Having the paper copy in your hands is definitely the experience, but you technological types can view it on Zinio too…

As it is Worlds Week over at Velominati, the Bosomworth project will take centre stage right here, right now.

The old girl is in a rideable state, but is still far from finished.  The wheels bought on TradeMe turned up on Monday, and I was able to fit the 11 speed cassette, which in turn enabled the fitting of the chain and cables.

New cable guides with cool alloy barrel adjusters were installed on the down tube, and the cables carefully fitted to the shifters.  I did the around-the-headtube routing method, crossing the cables under the downtube.

$60 scored me the Chorus hubs laced to Mavic Open Pro rims, but the front rim was damaged beyond rideable, and the blue wasn’t my first choice of rim hue (although it kind of works with the frame).  The rear wheel is good enough to get me going until my new hoops get built next week.

There was really only one rim choice on my mind, Ambrosio.  A bit of asking around garnered me these Excellence clinchers, with the added bonus of the old school gold branding and counterweight.  Paris-Roubaix styles right there.

I went with the retro-styled bar tape, which doesn’t really give much when wrapping, and pissed me off enough for me to enlist the mastery of Josh, who did a grand job of finishing it off for me.  Chur bro.  Elite cages, a Toupe saddle and an unidentified seatpost were also fitted.  The post may yet have to be replaced with something a touch longer, but until my pedals are fitted and I can check the set-up I won’t know.  I have my eyes on a Selcof post online which could look cool.

The old Campy headset scrounged from Rachel’s flatmate’s old frame was giving me grief, with the crown race not quite meshing with the steerer, and the pitted cups ‘indexing’.  I found a NOS (new old stock) Shimano 105 unit on the shelf, and bit the bullet and threw it on.  Of course, mixing Japanese and Italian is a no-no, but a bit of judicial polishing removed the ‘S’ logos from the seal, and the cartridge bearings are foolproof and smooth.  I can always get a Campy one down the track if I deem it essential. (Plus I saved a whole 60 grams!)

And so ends Phase 2.  I have ridden it up and down the street and the carpark ramp with some plastic flat pedals fitted, and I must say it feels pretty good.  Definitely feels lighter than the 9.2kg it is currently weighing, and with a bit of luck the new wheels coupled with light tyres and tubes may drop it to 9.  I’m still excited!

Like a kid at Christmas, that’s how I felt today.  There was the opening of some cool presents, one old, some new, all awesome. The Bosomworth finally turned up, and the Chorus gruppo was awaiting it eagerly, like baubles waiting to be added to the old tree every year.  I spent the afternoon stripping, cleaning, lubing and polishing.  The bike that is.  Here’s a bit of a rundown on the progress so far.

She looked a bit sad out of the box, but showed plenty of potential.  The paint job is a bit cooler than it looked from the original photo on the interwebs.  Without even assembling it as was, I started ripping bits off in a frenzy.

The chrome on the drive side chainstay was a bit worse for wear, but Marjolein came up with a clever solution;  use the old chrome bar tape sitting in the drawer to cover it up.  I glued on a strip, bound it with 3M, and will unwrap it in a few days.

The rear rim is a Campy Omega, laced to a 105 hub.  The front is a Mavic 190FB.  They will both be replaced by a set of Chorus hubs which I scored for $60, laced to Open Pros which are damaged.  I’ll probably replace them with new OPs, or possibly Stans tubeless rims with the decals removed for stealth (and to keep the weight down.)

The bars are Cinelli Giros, but unfortunately too narrow and scratched up to use.  Rachel spotted a set of wider, classic bend alloys in the box of bits under the bench, and they got the nod.  A cool looking but heavy 3T stem was replaced with the ITM I bought last week.

I gave the bottom bracket a quick facing before installing the external bearing cups.  Well, I got Nath to do it as my heavy-handed mechanical skills lack, well, skill.

Sweet Tange TR dropouts hold the carbon goodness.

Next up I removed the Shimano 600 headset and replaced it with an old Campy unit that Rachel had spotted on her flatmate’s discarded frame.  Score!

And so ends Phase 1.  Wheels are the next step, then cabling and taping.  The saddle and post from my Tricross you see here will be replaced too.  In the guise above, it weighed 8.2kg (18lb).  With a light wheelset, I’m hoping it stays around that or just under.  Stay tuned.

The 'before' shot

Inspired by my father’s cool restoration projects, and more than a little burnt out on corporate logo’ed carbon bikes, I’ve acquired a project bike of my own.  It’s a Columbus-tubed, NZ made Bosomworth frame, and it only set me back $220!  Of course, I need to keep some of the modern day bling in my life, and there is a nice new Campagnolo Chorus 11 speed groupset waitng to grace it.

