Author: Mischa

Disciples Of The Iron Horse

What: Bottles and Chains ‘Disciples of the Iron Horse’ Ride

When: Saturday November 24th @ 2:00pm

Where: Sandy Bay Sailing Club, Nutgrove Beach

Why: On one Saturday in 1882, a group of six cyclists from the Hobart
Bicycle Club competed in a race from Long Beach in Sandy Bay to Browns
River at Kingston Beach and back. The race took them several hours.

The road between Sandy Bay and Kingston in those days was an unformed
‘track’. The riders not only had to contend with mud, steep ungraded
climbs and scrub, but with their equipment also.. they were riding fixed
gear bicycles with brakes that were somewhat ineffectual downhill…
anyway they did it and now we’re going to do it too..!!

I keeping with the spirit of Bottles and Chains this will be an ‘informal’
event.. there’s no entry fee’s or alike and all and sundry are welcome..

Times:
Registration – 1:00pm – 1:45pm
Briefing – 1:45pm
Racing – 2:00pm

Categories:
The ride’s open to anyone but we’ll be organising everyone into four cats. Brakeless Fixed (aka Mad Bastards), Fixed/Singlespeed (aka The Legs), Roadies (aka Dopers) and Fat Tyres (aka Knobblies).

You need:
You have to bring a bike to ride and a helmet! Sensible clothes are not required, or encouraged.

Ride route:

Auxiliary Festivities:
The ride will be followed by plenty of beer and a BBQ at Long Beach/Nutgrove (whatever the hell beach it is). There will be someone kicking around there during the ride so if you want to bring along some snags/beer/vege burgers/etc and leave them there while you ride, that will be fine!

Everyone who enters will get a spoke card for the memories, and there might be some prizes for whoever makes it back first!

Questions?
Drop us an e-mail at info@bottlesandchains.com or call Mischa on 0438 599 147.

All transmitters to full, all recievers to boost

Joe Strummer was the amazing frontman for The Clash, one of the seminal bands of the early punk rock scene. Later on he did a bunch of stuff with his band The Mescaleros, and it all totally rules. There’s a new documentary out about Joe, titled The Future Is Unwritten. There’s a showing at the State Cinema in Hobart tomorrow night (Friday Nov 2) at 7:45.

If you love punk rock you’d better get along and see it.

Click the image to watch the trailer.

Melburn rollings

c/o Shifter Dan

To help you get over hump day, the Melburn chapter of Bottles and Chains are having their inaugural club ride, this Wednesday – Helloween.

Ride leaves The Tote, crn of Johnson and Wellington, Collingwood at 7pm.

Get into the spirit of the night, and dress to scare. Ride through the city and beyond – with numerous stops en-route to partake in refreshing adult beverages, and perhaps some trick or treating.

Bikes, booze, and grown men and women dressed in stupid costumes.

Prize for best costume. Does it get any better? Be there!

No rest for the wicked

The weekend turned into somewhat of a marathon BnC event, and damn it was good. We hit the track on Friday night and Ben threw himself in amongst the pack. He came in…last. Not bad for a guy running 75 gear inches and spinning his way into the future. Come along and watch him dominate next week!  Naturally, that event was followed with a couple of beers and a mean bean curry at Liam’s place. That guy can cook up a storm.

Saturday we threw Clinton onto his track bike, street gearing, sans brake. First street ride? Why not head out to Lauderdale? Some may say it was a mistake (Clinton included), but he was grinning all the way. Unfortunately a suprise hill, an emergency skid and the badly-timed unclipping of a shoe lead to a short, sharp meeting with a fence post. Safe to say we patched him up and kept rolling for a bit before retreating to the city.

Next up, the skate park to watch some BMX crew shred it up. Canadian Dave was in full effect, having ditched the fixie for small wheels and a slightly smaller frame. Rain bailed it up and we headed to The Brisbane for the premier of Sam Orchard’s new Tassie BMX flick Forward Motion. Riders destroying it, awesome footage, well edited, rad tunes, can’t go wrong! “Best Australian BMX movie I’ve seen” according to an un-named source (Dave).

A few too many jugs of beer later and it was time to hit a few parties and roll the streets in wobbles and skids. I’m fairly sure you can get charged with RUI, so let’s just count ourselves lucky to be fine-free.

Sunday saw a seedy bunch crawl up the mountain and come down it at ridiculous speeds, given the previous night’s performance. No death, luckily. Dave rode 26 inches on dirt for the first ever and survived it like the laughing demon he is. Let’s hope it won’t be the last time.

But for now, enough yapping. Click more for photos that are sure to screw up the site layout but, whatever…

Continue reading “No rest for the wicked”

Track time

From the Hobart Wheelers/Dirt Devils club:

Track racing will be starting now that the longer days are upon us.

– Friday nights at Newtown Oval (behind the Bartercard Stadium on the corner of Main Road and Creek Road), official racing will start at 6:30pm but people will probably be round from before that.
– The first series will run from October through to Christmas, with another series after Christmas depending on interest
– The first 3 weeks will be familiarisation and practice, to let new people get used to the track and bikes, and allow the seasoned campaigners to pass on some of the ancient art of track craft.
– If you don’t have a track bike, we’ll be allowing roadbikes on the track during practice, and if there’s enough we can have some roadie only racing.
– you must be CA licenced to race.

Come out and see what all the fuss is about. Even if you don’t ride or race, it’s great to watch people turn themselves inside out.

Also, for you Melburn heads, the BnC bike gang now has an official chapter in your city! Shifter Dan’s organising gang rides and events, so stay tuned here for more info.

Superman Is Bangka!

Bali’s biggest rock’n’roll band Superman Is Dead hit Tassie last week for a few days of absolute mayhem. They’re the best bunch of bike riding, social d loving, punk rocking guys I’ve met in a long time, and we had too much fun.

When they’re not touring south-east asia week-in and week-out, or running their bar/tattoo studio, or their clothing label, recording studio and record label, or their web design business, or looking after their kids, or promoting Bali to the rest of the world, amongst about a million other things, they’re rolling with the Lonely King Kustom Kruisers bike gang, Bali-style. Ain’t nothing wrong with chrome, and when it’s attached to a smooth street cruising lowrider, you know it’s got style. These guys rock it hard. They play in front of thousands of people, and their bikes share the stage with them. They’re constantly promoting bikes as a cleaner form of transport, and rolling the streets of Kuta Rock City to spread the word.

So to pay tribute to the fucking killer band that’s Superman Is Dead, here’s some video with a bit of bike-action.

Check out the Lonely King gallery.

And of course, the SiD MySpace.

Dangdut!