Nil's bike - Tour Aotearoa 2016

 Like me, Nils van der Heide lives in Wellington, and yet I only met him once before the 2016 Tour Aotearoa. His bike was a bit different to most, and he had obviously spent a lot of time getting Jonty at Revolution Bicycles to build it up. It was a very sound machine. Nils shares some pix and a bit of background to it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nils:

The day I heard about the Tour Aotearoa over a year ago I thought: “this is me”. An amazing opportunity to explore New Zealand, and what a great way to do it by bike. I had been looking at the Kiwi Brevet for a couple of years now but time wise could never commit to any of them. This would be my first adventure of this kind.

I soon worked out that cycling 3000km on my full suspension Yeti would be a long way. A bit silly really as 3000km is a long way regardless. However this is where the idea started to build my own bike from scratch. A unique chance to build a "go anywhere, do almost anything” kind of bike that would not be fast and work well. Furthermore I wanted it to be  aesthetically pleasing as I work as a designer.

After doing some research online I soon worked out that a bike suitable for the Great Divide Ride would most likely be suitable for the Tour Aotearoa (TA). This is where inspiration for certain ideas started. Since I am extremely pleased with the geometry of my full-suspension Yeti SB95 I decided to turn Yeti's rigid carbon ARC frame into my starting point. The next question was front suspension or not. I decided to go rigid as it is lighter, there are fewer parts that can break (= less maintenance), and would cater well for 80% of the terrain.

The next thing to decide on was the cockpit. I had been intrigued by the Salsa Woodchipper bars for some time now and thought they would be the way to go for my bike. I liked the idea of dirt drops but it turned into a big time consuming effort to find brake levers and shifters that would work with the Shimano XT Dyna-sys derailleurs for my 2x10 setup. I ended up with a set of Gevenalle GX shifters. They are probably one of the most notable parts on my bike. They’re like a funky old set of thumb shifters mounted onto Tektro brake levers. The shifters take a bit to get used to but they work flawless. Another advantage is that you can run them indexed as well as friction. Furthermore I used a Fred Bar to mount my aero bars onto. I read good things about them as they put you a bit more upright while riding in the aero bars. This proved very useful on 10+ hour days in the saddle.

It was amazing to see the bike come together and it’s even more fun to ride. A big shout out goes to Jonty from Revolution Cycles, Oli at Roadworks, Zeph at Cognitive Cycle Works and Kashi at Yeti NZ for all their help. The bike really inspires me to ride just about anywhere. Drop bars and fat tyres go a long way, they are an awesome combo. I did end up swapping the Woodchipper bars for the Cowchipper. The biggest difference is that the Cowchipper allows me to ride off road tracks in my drops. My hands are too small for the Woodchipper and were sliding down going over rough terrain.

To date I have done about 5000km’s on my “one of a kind” Yeti, including the Tour Aotearoa. It has proven to be a great brevet bike for this type of terrain. I would love to take it over to the States one day and ride the Great Divide Ride on it too. Here’s to adventure…!

• FRAME: 2015 Yeti ARC Carbon - size medium

• FORK: Enve Mountain Fork 29" – tapered steerer, 15 mm through

• PAINTWORK: Custom painted in Yeti turquoise by Guy 

• HEADSET: Chris King

• HANDLEBAR: Salsa Cowchipper – 44cm wide model

• BAR TAPE: Specialized Roubaix Tape plus Bar Phat gel pads

• STEM: Thomson Elite x4 stem – 0 degree rise, 70mm extension

• BRAKE LEVERS plus SHIFT LEVERS: Gevenalle GX – Compatible with Shimano Dyna-Sys Deraileurs

• BRAKES: Avid BB-7 front and rear with sintered pads

• BRAKE ROTORS: Shimano XT 160mm front and rear

• AERO BARS: Profile Design T3+ Carbon

• AERO BAR ACCESSORY: Fred Bar by Siren Bicycles and homemade gps and bike light mount

• CABLE ACCESSORY: Jagwire compact adjusters

• FRONT DERAILLEUR: Shimano XT direct mount 2×10

• REAR DERAILLEUR: Shimano XT – medium cage

• CRANKSET: Shimano XT 2x10

• BOTTOM BRACKET: Enduro XD15 threaded

• CHAINRINGS: Shimano XT 28t - 38t

• CASSETTE: Shimano XT – 11- 36

• CHAIN: Shimano XT SilTech 10 spd 

• PEDALS: Shimano XTR Trail

• SEATPOST: Thomson

• SADDLE: Specialized Phenom Expert

• HUBS: DT Swiss 240’s – front 15x100 & rear 12x142 6 bolt 

• RIMS: Light bicycle 29” carbon rims – 30 mm wide and tubeless ready

• SPOKES: DT competition

• RIM STRIPS: Stans

• SEALANT: Stans- about 100ml per tire

• TIRES:  Schwalbe Thunder Burt SnakeSkin 29×2.1 

• WATER BOTTLE MOUNT: Trevor’s unique double cage mount

• WATER CAGES: Specialized side mount

Tour Aotearoa, a 3000km dirt brevet from Cape Reinga to Bluff

Read More

Mainland weekender

A series of coincidences led to a sortee down to the mainland to compete in the Blenheim round of the Cyclocross Nationals on July 21.

De Snor, Alex Revell was keen to head down and asked if he could stay in the Voodoo Lounge. His fellow Revolution Cycles rider Geoffrey Notman had to head down south anyway to take photos for some painting he was doing, so it would have been rude not to fit in the race while he was there as well. For me it was a good chance to catch up with my family and bring back a motor scooter my brother had offered me, and obviously I would take part in the race too.

