The discussions have commenced. Scott not Scot from lfgss and Archie’s Grobag fame is at least vaguely aware that I want a courier/messenger bag. ๐
At the moment my favourite option is looking like this. Mostly black, with red straps, a reflective strip along the bottom of the flap, reflective danglies hanging off the buckles, orange or red liner. The red cog is currently optional pending embroidery/reflective stuff.
Excuse my lack of Photoshop skills..
No, not me! Spotted on Lawrence’s blog..
“This is about the ups and downs I anticipate will take place on my journey from dream to actuality. The dream is to create a record for the most distance cycled on an indoor velodrome in one hour for women 60-64yrs old. Currently there is no record and the ones set in the younger age groups are around the 40-41km mark.“
Similar to the Rivendell Speedblend coloured tyres..
We have Sweetskinz coloured tyres..
From these guys..
Mostly off-the-peg and I’m not vouching for the accuracy as these are mostly figures collected from the big bad blogosphere or world wide wank or whatever you wanna call it..
Van Dessel Drag Strip Courage
Frame: 998g, Fork: ?
Condor Stadio
Frame: 1035g, Fork: 550g
IF Ti Crown Jewel Track Frameset
1221g (2.69lb, not sure of size or fork inc.)
Condor Percorso
Frame: 1400g, Fork: 545g
Argon 18 Electron
Frame: 1495g (claimed), Fork: 395g (claimed), 1502g (actual, Medium, tynan)
Reynolds 853 Bob Jackson (56cm)
1502g (without fork)
Unbranded Titanium Track Frame
Frame: 1520g (57cm, frame only)
Pinarello Pista Surprise
Frame: 1542g, Fork: ?
Condor Lavoro
Frame: 1550g, Fork: 550g
Specialized Langster
1587g/3.5lbs (not sure what’s included or frame size)
IF Steel Crown Jewel Track Frameset
1620g (not sure of size or fork)
On-One Ti Geared Inbred
Frame: 1365g/3.01lb – 1587g/3.5lb (claimed), 1660g (actual, 16″, tynan), fork:
Koga Pro Track
Frame: 1535g (53cm), Fork: 516g (same as Alpina/4ZA)
Condor Classico Pista
Frame: 1600g, Fork: 700g
Pearson Touche (56cm)
Frame: 1720g, Fork: 577g
20y.o. Reynolds 753 steel frame (52cm)
Frame: 1,760g, Forks: 620g
Fixie Inc. Peacemaker
1800g, Al6061-T6 fork: 550g
Condor Pista
Frame: 1800g (55cm verified on my scales), Fork: 545g (700g on my scales)
Condor Tempo
Frame: 1800g, Fork: 580g
Soma Rush
Frame: 1814g (frame only)
Bob Jackson Vigorelli
Frame (56cm): 1860g, Fork: 840g
Dolan FXE (58cm)
Frame: 1920g, Fork: 620g
EAI Bareknuckle (56cm, will@hubjub)
Frame: just under 2000g, Fork: 900g
Fuji Track (not sure of size or if it includes fork)
Frame: 2050g (4.5lb), Complete: 8550g (18.8lb)
Surly Steamroller (56cm)
Frame: 2010g (also 2000g), Fork: 916g (also reported 850g uncut)
Frame (54.5cm) & Fork & Hatta HS & DA 7400 BB: 2600g
On-One Il Pompino
Frame: 1859g/4.1lbs, Fork: (51cm)
Frame: 2150g, Fork: 843g (54cm)
Genesis Flyer (520 CroMo)
Frame: 2270g, Fork:
Kona Paddy Wagon
Frame: 2636g or 2268g, Fork: 907g (58cm), “2lb heavier than Pearson, over a pound on Surly?s Steamroller”) (5.0lb frame and 2.0lb fork, 22.46lbs dirtragmag.com)
Charge Plug
Frame: 2500g, Fork: 912g
Sparton Track
Frame: 2948g
Brooklyn Machine Works Gangsta
2902g/6.4lbs (original frame w/ double-crown fork) or 2721g/6lbs (butted tubeset w/ laser cutouts)
The thread that started this: londonfgss.com – frame weights
Contributors: leeww, fixer, polybikeuser, RPM, scott not scot, will@hubjub.co.uk, tynan, cornelius blackfoot, luke@brooklynmachineworks, bikenut, nimhbus, pipwish, haj, jorj
Eurostar moves to the new St Pancras International station on 14 November. But provision for people cycling is abysmal. Come join us at the official opening to demand decent parking, safe access and carriage of cycles. Read on..
camdencyclists.org.uk – eurostar demonstration
Given my recent loss of bike parking at work and my subsequent scramble to build up a beater bike that I don’t mind having stolen from Liverpool St. station, this parking bullsh1t needs attention!
Warrwych/Lawrence/Luny is racing at the World Track Masters right now! Hopefully she’ll update us on what happens soon.. read on..
This image is misleading – I only have the frame. The rest still needs to be added.
That was the worst indoor training session ever! Willesden CC have started their turbo sessions again. Now, if it was an evil hard session it wouldn’t be so bad, unfortunately it was the ‘worst session ever’ because I couldn’t fscking do it!
2 months of liver abuse while off the road bike has apparently left me very, very unfit! Started okay but pretty soon I was hanging over the bars on an express train to Vomit City while others were madly sprinting away.. Fsck! That’s it.. riding is going up, drinking going down!
In other news my work have removed my secure bike lockup so I’ve now got to build up a beater to lock outside.. due to some Londoners being thieving scum. Sonofafsckingbitch!
