New toy just arrived...

Power tap Pro.
Looks a bit like an SL, but its not.
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The Saris guys are amazing. They certainly stand by their product. Awesome to know this when you live thousands of miles away from their HQ. These babies look totally different inside to the old yellow model pro. It has little hearing aid type batteries instead of the bigger half AA sized ones.


The weight is very similar to the old yellow pro though, despite the shiney carbon : ) - well, it was on my kitchen scale.

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THE HUMANS ARE DEAD (I poked one.. it was dead)

This is the Flight of the Conchords. NZ's 4th most popular Folk Comedy Duo. Currently screening on HBO.

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Dynamic Composites Zen Disks

I really liked the look of these wheels while at the the Track nats this year so I took a few shots.

Apparently their offical launch is coming in the next few months. Stay tuned.

zen-wheels

zen-bike

http://www.dynamic-composites.co.nz

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A commute route I often take to get to work

This is a commute route I often take to get to work. I live about 2kms from work, and its all downhill. Good for 14 calories of expenditure according to my power tap. So some times I start by carrying on up my hill until I reach the Danzig MTB track built by the local MTB club. If I ride down it, then back up again, and back down my hill, its a good 60 mins of single-track fun.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41957928@N00/sets/72157600225825229/
Or a slide-show here.

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A lunch time ride in the Hutt Valley

This is a lunch time ride for us here in "The Hutt". It takes in Moonshine Hill and can be done at a firm pace of 1 hour and 9 mins from my place of work. It has one of the steepest climbs about and I think it is about 15 %. Check out the location map if you are a Lord of The Rings fan. For a hell of a long time the set for the battle scene of Helms deep was sitting in at Dry Creek Quarry at the bottom of Haywards hill.
You could see if from the road, I guess I shoudl have taken a picture? A lot of this stuff is lying around in back-lots in Wellington as they dont really know what to do with it. What do you do with giant polystyrene monsters and buildings.They filmed the downtown scenes for King Kong behind my wifes work in Petone, but you couldnt see a thing. Amazing the tiny places they can sneak a movie set into.

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Flying Scotsman movie

I saw the movie last night. The Mrs was using the car carting the kids about, so I had to ride my bike into town to meet the folks I was going with. I thought it was apt that I should ride my fixer so by the time I got to their house at the top of Brookyn Hill my legs were seriously munted.

The guys I went with were not cyclists at all, but they loved the movie. Its been playing for 3 days now in Wellington, altho there were only about 10 of us in the theatre last night. Many cyclists have said to me that its their favorite movie and it would be the best cycling movie I have seen too.
The movie manages to come across in a really balanced way that has appeal to the man/woman on the street and still manages to appeal to the hard core cyclist. The UCI (called the WCF in the movie) get pretty demonised, but everyone else comes out pretty well. Chris Boardman comes over as a genuinely good sportsman which is pretty much the feeling I got from reading the book.

The topic of depression is dealt with very well. Its always there in the background, but doesnt overwhelm the movie. With 1 in 5 people in this country being afflicted at some stage in their life its a topic that could do with more coverage. I am sure Graham isnt the only athlete to have suffered.

The movie seems to finish quite abruptly. There was a lot more that could have been put in, but it would possibly have ended up looking repetitive in the end, as it was more of the same. Wins more, position banned, more downers etc.

I would definitely recommend it as a great movie to watch, for cycling fans, and non-fans. Maybe the non-fans would enjoy it the most, because they will know less about it, and be gobsmacked at the way things happened. The people I went with were.

As usual, a movie never matches up to the book, but thats a tall order in 105 minutes. The best way to do it would be movie first, then book.
Its an awesome book, and a great movie.

Audio here from review and chat to the director

Obree in a recent race.
Wikipedia

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