the university we graduated from), but on our way home to the cars he mentioned money was a little tight at the moment. That usually means one thing. I sniffed out his passion: planes! Yes every proper guy out there is obsessed with "something", that something is usually what drains the wallet too. You can check out his insanely amazing plane obsession here.

RIDERS WANTED!

Just some imagery I've been working on for MC Cyclery.

Australia Day

Quite a few things fell on today's date. Australia day, Chinese New Years, My mothers B'day and it's the year of the cow too which is my mums Chinese horoscope sign.

As usual, a lot of eating and being lazy too. The day was grey, unusual as Australia Day's usually sunny. The tennis is on TV (beats being there live, been there, done that, didn't really like it).

Strangely I'm looking forward to getting stuck into work tomorrow!

Here's a few pics from the past few days:


Knog much? Rebel Sports were giving away these Knogs for $10 each. I assume people just didn't know what they were, so they failed to sell at all and so they decided to get rid of them. I pretty much bought the lot!


Black SLR saddle is on the Paino. Looks great huh?!


My sisters bike with new rack and bag which I got her for Christmas :)


Her new Kitten Jasper! He's a gorgeous Abysinian. His so tiny but his paws are massive.


Kung Hei!


Great beer this one. I'm a fan of crispy beers.


I cleaned up the Apollo I found on the side of the road and she's now on eBay.

Appin!

I had all intentions to rest up on my ankle which I hurt ages ago on the huck at Manly, but couldn't resist the BMU ride at Appin today so I went.

And what an awesome ride it was.

The sand on corners was so bad the 1st lap around, but better the 2nd time around. My ankle felt so good until the very end of the 1st lap, after a rest it was 100% again for the 2nd lap.

1st lap I had pro-pedal on, and I was bouncing around everywhere, so sketchy I had a hard time staying on the trail in parts. 2nd lap was a lot better with propedal off and a bit more air in my rear shock. Perfection! The thin and fast Kenda small block 8 on the rear was just perfect. I loved it and it never slipped even on the tech uphill stuff.

Tai and Cliffy pushed me to the limit for the 2nd half of the 2nd lap where we didn't stop at all. I was seriously spent by the end of that lap, felt so bad, but so good at the same time.

All in all, great ride! So glad I made it. All the pics and running commentary are up here.

Mmm salad?

Suga made this salad today, so good. I usually hate salads! I've been trying to eat better, for years now (lol). Still nowhere near "there" yet. At least it's on the forebrain?!


And Suga's Mum got me this cute bicycle frog bell from Hong Kong, how lovely :) It'll most likely end up on the pink thing!

Left for dead

Lovely ladies Apollo single speed and an aluminium framed Apollo with 700c wheels.


I see crap Huffy bikes on the road every week.


Peekaboo. Dead Repco roadie.

I picked up everything but the Huffy. The Repco ladies bike will come up nice me thinks!

AGNSW/Paino

Suga and I spent the day in the city today.


Hot slammed RS4 in the carpark.


Saw this cool warped car sculpture at the Art Gallery of NSW. Awesome!


Street piano outside of QVB.

Then the boys came around for bike night, worked on Eddie's bike, but Zi was so hungry that we decided to go to Wagaya instead. Wagaya's quickly becoming my fave Japanese food and beer haunt.


Clifton ordering.


Since young Cliffy got his P's and drove us all, we thought we'd drink up.


We found another street piano, part of the Sydney Festival.


Also, the ghost bike's almost finished! Spend a good part of last night putting it all back together. More pics here.

BMU Loftus ride

I designed the BMU T this morning, will go into print shortly. Limited run of 25, maybe 50 at most so if you want one best to register your interest here.

Also hit the rock pool for a swim today with my sweets, she's back from a trip to Hong Kong. Saw some really bright neon purple and yellow damsel fish, that's just awesome as we only saw one of them last year.

Also hit Loftus with the boys but I just didn't have the legs today. I was totally off. Still fun though as always and the gears on my bike are working a treat with the new XT cassette and XTR chain. We also had Sizzler afterwards for too much food and a few laughs.

More pics and commentary on the ride here.

Internet fame whore

It's one thing to gain recognition for being a designer, or a car nut, but getting recognition for being into riding bicycles is SO strange and not quite sitting well with me at all (I find it very funny).

I was just on Farkin (yes the forum I was banned on) and someone had brought up an old thread of mine on the 1997 Specialized single speed. I checked the views on that thread and 20,972 people had viewd it! I then clicked on the button which lists the threads on Farkin by order of how many views they've had and it turns out that my threads are some of the most viewed threads on Farkin history. The Ti project thread has had 30,955 views! That's scary as I've only been posting there since March last year.


My thread views on Farkin. Out of control. Click for a full sized view.

I've also realised that a lot of the hits come from other blogs. 2 blogs worth mentioning (they're haunts of mine) are Chirosangaku, a tumblr site which linked my Kuwahara the other day. That brought a smile to my face as I love what he posts on his site a lot. HKFixed have also plugged my road bike, that's amazing as they never plug road bikes with gears (they only plug fixed gears).