Read a bit more on it at Velominati, and stay tuned for the ‘after’ shots.

Tastes even better while wearing a Velominati T-shirt, after a ride in the most-pro of kits.  Check it all out and buy it here!

When the Pixies played in Auckland in March this year, it was for me the culmination of a twenty year wait to witness one of my all-time favourite bands.  I’d missed them in Australia in 2007, when I moved to NZ.  That was hard to take, and resulted in a week of depression, remorse and disappointment, to say the least.  Auckland would be a defining moment in my musical fandom.

Or so I hoped.  While it was a great show, and a box was ticked, somehow it felt a little anti-climactic.  Probably because I’d built it up in my mind for so long, and maybe expected something that was more than even these icons could humanly deliver.

A week after that show, I was sitting in a cafe in Nelson when I read in the newspaper that the band was coming back to NZ for a one-off show, this time not as part of the Doolittle Tour, and they would be playing tracks from their complete discography.  How could I not go?  Tickets secured, there would be a five month wait until they hit the South Island.  It was only last week that I realised that the gig was imminent.  My holiday to Aussie had left me a little on the broke side, and I even considered  not going to Christchurch at all.  Sense prevailed, and off I went.

Well shit, turns out I made the right decision!  This show put everything into perspective.

Hearing the great songs from their ‘other’ albums was perhaps the reason they seemed better this time.  Maybe it was because I hadn’t built it up too much.  Maybe it was the Epic Mayhem (6.2% of hop-laden goodness) beforehand, or because I’d met some cool guys and girls on the walk to the stadium, who I shared the experience with.

I don’t really know, or care, because everything just gelled.  Them, me, us.

While the Doolittle Tour obviously concentrated on that seminal album, they also trotted out some ‘bonus’ tracks for each show. I’d hoped that Dig For Fire would be one of them.  It wasn’t.  So when, this time, about 4 songs in, that familiar bassline rumbled through the PA, life seemed complete.  Or at least pretty fucking good.

Cactus, Vamos, Velouria, Alison, Planet Of Sound, Is She Weird, Gigantic, U Mass, River Euphrates, all these non-Doolittle numbers were performed with an enthusiasm that maybe playing the same setlist for over a year can inspire.  Of course the Doolittle tracks were amazing also, with the notable absence of Monkey Gone to Heaven, which disappointed most of the throng. You can’t have everything though, and I gladly traded it for Dig For Fire.  A couple of encores, the last with the house lights up a la Auckland, and soon we found ourselves wandering into the drizzly, chilly night, damp on the outside yet warm and fuzzy within.

How do you top off a night like this?  Karaoke, of  course!

I trundled into town with the crew, whose names  are harder to remember than their friendly faces.  After our first point of call was way too packed, we  ventured across the alleyway to a little Korean bar  called Doli.

Ok, there was Dan, Shane, his faux bro Keith,  Tina, Brooke, Emma (she may have been a  random), Kent, Steve and several other lovely guys  and  gals who enthusiastically encouraged my  caterwauling and  joined in the butchering of  classics old and  older.

We searched the songbook for any Pixies songs, but unsurprisingly we were left empty-handed.  We did however manage to shred Radiohead, Sex Pistols, Beatles, Chilli Peppers, Neil Young and god knows what else.  The owners finally were rid of us about 4am.

Such a full night can only leave one with an emptiness when the new day comes, but this feeling is fleeting, and I can’t help but think I just witnessed one of the best concerts of my long and prolific gig-going life.  Top 2 at least.  It was that good.

This is a brilliant film.  As Bill’s life was tragically all-too-brief, the lack of video footage was apparent as the producers utilised clever montaging of still photography to paint an almost abstract picture of the life of the greatest comedian ever.

Looking around the packed Paramount Theatre (damn I love old, stately theatres like this) I wondered how many were already disciples, and who were being initiated into his complex world.  I know of one person who fell into the latter camp, and when she stated “I’m converted” as the credits rolled and the applause broke out, the legacy of Bill had reached at least one, and probably dozens more in this space and time.

If you get the chance (and they will be limited until a DVD release I think) go and see this film.  And even if you aren’t converted, you will be entertained.  RIP Bill.

*More video here*

“The world is like a ride in an amusement park.  And when you choose to go on it you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are.  And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly coloured and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while.  Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question:  ”Is this real, or is this just a ride?”  And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, “Hey, don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.”  And we kill those people.”