I already have the Armstrong frame..
The day before our ride, Mal was very nervous. We’d been into the city, suffered London’s useless Saturday bike shop staff but at least managed to score a cheapish helmet that wasn’t totally fugly (?40 from ?50 because they had no box for it). Behold, the Giro Havoc:
Around 10.15am after some tyre-pumping and chain tensioning we left home and headed down to the Ealing Town Hall. The Ealing branch of the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) was marshalling a 8k/5mi ride to one of the feeder locations at Ravenscourt Park.
We were on his ‘n’ hers Raleighs, Mal following me down the road while I explained what I thought were useful riding tips. We’ve ridden together a few times but mostly along traffic-free canal paths. Cars scared her (probably my fault for coming home cursing their actions all the time!) but I tried to make her at ease by explaining we’d be in a group of about 300 riders from Ealing and then even more in town.
One of my legions of fans yelled a “whey-hey Merckx!!” as we passed him walking down Uxbridge Rd. ๐
Ealing Town Hall was swarming with riders when we arrived! I had arranged to meet Graham there (I met him marshalling the Tour Prologue, he lives out in Uxbridge) but he was running late. I didn’t really want to our group to go from 300 to 3 for Mal’s sake, so Mal and I left when the main group did. The ride was very slow, stopping at times, but I’d already resigned myself to this so I wasn’t at all bothered. Graham ended up passing the Ealing group but waited for us and we met him half way to Ravenscourt Park.
At Ravenscourt Park the organisers had setup some stalls, selling food, giving away Red Bull, that kind of thing. There was a woman in a wedding dress!?! and a unicycle juggler or two.
The weather was fantastic! No, really, it was! Check the pics, that’s real sky! I had my bike checked over by the boys in blu.. um.. fluoro yellow..
Cheered through the start gate we were on the 13.7k/8.6mi feeder ride – Ravenscourt Park to St. James’s Park. Here we weren’t in such a big group but there were still enough riders on the signed and marshalled course to make us skip a couple of cycles waiting to get through a green light. Although the pace was still low, this felt more like proper cycling and I kept an eye on Mal while we were out in the big, bad world. She was enjoying herself now and I guess, realising it’s not as bad as she might’ve thought. We ended up missing part of the course and riding straight up Holland Park Ave. (up to Notting Hill). This was part of my normal commute and is always rammed with cars and often a real pain. Mal was zipping along now even scooting between lines of stopped cars to get up to the ASL. It looked like she’d be doing this for years! We were passing people up the hill and then I took off (come on! I had to at least once!) and she jumped and followed me up the hill! Champ!
Into Hyde Park we had another little “race” while Graham took pics.. totally in awe of our speed.. hehe ๐
My workmate Harvey called and said they were turning people away from the festival because it was too full! Hmm.. We carried on through Wellington Arch to Buckingham Palace and joined the large queues waiting to get in to the bike parking, the festival or onto the course itself. People at the crossings were swinging large GO/STOP signs to sort out traffic flow, pedestrian crossings, etc. Tried a few more times to locate Harvey and decided to score some of Hovis’s free sandwiches before doing the actual ride. Found the face painting and said g’day to Harvey and his daughter. After some sandwiches we explored some more of the festival’s stalls, watched some BMX tricks, watched people test ride funny bikes, watched some trials riding. Spotted MA3K (with his baby carrying Cove!) and Stompy from londonfgss and then bailed so we actually did the ride!
The ride was fun. Like I said, I was prepared to be on the go slow and I was just chuffed that I’d managed to drag Mal all the way into London. The loop around the Embankment and over Blackfriars bridge is very similar to the London 10k run I did a while ago. I guess there’s no workers here on a Sunday so it’s easy to close to traffic.. let’s see them do the same to the City on a Friday ๐
There was lots of stop starting during the ride which some people found annoying but it gave me some time to snap photos. They had official photo points but we didn’t use any of them. Heading east on the embankment we passed a huge truck, with a difference. It was powered by cyclists!
The massive “Guinness World Record Bike” started up and sounded like nothing else – just a huge whirring noise as loads of people rode it down the street.
The tunnel on embankment was also cool! Everyone was whistling and screaming and whooping up a storm. When you have hundreds/thousands of people passing through a tunnel – this makes quite a racket!!
I spent a lot of the ride spotting the singlespeeders and fixed riders out of the crowd, checking to see if I knew any of them and checking out their bikes. There were also a few low-rider, chopper bikes doing the ride.. as well as a guy dressed as a shark!
After the ride we made our way back to the Freewheel Festival. Met a few more London FGSS riders, set a time on the new Rollapaluza rollers (still too slow!). Graham left to meet a mate and then called a while later to say he had a flat and his spare tube was stuffed. I rode over to Hyde Park to sort him out with a spare. We also got to watch the German Artistic Cycling team – the current world champions! They were awesome, e.g. one bloke popping the bike into a wheelie while another guy stands on his shoulders!
The ride home was still marshalled around 5pm but we decided to simply head back following my normal commute along Uxbridge Rd. Mal was awesome and handled the traffic like she’d been doing it for ages. We treated ourselves to pizza and cider at home. About 50 kilometres of riding in all for us, tonnes of bikes out thanks to top weather and some interesting entertainment in town. All in all – a great day!
bikeradar.com – chocolate milk makes you faster
Sweet! If that’s the case and caffeine is also a performance enhancer then Iced Coffee must be the best sports drink ever! (well, except for beer).