Then there's the really funny stuff. The stuff I hear over the phone, MSN or in real life. I was just finishing up a ride at Manly Dam and I saw a lady with a pink yeti. I'd seen it before at MCC and had a little chat with her and a guy next to us said G'day and said he worked at a bike shop and that I'd contacted him about a Bianchi (I was looking for one for Christina). I had no idea how he knew what I looked like considering I'd talked to him over the phone but then I realised he was wearing a farkin T-Shirt!

Then there's the call from Zi, laughing his ass off. He'd just finished a ride at Loftus where some young kids on the trail pulled him over and asked him if he was Justin Fox from farkin?! HAHAHAA.

Matt got me on MSN and said that when he was getting fitted up at Blackman Cycles for his Scott carbon road bike the shop keeper said he knew of me as well?! Kelvin also bought a bike from Glebe's Inner City Cycles and he said the guy in there knows of me as well.

And to top if off I get a mail from this dude Dittmar, He and his partner Ozlem wanted to interview me about bikes for an upcomming magazine they're working on.

It's all a bit funny, and a bit scary too. As if my head wasn't big enough as it is?!

Bikes Move Us ride day

Me on the pink thing.


w00t!


The BMU crew.


Both of Matt's kids were amazing, and getting big air!

Yesterday's Bikes Move Us Homebush Monster X day was a hoot. Rhys came over to my place earlier and we car pooled, great to meet new guys through the forum, he was great company.

I ended up taking the pink thing which was a lot of fun, not as fun as my Reign would have been as I'm more comfy on the Reign but fun nonetheless. I also took the Kuwahara Laserlite BMX along too. I only had 2 runs on that thing, it's so fast and twitchy I came off on the 2nd run and never touched it again!

Some of us headed straight to Loftus after the dirt jump session too, that was also a lot of fun.


James and Tai checking out the steep roll-in.


Rhys hucking the roll-in!


James doing the same. Rolling into it is one thing but these guys hucking it? That's all balls.

More great action pics of the Homebush Monster X ride day are up HERE, go check them out.

Yeti hardtail huck bike

After last nights bike night where Jing donated an XT rear mech and Clifton donated the brakes, the Yeti's done!


Full bike shot.

More pictures here.

Strida folding bike GROUP BUY!

I've just been speaking to the head poncho over at Strida Australia about these fun little folding bikes. They're $1000rrp but I've managed to score them at $500! The catch is I need 9 other people to buy one at $500 with me. So if you're keen please let me know! I've already got one guy down, so I need 8 more people!

More info on the bikes here. Colours here.

Yeti DJ update

She's coming together, the pink huck machine!

More on the update here.

Turning Japanese

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Hurricanes

Was chatting to Andy on MSN when he mentioned he was going to Hurricanes for dinner with his flatmate Miki and her sister from the states Yuki. I called him a "c*nt" as I was hungry and thinking of ribs made my mouth water, a few minutes later I get an SMS asking if I want to tag along, w00t! I then get an SMS saying he'll pick me up (sweet me thinks I can get pissed!). What a champ!


Andy.


Yuki and Miki.


Yuki's amazing tatts.


Ribs!


Mr Phee Cies who comes from the states, and is going to stay in Australia for a while.

The ribs weren't great (even with a few downed Peronis) but the company was. Conversation of the night included: Relationships, bikes (haha), relationships, Tattoos, relationships, personal history, relationships, gender related generalisations, relationships and Mr Phee Cies' travels. :)

BMU Manly Dam session

14 people strong! A ride was organised by Tony/justified on the Bikes Move Us forums and 14 people rocked up, that5's just awesome!

Some pics from today:


Nick's dead sexy Cannondale Prophet.


Jarod's bike, single speed? Hardcore! Especially considering that the gearing was a little heavy for the trail.


Andrew/JDMpulsar representing Specialized with his Hardrock.


I thought Jarod was hardcore until Rhy's rocked up (haha), damn Glory. What a man/tank/beast/thing. He got up EVERYTHING too.


Kevin (left) and Tony (right) did great considering they're both new to riding and it was their 1st time to the Dam too.


Timmy (left) and Clifton (right). Can't deny that the young kids have learn something from the oldies as both of them are sporting duallies now!


Zi and Dave rocked up late (it's becoming the norm now guys! Come on!) AND Zi had to change his tyres over too (I'm 'lending' him some Nevegals). Zi had another bad day on the bike, goes to show how a ready build bike (his old Giant Trance) was great in that it was all designed and set-up, ready to go but he's in a world of set-up nightmares on his new Santa Cruz and he's riding nowhere near as good as he was on his Trance. I had a little go at his bike at the end of the day and found the front fork way too sensitive to braking and too squishy too. I'm sure he'll get there.


THE CREW!!! 14 riders united.


Totally missed the shot, but this is Rhy's doing a steep roll to huck.

