Set 2 Rise

The second Set 2 Rise has just gone and it was just as good, or better than the first. There was even more fun winding singletrack and just one major climb starting on grass then a chalky section, on to loose gravel then the most painfull part on soft earth before a steep tarmac climb to the top. I'm glad i had some gears this time, i had a new Shimano Alfine hub gear which i tried for the first time with just the right amount of gears and being pretty light it was perfect, thanks Albert.

So Juliet and posy came and got a girls team together with two friends Sam and Poppy, unfortunately Sam hurt her shoulder before so was unable to ride but came and took some photos and to enjoy the atmousphere. They came first in the girls category although there was only one girls team, hopefully next time they will have some competition.

The morning of the race i rode across town to pick up my parents car then to my workshop to get my not quite half built bike then to get my kit then two more stops for the girls so we were already running a little late before hitting lots of traffic. We turned up about four hours later than we should have missing a photo shoot and still having to get my bike sorted so i messed up pretty bad, I'm sorry Nick.

Our team was Nick, Abi, Cunny and myself, we could have done better but we could have done worse. Sam as usual spanked everyone doing more laps by himself than our team combined. Another first well done!

The mens teams 1st and 2nd were battling head to head the whole time which was great to see and looked like they were having lots of fun. The Army came just behind Guys from Evans with Mule bar so well done to them both.

The weather was amazing, lets hope it is next year too.

Yo

It's been some time since i last updated my blog, looks like my new years resolution went out  the window.

I have been super busy moving home, a bunch of us had to pull our bedrooms apart, take our wood with us to re-build the rooms in our new place. I have also moved workshop at the same time so it's been pretty stressfull. Now finally got internet access back at home, a bed to sleep in and somewhere to work i should be able to get back on track.

Toms Random Christmas

I Know it's a bit late but check out my brothers Christmas card he made. The photo was taken during the alleycat, the day of Macaframa premiere and Fixed mag 2 launch.

Tom posted this on RandomBmx.com he also did a little Christmas write up where he posted a short video of the day out to Dagenham bmx track, It is mostly of the Woolwich ferry. Check it out on Random

New Scissor prototype frameset

As you may or may not know i have been working with Charge on developing a new frameset.
We started with the Plug and tweaked the geometry to make it more suitable for trick riding.

The front end is extended for more clearance and the headtube angle is steeper.
The seattube is shorter giving a slope on the toptube and more stand over clearance.
The forks are longer and have shorter rake to make bar spins easier, they also have lightweight tapered legs.
The frame also has Tange prestige butted top and down tubes so is quite a lot lighter weight than the steel plug.
There are still a couple of small final changes but it looks really good. It will have no break holes and the final colour is not yet determined, though i am quite liking the orange.

Check out Fixed Gear Londons Flickr for more pics.

I hope Tom Lamarche likes the frameset, he has one waiting for his arrival next week.

Chicksands

This weekend I mostly rode Chicksands.

I had not ridden there for so long and had heard about the 4x track which i had only seen in pictures, so i finally organized going. Juliet came, my brother Tom, Greg, his girlfriend and another friend so there was a good group of us.
Chicksands is the perfect place to give the Blender a good ride, i was so excited. There is dual slalom, 4x, a good selection of trails and a north shore freeride area with some short, fast downhill runs with some good jumps. There are also some cross country loops too so it's the most amazing place with so much all in the same place.
I tried to clear the tripple jump on the 4x track, the ground was a bit frozen so seemed a little sketchy, i didn't quite make it, hung up with the rear wheel and flat spotted the rim pretty badly.
My brother was riding the trails and getting through the big set, i was a bit hesitant because it had been over a year since i had ridden any trails so i went over the tabletops a few times to get the feel. The bike felt good but the jumps felt a bit strange, the other sets looked so good but judging the speed seemed a bit difficult.
I rode the middle set, got smoother pretty quickly and remembered how good it feels to flow through a set of doubles. Greg got a nice pic of my ass.

Greg also got a really nice shot of Tom doing a clicked turndown on the big set

So then some of the others wanted to go to the freeride area which i did too but it was hard pulling myself away from the trails. There was a nice drop then a decent size kicker straight after, the gap looked a bit big to clear but i went off the drop and got loads of speed to fly over it no problem.
I went back to do it again later on and landed smooth but the rear mech exploded, i think the loose spokes from flat spotting the wheel caught it and ripped it off.
We then went back to the 4x which was good because i could remove the chain and still flow down it clearing most of the jumps.
We then were pretty tired so headed home, It had been a really good day riding.

SUNDAY

I didn't have a spare mech for the Blender and had recently built up my old downhill bike so i thought i would give it a raz, we decided to go to Aston hill and ride some downhill.
I have an old Kona Stab from 1998 i think and some massive upside down forks made by Bombshell, it looks pretty cool.

When we arrived  the place was covered in snow, unfortunately the sun hadn't got to it so we did one run and decided to go over to Chicksands again.
Soon after arriving i noticed the damper had broken in my forks so there was oil everywhere and my forks donked going off every jump. Why do i keep breaking stuff?
The most fun i had was a fast windy downhill run with a couple of good jumps in it and some good berms. The finishing jump was pretty big so had to get a lot of speed to clear the gap, it felt amazing.
We were about to leave and decided to go back for a photo.
I did it once and went quite low which you can see from my camera phone Download MOV00614 .
I went back for another go and went higher a bit sideways, it felt so good and greg got a really good shot.

Greg got some other shot of the weekend which are on flickr.

I now can't wait to get back out on the Blender.

Dagenham BMX track

Juliet and i rode out to Dagenham to check out the BMX track. My brother showed me a photo of it and it looked amazing so we rode out on our Blenders to have a go. We got a bit lost on the way then rode a grass hip while waiting for my brother and friends.

