24 Feb 2010

Well I’m happy to announce that after flogging our podgy arses off for a whole 10 minutes, we managed with the help of Ray from AE Smith’s constant yells of encouragement to win the AE Smith Green Cities Generator Race!

1st - Thylacine Cycles - 149.2 Whrs
2nd - Lend Lease - 141.6 Whrs
3rd - Actrol - 140.2 Whrs
4th - Umow Lai - Team A - 132.1 Whrs
5th - Fergson Plarre Bakehouses - 127.8 Whrs
6th - WPS Lincolne Scott - Team B - 126.5 Whrs
7th - WSP Lincolne Scott - Team A - 123.9 Whrs
8th - Hassel - Team A - 120.9 Whrs
9th - Greenfleet - 120.0 Whrs
10th - AE Smith Construction - 119.8 Whrs

It’s actually quite surprising for a non-pro cyclist like myself how hard riding for a measly 10 minutes can be, but as with anything I guess you can make riding for one minute hard if you stick yourself well into the red zone [literally - see my face] and try and stay there.

Yeah, it's all smiles now....

Stick it in a comfy gear and hold on!

Okay, this is starting to hurt.

Two minutes to go! GO HARD!!

Dan - Why on Earth did I sign up for this!?

Brett exiting the Hurt Box

Thanks for the Certificates, but can you just hold off on the photos until we can breathe ?

Our little mascot!

I want to thank Brett, Erin and Dan for doing this crazy ride with me, and their bosses too for letting them off early on a school night to come and sit in one place and pedal their arses off - Especially Erin who I don’t think can remember what a bike looks like since he discovered girls, and Dan who was such a delight to sell a bike too I wish all customers were like him.

Thanks again fellas!

Posted by warwick @ 8:27 am

23 Feb 2010

First batch of tee’s are done and will go out on Friday. More the week after for those of you that were not faster than beer. You’ve got the weekend to improve your skillz.

Posted by warwick @ 2:15 am

17 Feb 2010

This Monday at 3.55, Brett, Erin, Dan and myself are going to be at Green Cities 2010 slogging our guts out for 10 minutes on crappy bikes with no clipless pedals to generate as much Megawattage™ as possible without losing our lunch.

As a lame bribe for the guys I’ve decided to do a T-Shirt which in some ways has absolutely nothing commemorative about it, but in some roundabout way kinda does. Brett and I were kicking around some ideas via MSN and in my usual scheme of taking too long to do simple things I came up with this -

Of course the four of us get them for free, but I thought I’d offer them up to you mangy lot and see if they appeal.

The deal is simple. They’re Australian made and grown organic cotton T’s by Certton, available in Jade and in sizes S [46cm] M [50cm] L [54cm] and XL [58cm]. The measurements are of the garment, measured flat armpit-to-armpit. Get your fave T out, lie it down, measure it up. Couldn’t be simpler.

There’s always a downside, and for this because the event is Monday, if you want to be in the first batch you have a whole 48hrs to put your hand up.

The advantage of being the early bird is you get early bird pricing [$35] and of course, you have a fine beer drinking t-shirt that no other stiff has and can proudly proclaim that if you are lucky enough to own a Thylacine, then you are clearly Faster than beer.

Email us asap if you want in.

Posted by warwick @ 8:09 am

03 Feb 2010

This sort of thing is what custom bikes are all about.

Geoff got in contact with us initially back in April wanting a custom Ti frame. In between bouts of being a goody-goody working for some NGO making sure the bad guys don’t bork things up, we exchanged lengthy emails about bike fit, what he was riding now and what issues he was having. I was horrified that at 6ft 6ins, he was riding a stock carbon frame and in his words -

“Getting a comfortable seat position versus arm and hand position is difficult.”

It was difficult because he was trying to fit on a bike barely big enough for me at 6ft 3ins!

Initially he was going to get fitted up by Steve Hogg, but the timing didn’t work out, so to coincide with his global galavanting, I managed to track down a fitter in DC who was recommended to me by a ‘pro bike fitting’ organisation who shall remain nameless because, to put it mildly, they’re utterly useless. The fitting I got back was that ‘old school’ method of fitting big guys - the one where the biggest downtube you can get is 660mm so you make the head tube angle 74 degrees, keep the chainstays as long as someone 5ft 9ins so they can pop wheelies when climbing, you know, just for fun. There were alarm bells going off bigtime, and I couldn’t with a clear conscience make a bike to the specs’ I was given, they were that wrong.

So in a tip of the hat to the good parts of globalisation [the part where our bike fitters crap all over those in the US], I got Geoff to send in a shed-load of measurements and gave them to Chris @ Bike Coach to interpret them. Between what I thought was right and what the numbers told Chris, we came up with a frame that frankly breaks all the old rules. Check out some of the numbers -

• Head Tube - 240mm
• Top Tube - 64cm
• Chainstays - 450mm
• Saddle Setback - 130mm
• Seat Tube Angle - 70.5 degrees

Now, even the most confident bike designer [unless you're Leonard Zinn perhaps] has got to have some trepidation in doing a bike like this. The vast majority of bikes are fairly averagely sized, and not being a ‘Specialist’ other than the fact that I’m not a little guy myself - and with the inertia of ‘tradition’ - bikes like that are always going to be exciting to do. I’ll just let Geoff sum it up -

“The measurements of the frame are as close to perfect as I could have wanted - and being in the right place now I’m actually riding a different saddle comfortably. What can I say, Iove it. I won’t ever ride something not made for me again. The feel on the road is way better than carbon and I can actually feel my weight properly proportioned between the wheels, rather than feeling like I’m perched precariously on top of the rear. Cornering and acceleration are both excellent, the oversize chainstays do a great job.”

Thanks for your faith and patronage, Geoff!

Posted by warwick @ 8:27 am