Broke-back-brakes

Bah humbug. A very fun round of the PNP MTB series came to nought for me today when a slow speed crash once again broke my Formula Oro brakes.

What happens is the lever rips the push-rod out of the piston assembly and you are munted until you get the arm off to force it back in. A 5 minute job in my shed with the correct 2mm allen key. (Note to myself - put a 2mm key in my kit).
I was having a great old time dicing around the 4-5th spot with Simon Kennet and Clydesdale Kerei Thomson in the very competitive Master two class.
Theres a fair bit of difference between the bottom age group in m2 and the top, as this is the time when as old bastards (Ian Paintin excepted) we really tail off in fitness. I remember when I came up from M1 to M2 as being the fastest period of my life, but back in those days, you didnt get burglars rarking it up ; ) . Angry Clive announced that he is up to M2 next year so that's something else to look forward to!

The Makara trails are real fun when you know where they go and I have to say I am pretty envious of the buggers that have them on their back doorstep. Signage was very good this time, but pre-riding is essential on this kind of multi-lap "portions of loops" kind of course and I suspect that all the wrong turns I made were because I had used all my mitochondria for pedalling and hadn't saved any for cognitive thought.....

I know Marco prayed for good weather and went to bed early last night cos when I rang him at 9.30 he was in la-la land chasing rabbits. It must have paid off as the course was completely mint (apart from the t2 obstacle course) and the weather stayed good right up until the prize giving.
Well done Marco and crew, and of especially Iva, plugging away on the lappy.

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This is pretty cool - make it big, then drag for 360 effect

Kokanee Crankworx — © MyPlanet 360°

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Cyclo-cross in the Hutt Valley

Its hard to understand why, but Mike Anderson from The BikeHutt was a little disappointed with the weather last saturday. Mikes 2nd Cyclocross race of the year sported the best weather for an off-road event that I have seen since......well, since his last Cyclocross event on July the 4th!

How can that be bad?
Well Cyclo-cross (CX ) is supposed to be all about racing around a short muddy circuit while plastered from head to toe in mud and sweat.

There was plenty of sweat, but the mud pretty much stayed on the dry firm ground. The course was still challenging, and favoured the CXers more than in the last event, which had a short muddy hill in it. I am pretty sure Mike was hanging out for some more mud! Mike had the traditional CX man-made obstacles placed in exactly the right spot to bust your rhythm.

CX is a great sport for the family and spectators with a constant stream of riders coming past the start finish - most people taking between 2 and 4 minutes to do a lap.

Mike held a 1 lap kids race which could easily become a big feature if the word gets out. These courses are fully doable by any kid with 2 wheels, and you know that's a very rare thing in hilly Wellington.

Mike has a good relationship with the Council who are no doubt impressed with the state he leaves the grass in!! The numbers were down a little from the 4th of July event which also had a fancy-dress element to it with a very popular appearance from Wonder Woman. (More pix from round 1)

This time around there was more Coffee and and an impressive mobile Pizza Oven from NYPD Pizzas. Craig Madsen was there taking pix with Cycletech supplying extreme value for money prizes given the $5 cost of entry!
Well done Mike.

The saturday morning time-slot might be a tough one to fill with family's and kids sport but time will tell.
Top image supplied by Craig Madsen.

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Formula Oro Puro brake dismantle/disassemble

There is an exploded diagram at bottom of this post.

The Formula Oro Puro disc brake has been around for a few years now. Its a very light brake with good stopping power and modulation.

The only downside I have found is with the FCS (Feeling Control System) adjuster, which can break, in impacts where the lever assembly is pushed "away from the handlebars". When this happens the push-rod usually dislocates from its seat in the end of the "piston" which is housed in the lever or "pump" body (as it is called).

You can usually carry on riding after forcing the push-rod back into the piston-kit Assembly, by applying the brake very firmly, in the normal braking manner, and replace the FCS adjuster later when you have the required tools.

In order to recondition the "pump" body you need to remove the actual brake "lever".There are two types of levers, alloy and carbon.

If you have the alloy lever you need to look carefully inside it. Above the threaded end of the push-rod, recessed into the lever, is a small 2mm grub-screw. This screw fixes the pin which the brake lever pivots on. Loosen the grub-screw a few turns and push out the pivot-pin with the end of a 3mm allen key.


There are actually two types of carbon lever, one has no grub-screw! The pivot-pin lever is "pressed" into place. Carefully tap it out with something of a slightly smaller diameter.

