Category: Bikes

This is my favourite bike. It’s the longest serving of my current stable and has been built to many different guises. The present incarnation is the best and most practical by far.. My friend Tim has helped me greatly with creating this ride, welding on front and rear pannier mounts to which I added a front end ‘Surly Nice Rack’ (Cheers Timmy and big thanks to Elvis for the rack hookup). Tim totally inspired the practical nature of this bike and to finish a beautiful build I’d dearly love to purchase a scmidt dynamo, but that will have to wait.. 

The bike has evolved greatly from ‘Emo’ to ‘Ugly’ to ‘Track-attack’ to ‘Desert crosser’ and now ‘Mr Practical’. A carton of beer will nicely fit between the 44cm wide bars and the Ortliebs will happily accept another two 6-packs each.. and thanks to the front and rear Cane Creek brakes, I can stop the Steamroller with all this beer weighted on the front end.. another great aspect is the wheelset, it’s over-built as fk. Surly hubs, champion spokes and deep-v’s, totally capable of taking the weight of 2 cartons and a 82kg Benny.  No gears or a freewheel to worry about, fixed all the way. Geometery is somewhere between ‘road’ and ‘track’ which is perfect as I need to race home asap to ensure the beer remains cold.

Fk I love this bike.

Lust. Coverting another man’s bike. Goddam, I neeeeeed at least one of these next two bikes! The first, a mean-as-fk-fixed gear. 26″ Hookworms? On a fixed gear?? Oh fk yes! Please tell me they are dirt jump or street mtb rims as well. Such a tight ride. I need…

The second, a street ‘sprint’ bike. Again 26″, this time with NYC ballon tyres. Plus, ‘Albatross’ bars are the ultimate shit!! I neeeeed, I neeeed…

(Photo: Ben ‘Warp’ Howell)

We’ve been blessedly tour-content free so far, but sometimes you’ve just gotta give in to the fever. Individual time trial today, and roving BnC reprobate Dicko is over there ensuring that the crowds are keeping it suitably loose and no doubt yelling abuse at anyone riding carbon. If you’ve been watching closely you may have spotted a grimey black BnC hoody flung over the barrier near the finish line of the stage. I’d like to think that waving it about filled the dual purpose of reppin’ the colours and also drying out out after double fisting two beers into his face and spilling a little on the front. Good work mate!

BnC – Ride Local, Drink Global

The arrival of Mick Gillies in our outback midst has added further fuel to my current obsession with dirt road touring. Mick is in the middle (both literally and phyiscally) of his Australian cycle tour. He has tackled some awesome country on his Long Haul Trucker (LHT) and the rig seems to have handled both the sand and corrigations with aplomb. L-Dub and I decided to see how the LHT would hold up on some of Centralia’s most rugged, red dirt (#ahem#) ‘roads’, dragging Mick out to the oft visited Mantaru last weekend.. The LHT drilled it no worries and we spent an evening by the fire discussing remote cycling routes.

The term ‘radventure’ has being playing through my mind constantly.. So many possible ‘red earth’ missions! Owen Springs, Boggy Hole, Kaltukatjara, the list goes on! Timmy Stredwick has modified my Steamroller to run panniers and Epic Eric is whipping me up set full set of bags for the 1×1. Radventure looms!

To keep the palette wet, Sammy and I rolled out to Tapiya on a (mini) ‘Red Earth’ Mission yesterday. Tapiya could be discribed as ‘hill’ I guess, but the description ‘big pile of rocks’ seems to fit better. There is a road of sorts to Tapiya, but you would need a seroius four wheel drive to traverse it. Deep sand and corrigations the whole way. Sammy and I tackled the first five or six kilometers of the track on our bikes before the constant stutter and regular dismount and push action got too much. We bailed for what Sam described as a ‘back route’… Continue reading “The ‘Red Earth’ Missions”

We rolled into Mutitjulu early saturday morning with a ute tray full of BMXs.. but being a long weekend, most of the Community had headed to Alice Springs for the Agricultural Show. I didn’t think there would be a kid left in town and was more than a little sceptical about the attendance prospects of our second Bottles and Chains Community Bicycle Workshop. I need not have worried as within minutes of our arrival about twenty kids rocked up, ready to help re-assemble and repair any bicycles at hand. Continue reading “BnC Community Bicycle Workshop II”

Inspiration for the Critical Mass’ers? Yep. A bee in the bonnet of Cog Cafe’s Damo prior to the ’10 Aussie Singlespeed Nats?? Yep also. Timmy got me onto this link. The blurb for the ‘Stereo Bike Film’ reads as follows:

“Last summer in a rented garage on the outskirts of Queens, NY something incredible was happening. A group of imaginative tinkerers from Trinidad were working late into the nights creating something nobody had ever seen before: enormous stereo systems jury rigged onto ordinary bmx bikes. Traveling together, each behind the handlebars of his or her own massive homemade creation, they treat the neighborhood to an outrageous impromptu music and dance party on wheels. Directed by Randall Stevens, Made In Queens is a film celebrating America’s first stereobike crew”.

Looks like Brisbane’s Global Gutz alleycat got shut down by the cops. It’s good to see the Brisbane police force is earning their way and properly allocating resources to crime prevention.

What a joke.

It’s funny. Had you told me two years ago that the first B’n’C Community Bicycle Workshop would be held in a remote Aboriginal Coummnity I would not have believed you.

Spool the tape back 24mths.. Mischa and I were having a sunday morning coffee at a South Hobart cafe when the discussion turned to community bicycle workshops. We talked about renting a space, restoring discarded bicycles, creating a bicycle library of velo-loaners and offering a free labour to those needing assistance in getting their pushies running again. Due to all the usual bullshit we wade through daily in our lives (working long hours to pay for stuff we dont really need and booze mostly), Mischa and I let this beautiful plan slide into the realm of ‘one-day’.

So how did a section of Mischa and my dream come into fruition in the Northern Territory? I dunno really, it kinda just happened. Jacob from Mission Australia offered me a trailer filled with new tires, tubes and some basic kit. Some friends offered me their labour and I had some tools. Between us we could work out which way to turn a wrench.

We set up shop in the dirt in front the Rec Centre in Mutitjulu. No advertising, no fanfare, just us and 10 or so broken-down bicycles.  It was amazing, within minutes about 20 kids were helping. Within the hour about 40 people had rocked-up with long forgotten frames and a willingness to learn. We worked all day. We worked hard. We shared our knowledge and the community shared theirs. One young fella showed me how to run a chain through a derailleur (I’m a pure-bred singlespeeder, derailleurs are alien to me) and I taught him how to use a chain breaker.

I dont know how many bikes we worked on, but it was lots. LOTS and LOTS. Kids were zooming around on bikes left, right and centre. The day was a total sucess. We’ll run another next month. B’n’C out.

Limited edition shit, mutherfuckers!

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