Juliet took a clip of me doing a table on my phone

Download MOV00559 

My brother got a clip of it too and some more footage which will be up on youtube, here's a screenshot from a short clip.

It was quite a while later by the time we found the track, it was pretty cold and windy and we were already a bit knackered. The track was much bigger than it looked in photos and we found it very hard work. Trying to sprint round it really shows how fit you are or not.

The Blender felt amazing, it manuals just like a BMX.  hopefully I'll get in on a 4x track soon.

Sunday ride Epping forest

It's been a while since i rode any offroad and I've been missing it. So I thought i would get the Duster out, my Charge Duster single speed that is, yeah!

Greg and I got out around 8.00 this morning and took a nice route up the canal to Epping forest. We didn't get far before I started coughing and really feeling the effects of Christmas, nothing like the cold morning air in your lungs to clear you out.
After a bit of meandering we found our way from the canal into the forest, straight away we hit a good bit of mud, we slid around for a while then headed up some harder tracks to get deeper in. We met a guy with a broken freehub, he thought he was doomed, Greg told him to use a cable or cut some spokes to wire through the cassete to FIX it up to get home. I guess It's either that or scoot back, i know what i would rather.
After some fun on small windy tracks we stopped for a cup of tea and a piece of cake, lovely. We then headed off and found some downhill runs with jumps, very muddy jumps, most of which were un-rideable. I noticed a nice little transfer line over a log across into a landing slope. I took a run up, slid around a bit, sketched my way over the log and just made it into the landing to hit a pile of mud at the bottom, i rode away thinking, how did i not fall off. I went back to do it a few more times and Greg took a couple of shots.

 

We explored some more before looping back and We found some really fun windee downhill runs on the way  through then back on the canal to home for some food and a good clean up.

Photos from Greg Falskis flickr. Cheers Greg

Gonna head out with Juliet tomorrow and my bro to hit up Dagenham BMX track. Never been, I'm excited.

Frame building continued

So i finished building just in time for the painting, we got it powder coated matt black then masked it up with checks and logo,s then had a wet gloss black paint over the top.

We build it up with some trick parts. Charge forks and Profile hubs.

You can see more pics of the finished build on Fixed Gear London's flickr

  The bike then went in the window of the Vans store Carnaby st.

Our friend Thomas made a short video for Dont Panic which has Andy and myself saying a few words about the bike.

Frame building

I have been working as a bicycle mechanic for a long time in a few shops and always been interested in making parts and playing with metal!!
I learned to weld at a welder fabricator company where we made lift shafts and stair cases and I made a few bits and pieces for my bikes while i was there. I always thought about making a frame but not done it until more recently.

Earlier this year my younger brother Henry suggested doing a frame building course. I had never brazed and thought it would be useful to learn building a frame with the traditional lugged design.
So Henry managed to get us squeezed in on a week long course with master frame builder DAVE YATES.
We were very lucky to get a space, the courses are now booked up for two years.
I  learned so much and really enjoyed the course, it was amazing to see the jigs he used to help build. They were all hand built and simple but effective.
I listened to everything Dave had to say and took it all in because i wanted to build more later on. So i came away from the course having learned so much and had a frame to show for it too.
I build a lugged road bike with rack mounts and clearance for mudguards, i thought it would be a great all rounder which i could do some distances on with panniers and Henry built a track frame. I went for a bit of a funky paint job, i chose two shades of pink with a fade, Henry went for yellow with lug lining. Neither of us have put them on the road yet, hopefully soon.
Check out the paint job.

I took some pics on my phone while building you can see them here.

Dave was super cool and he gave me a book to help me with my lathe and a chuck for the tail stock, Thanks Dave.

THE VANS BIKE
Fixed Gear London got the opportunity to make a bike to tie in with the release of the Vans/Gabe Morford fixed shoe. I thought if we had this chance it was too big to miss and i would have to make it from scratch and design and build the frame. I had an old big frame with cool chromoly tubes that would be perfect so i cut them out to re-use on the frame. So i then i had to set to work on a jig.

I have a flat steel plate i found to use as a basis for a jig. I have used my lathe to turn down some fixtures for the jig too.
First a bar and collars to hold the bottom bracket shell 90 degrees to the plate, i then made parts to lock the collars at a desired distance from the plate using grub screws.
I then turned a bar and collars for holding the head tube. I rested the bar in v blocks which i could pack up parallel to the plate to a desired height. I worked on the front end of the frame with it horizontal at first to then later build up a fillet around the joints.
I was trying to take my time over each stage because it was my first time making a jig and my first fillet brazed frame building with no supervision and it seemed to be going well. Then i found out the deadline had been brought forward and only had just over a week to finish and i still had more of the jig to build. I quickly made the parts to hold the rear stays and fitted the dropouts into the chain stays.

 

Next i attached chain stays to bb shell then clamped all to the plate and put the whole thing vertically to fit in the seat stays
                                                                  Then after some cleaning i was ready to build up the fillits around the joints hoping that I could keep it all strait. It was pretty stressful because i had not fillit brazed a whole joint before and i didn't have much time. Also there were people buzzing round me the whole time watching and asking questions. It was the last day i had to finish it and i worked almost non stop for 18 hours to get it done. In the middle while i was sweating away filing a tv crew turned up and filmed for a while to make it that little more stressful.

Car park training

With Fixed Gear London we try to do a Friday night ride each week.
Last night was a bit cold and we had a bit less motivation than other times so we ended up at the bottom of a steaming hot underground car park.

We got kicked out before I landed a barspin hop to fakie which i tried to capture on my phone.
I also got something like a 540 tyretap which i hope to link into a line soon.

Download Failed barspin hop

Download 540

Next Friday?