Although you have removed the pivot pin, the brake lever is still attached by the push-rod, to the piston, which is housed in the "pump" body.

Hold onto the brake lever assembly and gently but firmly, and with a lot of force slowly wrench the push-rod out of the end of the piston kit which is still firmly attached to the pump body. It is only held in by a firm "press-fit".

When the lever assembly with push-rod attached, is removed from the pump body, you will be able to see the piston-kit assembly and FCS adjuster are held into the pump body by a small torcx screw. (see above)

If you have broken your FCS adjuster in a crash, or your brake levers are no longer returning to their neutral position after use, you should undo the torcx screw that holds the FCS and piston in place, while keeping pressure on the top of the FCS adjuster in case it flies off after the screw is removed.

If the FCS adjuster is broken, then replace it with a new kit.
If the brake lever was not returning properly then replace the "pump-piston kit" with a new one, after coating liberally with the grease supplied in the kit.

Assemble in reverse order. This time you will need to apply a bit of force when seating the end of the push-rod back into the piston assembly.

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Whakapapa, an attempt at skiing

The snow was great.
Day 1, white out and 20cms of fresh powder.
Day 2, more snow, 5 metres of visibility and slight rain.
Day 3! More snow, sunny all round but high winds so the chairs werent open other than Happy valley. We got in 1 whole days skiing overall and stayed at the Graduates Lodge. They have a great chef there call Paul. This is the view from the bathroom window on day 3.

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Wiggins hangs in in the hills. Tour de France stage 15

Interviewer:
Brad, you were able to counter-attack the best with Armstrong Kloden strong. You done in great performance there?

Wiggins:
Yeah. I have yeah. Wodga want me to say? I dunno. I dunno what to say. Yeah.

Interviewer:
You proved to be among the best at this Tour de France.

Wiggins:
Yah reckon? Well see eh. Theres a long way to go. Yah know, lets not get too excited ya know. Thats one day. Tomorrows another day. Tommorrow I could be last in the tour de France. Ya know. Who knows.

Interviewer:
But, you are satisfied Brad no? You are highly satisfied?

Wiggins:
Yeah. What'd you think.

http://www.steephill.tv/players/cosmos/?title=tdf-st15-wiggins09&id=14597099

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Ayup Roadie - Ayup Multisport revisited

I did a post on the Ayup roadie lighting kit a while back.
These lights are a bit viral. Once you see them you just have to have them. At least 4 of my workmates have them now, and 1 nutter has 4 pairs. Everyone I know who has brought lights in the last year has gone for Ayups, except for 1 person who opted for the grunty NZ made Night Lightning. More on that later.

The attraction to these lights seems to be the overall package. No one thing really stands out, except maybe their simplicity, and the weight. If you are a weight weenie, this is the system for you. The Ayups are so small and light that you can even mount the 100 gram 3-hour battery on your helmet and hardly notice it. The light units themselves weigh only 58 grams. This is where all the other systems come a distant 2nd place. The aforementioned Night Lightning iBlaast has a large unwieldy lamp, and the battery is large and heavy by comparison (to the Ayups). There is no doubt the iBlaast is more powerful, but that is the one thing it has over the Ayup. A very important consideration for sure. The Ayup Roadie Kit is now called the Ayup Multisport kit, which is pretty much the same, except you get 2 x 3 hours batteries instead of 1 x 6 hour.

There have been a few upgrades from Ayup in the last year, and they now have a dedicated head mount for night running and multi-sporting which seems to work well with their minimalist approach.

I had never actually run my battery completely out, so I decided to test it to failure the other day. You are supposed to get 6 hours out of the bigger battery, but 8 hours later it was still going. Admittedly it was a lot dimmer, but they weren't going yellow, just a very gradual lessening of intensity over time.

After a year my battery’s cord developed a small nick in it where the cord comes out of the casing. An email to Ayup and within a week they had replaced my battery. That’s pretty good service.

I think the next part of their arsenal to try is the new “gecko” version of their helmet mounts. The old one didnt agree with my old helmet’s worn out padding so well , so I will let you know if I get my hands a the new one.

The heavier 6 hour battery still only weighs 156 grams and is about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

Shown here are the handlebar mount, helmet mount, light and a 6 hour battery (and a ballpoint pen for scale).
Another review here from a unicyclist.

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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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Kermie lives!

Kermie came away with a 2nd place in Pro Women at Xterra 2009. Well done to the pilot Susie Wood !

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