Auckland harbour bridge: the 30 year plan

How are they going to build a bike trail the length of NZ, when we cant even ride over the Harbour bridge?

Last weekend a bunch of people stormed across the Auckland Harbour bridge on foot and bike.

Listen to these podcasts on national radio. The first interview is by Rowan Quinn who talks to Bevan Woodward from the "Get across campaign".

The second interview by Sean Plunket is with Wayne McDonald, the "Regional Director for Northland and Auckland" at Tranzit New Zealand.

Hear Wayne McDonald say that the plan is to wait another 30 years before doing anything about a walk-way or cycleway.

You can hardly blame people for getting a bit militant.

Podcast 1.
More bridge protests promised if access call ignored. (Stream)
A protest group is promising more traffic-halting protests across Auckland's Harbour Bridge.
(duration: 3:38:)
Download: Ogg or MP3

Podcast 2.
Protestors' fight for right to cross harbour bridge not over. (Stream)
The organisers of a traffic-halting protest on Auckland's Harbour Bridge aren't ruling out taking further action. (duration: 4:36:)
Download: Ogg or MP3


A link to a public address blogger who was on the ride.

Some very good video of the event from SportZhub.
http://www.sportzvibes.com/vibes/

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How to remove spider from Tune Big foot crank

I have had this Tune crank lying around for a few years. It's never shifted brilliantly but I have always liked the look of its smooth lines.

I ordered a new spider in the hope that it might help in the shifting department. (From old-style down to compact). I probably could have bought a whole crank for the price of this spider !

My next dilemma was how to get the spider off the crank. Its screwed on via male threads on the crank arm.

The answer to the predicament was quite logical.

1. Remove the small anchor bolt at the bottom of the spider.
2. Loosely attach the crank to the compatible bottom bracket of a fixed-gear bike.
3. Pedal backwards slowly, with force, until you feel the crank arm move independently of the spider/sprocket/chain/wheel. Gently continue using the crank pressure, or remove and continue doing it with your hands.
4. Pre-heating the crank with a hair dryer may help to loosen it.

Anyway, it was a great success. Now I change my spiders as I need too.

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A new wheel.

I've just built up a new front wheel. Its has a Tune front hub and a Stans Olympic Rim (335 grams) with DT Swiss Revolution spokes. This is 140 grams lighter than my old wheel. I guess most of that is in the rim. The Stans rims seem to be pretty popular around Wellington. Its pretty easy to run tubeless on it although I dont know if I am convinced of the merits of tubeless yet. I guess I need to try it again and see. Last time I felt it was a messy pain in the butt.

I have re-installed my old Tune crank as well, after getting a new "compact" spider for it . I had to "wind" the old spider off by installing the MTB crank on my fixed gear track bike and pedalling backwards!!! I am not sure if this was money well spent, as the difference in weight between the Tune Big Foot - (one of the lightest cranks in the world), and my old 1996 LX Shimano crank was 83 grams...

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Monkey vs. Pigsy

Take that Pigsy you swine !!!

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