There was a taste of things to come when on the Friday morning as I was getting ready a particularly nasty quake rocked our house. It was a lot worse at my work where people were getting a bit more excitable, as is there job to. While I was sailing over the Cook Strait on the Bluebridge Ferry later on I got a text from my daughter saying another one had struck.

Alex roosts it up. Image from Sarnim Dean.
http://www.sarnim.com

Things seemed to cool down for a bit that night while my brother shouted us out to tea at the Redwood Tavern. The next day, Saturday, like a couple of gun-fighters, Alex and Geoff rode into town rather than accept the complimentary Voodoo Lounge flat-deck-truck pick-up.

They checked out dads latest "eagle" and made themselves comfy in the Voodoo Lounge. It was the first time for Geoff but Alex had stayed before and after the 2012 Kiwi Brevet..

We tweaked the bikes for the next day's event and after a wholesome meal topped off with a complimentary bottle of wine left over from the Grape Ride three years previous, we hit the sack.

Around 7am on Sunday we were awoken by a sharp quake that knocked a picture frame off the shelf. Hmmm. A bit of a swarm thing going on here.

I had first heard of Mondo Kopua at the inaugural Kiwi Brevet in 2010 and he seems to have taken up the role of introducing CX to the locals in Blenheim. They were very organized and I think they also had a points system for the non-CX class where they got credits for things such as skin-suits, costumes and leg-shavings.

Image from Bike-fit.co.nz

The course had some good technical bits and was quite a bit rougher than the manicured stop-banks and parks we are spoilt with in Upper Hutt, or "Upper Belgium" as its known. I was happy to be on my steel Singular Kite and wondered how much battering Alex and Geoff would have been getting on  their alloy Yeti's as they bounced over the myriad of cow-pocks that were in parts of the course. I don't usually race CX with gloves on, and this day was no exception but by the end of the event I had a very nasty blister from my cow-pock induced death-grip!

My speedy starts seem to be a thing of the past so these days I seem to be relying on a consistency that manifests itself in a 14 second spread on a long 7-8 minute course like this. Geoff and I were both racing vets men 45+ and I watched as he started putting putting a good 10 seconds a lap on me as he rode off leaving me to battle with the fastest ladies. Anja McDonald and Jenna Makgill were both riders I had heard about through mountainbiking and I knew technically speaking both of them would ride rings around me. Downhill, Cross country, fixed gear and Singlespeeding, these ladies have big reps, World champ and National Champs status across all codes, but I had no idea any of them were CXers. 

Me flying my Kite.
Check out the levers.
http://www.sarnim.com

I busied myself at trying not to fall off on the slimy off-camber and after a few laps I managed to haul Jenna back probably courtesy of my running fitness, up one of the grunty walking climbs. It was common for me to come a cropper at least once a lap, and to fail at reclipping into my pedals as my crash point was usually followed by a pocky descent that was bumping my feet off the pedals. Sucks to be a nana!

The race was to be a bit longer than normal at 60 minutes plus 1 lap and eventually I pulled back Geoffrey and started catching a few more riders and lapping a few more. The "other" Mike Anderson from Stoke Cycles was just around the corner and for two laps I tailed him and Anja as Anja's lap times started to blow out. On the last lap I made a move and somehow cleaned the technical bit that was stymieing me, dropped Mike and ran past Anja on the next climb. Great I had it nailed. Unfortunately the last zig-zag proved too much for my nana-skills and I lost the front-end yet again and with my levers getting progressively lower with each get-off there was no way I was going to make the time back with less than a couple of minutes to go!

Somewhere along the way we caught Jut Bishop who I remember from back in the 90's as being the area's top MTBer. Its cool to see him still out there giving it a crack. 

Geoffrey Notman with his racing head on.
http://www.sarnim.com

Alex was having it mostly his own way after his main competition, Logan Horn from Christchurch burped his tubeless tires twice on a firm part of the course, not that it meant that Alex slowed down at all, indeed he came a good cropper on the triple-set of stiles at the start-finish and scored a good haematoma for his efforts. It was great to hear some of Alex's tales from his CX racing in Europe last year.

We were late in starting the race so Geoff and I split ASAP when it finished to get out to his next appointment at Renwick where he was taking some shots for inspiration for his next series of paintings. Alex also took off so sadly missed the prize giving which looked particularly salubrious with some very nice bottles of wine and other goodies up for grabs.

After attending the Renwick Boar Slaying comp we realised what a completely fringe activity Cyclocross is by comparison. Thanks Mondo for lifting the profile!

After another wholesome meal from my mum I was contemplating jumping on my new scooter for its last ride on the mainland, to the ferry, when the next quake hit at 5.09. A 6.5 ! What a monster. I cant say I've ever been scared of an earthquake to that extent in NZ before. Suffice to say it was a busy week at work the next week.

We really enjoyed our brief shaky interlude down south and would recommend anyone to check out the CX events Mondo, Brent and his crew are putting on down there. We travelled via the Bluebridge Ferry which has free wifi and movies. Compare this to the Interislander Ferry where you have to pay for both of these, on top of a more expensive passage fee, plus The Bluebridge people had a half price deal on : )

Thanks to Sarnim Dean for the use of his awesome images on these pages. Check out the classic one below. This is Kim Swan (the one on the left ; ). She is a good friend of my fathers and has written many books on Pig-Hunting and horse riding.  For more on this theme check out Sarnim's pix in his Flickr feed.

Kim Swan, look harder, no, on the left ! http://www.sarnim.com

Results here.

Read More