bikes

nat’s gone fully semi-pro. at least her bike has: not everyone knows this but it is essential for pro bikes to have the rider name & nationality displayed on the frame. without these super important stickers your bike is basically just another overpriced assembly of carbon fibre, titanium and aluminium. anyone could have one of…

modern mountain bicycles are more complex machines than most people realise. they are designed to take a lot of abuse and let average riders (like myself) plough through trails that we wouldn’t even have looked at only a few years ago at insane speeds. we notice the toll that takes when things go wrong out…

not long ago i serviced nat’s pike which turned out to be much more in need of attention than i thought it should have been. this of course goes to show that one should never assume. at that point i didn’t have the special syringe adaptor required to bleed the damper side and consequently i…

let’s be honest, there is nothing stealth about the 2014 nomad. the colours are officially called aqua & magenta but more cynical people would probably describe them as turquoise & pink. harsh. and many older folk like to refer to this looks as the ‘miami vice’ colour scheme. remember those guys from the 1980ies tv…

when nat got her new bike we wanted to get it on the trails quickly. we only attached all the important bits required to actually ride the bike and didn’t spend the time to ensure the frame was protected. the frame was not new and the previous owner had applied a protective self-adhesive film to…

i really enjoy working on the suspension parts. the forks are especially good fun to service but it takes a bit more effort to remove them from the bike. nat is currently away on holiday and i thought that would be a good time to upgrade the air spring in her fork. she is using…

i had one more shock lying around: the old monarch plus my bike originally came with and that nat ran until i serviced her vivid. the vivid is of course a much better shock but since we have this monarch that happens to fit both our bikes i figured i might as well service that,…

it’s been rather damp around here the last week or so. unfortunately it’s all been useless moisture: it just fell on our trails but carefully avoided the dams and reservoirs sydney draws its drinking water from, i.e. we can’t ride but water restrictions are still in place. go figure. luckily mama bee took me and…

these modern enduro bikes sure have a lot of things that require hydraulic and / or pneumatic assistance. sure, the shock and the fork are the main components, take the most and the biggest hits and therefore also deserve most of the attention, but there is another thing that greatly helps descend safely: the dropper…

our trouble with the gravity enduro races in ourimbah is mostly due to their schedule. actually, it’s only with the schedule: the race seems to be organised by and for early risers, and that causes a tiny bit of grief for us. the timing chips need to be picked up until 0745 and it generally…

i readily admit i am not a big fan of the monarchy. maybe it’s being austrian (the monarchy and all related titles were abolished in 1918) or it’s just my general anti-authoritarian streak, but frankly i can’t wait until australia becomes a republic. however, until then we still get to celebrate the queen’s birthday, which…