I was a bit paranoid pre-ride about my fitness level considering I'd been in Melbourne for a week doing nothing but eat and drink (even had 5 meals on one of the days!!!) but surprisingly I felt stronger than I've ever felt on the Dam. Maybe it was the excitement of riding in such a big group of people, or maybe it was just being back on the bike. One thing's for sure. I'm feeling it!!! My legs are hurting tonight. That's a good thing though, right?! :)

Melbourne Trip 2009

Got back from a week's holiday in Melbourne today, feeling very fat, lazy and content, a little stressed out about the work I've got to get cracking on next week too.

Melbourne was great, as usual, but I woke up to a few different things this time around. The weather was great, but the streets were just SO dirty. Every day Christina and I walked past a whole lot of piss and vomit on the streets (we were staying at the bottom end of Brunswick St. Fitzroy) and on one afternoon we even saw human shit splattered on the side of the road. That just about took the cake for us.

The food this time around wasn't great either but the great company, sights and shopping (Suga did well!) was more than enough.

One thing that stood out the most for me this time around was bicycles (of-course!). You might as well call Melbourne the City of Bicycles. There's just so many people, of all sorts, that ride as transport. A majority of them ride absolutely shit bikes, that's a lot like Amsterdam I suppose, lock it to a pole and forget it. I'd love to see more riders in Sydmey, if only Sydney was as flat as Melbourne, perhaps it could happen but as it is now with massive gradual/pinchy hills and insane/aggressive drivers I can't see it becoming something for everyone.


Strange soft toys, massive ones, on Brunswick.


Lovely sparrow painting in the window of art holes gallery on Brunswick.


Nice rides.


Grill'd burgers are yummy.


Interracial!


Bionic!


Call to action!


Melbourne's new station reminds me of the Thunderbirds.


Optical Illusion.


Like owner like dog at Melbourne's Docklands which is a hole (at the moment anyways).


Let there be rock. St. Kilda.


St. Kilda dog beach, such a nice day.


These guys were awesome. So amazing, and sad, to see them. In this picture they were doing something amazing, hard to describe but it was something else to see.


I see you baby! So many people walked straight past this little guy as they were looking for a fish they couldn't see.


Jelly.


Graff is out of control in the city.


Topical.


More graff.


Piece on Greville St.


Rosalie Gascoigne exhibit. So lucky to finally see her collection on show.


Part of my fave piece. I wish it was mine!


Protest at Fed. Square.


Juxtaposition - new vs. old.


Suga and I.


Catching up with my old buddy Dom.


Doms studio.


Some of Dom's toys.


The studio's bad dad jokes chart.


Dom got me into Pong. His studio is called "21.19" after a pong match score.


Knog store on Chapel St. had a selection of Swobo bikes from $800-2k. I was super tempted to buy one they were hot.


Suga's shopping frenzy.


Bit naf but I couldn't resist this DC chain shirt.


Keeping him alive.


Awesome baked eggs at Birdman Eating on Gertrude St.


Free bikes at Little Creatures on Brunswick St.


Blocked up church.


Advance Australia, love how they're facing outwards.


This was originally painted large on their front window. They got sick of people smashing the glass so now it's a sign outside.


Suga and I stayed at Quest in Fitzroy, close to the crazy zombies, hustle and bustle.


Belgian Beer Cafe.


Melbourne JDMST crew.


Smart street art.


Dom and I again.


Free.


I wish.


Funny old Mac vs. PC article.


Too cool for school.


More graff.


More graff.


Phibs on ACDC lane.


Postie bikes are not motorised!


Get your retro game on at Chapel St. Bazaar.


Helping hands.


Mike's shoes reminded me of caterpillars.


Zane's car is insane.


JType RPRSNT!


Hanging out with the JDMST Melb crew.

Loftus - hangover cure?

What better a way to cure a hangover than going for a ride? We planned the ride last night but knew that it wasn't going to be easy to get past the hang overs and general new years day laziness. I was feeling a bit foggy in the head earlier today but mid ride I developed a headache and by the time we got back to the carpark it was a thumper. Still a great ride though. Adam came along, a guy I've met at a JDMST meet previously and a member of BMU.


Adam and Clifton.


Crazy Dave and Joe.


Did this roll in today.


So did Clifton and Zi.


Clifton scored 2 flats, Adam scored 1. Nuts!

Vids are up!

Zi pedalkhana.


Zi pedalkhana.


Andy pedalkhana.


Felix.


Me trackstand comp.

NYE Polaroids

Christina and I.


Jade Janice and Christina.


Zi and Gloria.


Me and Indy.


Howie.


Gang.


Steve Gloria and Di.


wii!


Zi.

NYE!

We had a few people over for NYE this year, nothing as epic as the 50+ party 2 years ago, more a gathering for people who hadn't planned anything for NYE. Was awesome fun, great company, food and lots of fun and games.


Shots!


Felix and Di.


Howie hits the deck. Once everyone was too wasted to play ping pong we set up a pedalkhana in the lounge room. Lots of laughs!


Zi got the best time.


We also had a track stand comp. HAHA.


Felix.


Zi.


Graffiti wall room complete with old school hip hop tunes.


BMU!


The boys!


Flamin rotor.