Rowing.....who knew?

Cycling will always ALWAYS be my true love of all things sporting but alas I have discovered a new love, one that holds no bars in terms of power, skill.....ROWING!



Two New Zealand LEGEND rowers pictured above going toe to toe! Unless you have tried it I just dont think you can really appriecate just how much strength and power and skill is involved in this sport, its incredible how much you have to concentrate and the amount of power you need to generate to go fast on the water.

Speaking from experience, you can pull the biggest numbers you want on an indoor rowing machine at the gym but until you hit the water the numbers count for nothing!

I have now been rowing for the past 3mths and it just keeps getting better and better! Apart from the sporting aspect of things the team building within the crews and club is amazing, the coaches are world class ex Olympic and World Champions dating from the 70's right through to only a couple of yrs ago!!! I have never been in the company of 1 Olympic champion let alone 3 in the same shed talking about how to row a boat, its unreal!!!

From 8's to 4's top quads, doubles and now the single scull's this sport is fantastic from start to finish!

If you have a river or lake near by and a rowing club get out there and do it, just try it, im sure you will be hooked!

Thanks to all those who keep reading, sorry for the lack of posts over the past 3mths, I will try to keep things updated a bit better in 2010!

On that note I hope you all had a great Xmas day and wish you all a very happy New Yrs and that 2010 brings you lots of fun and steel bike madness!

Ride safe....G

its ALIVE!!!

This Frame was meant for other things but on arrival I discovered that she was in much MUCH better condition than first thought! NO way could I strip her back and redress her just for the sake of it, this is one beautiful original ol school Merckx!

I had just the answer for my latest addition to the stable, Shimano Dura Ace grouppo 7402 8spd with down tube shifters, that's wright campers...DOWN TUBE SHIFTERS! ah bless!!!



With a full Dura-Ace group including seat post I was (still am) at a bit of a loss to solve the problem of bars and stem for this ride. In the end I had to just throw on the only combo I had lying around which really doesn't do this bike any justice at all but will have to do for now.

Besides there are many beautiful aspects to this bike to distract one from pointing out the bars and stem! Take the number hanger for example, how many of these do you ever see these days? Who cares if they make the frame weigh 200grams more, number hangers on steel frames are functional pieces of artwork in my book!!!



I have always found it interesting yet disturbing that SLX frames just aren't as nice to ride and are heavier than their SL brothers, the last Merckx I actually rode was a SL and it was stunning to ride! This SLX is very Very niiiice don't get me wrong but just doesn't have the same rolling smoothness of an SL.

That said its one HOT bike, ridden today for the 1st time and on a sunny CHCH morning almost every cyclist I saw turned there heads to see what I was riding. I imagine some of the younger riders have never seen a bike without STI or Ergo power shifters before!




Ya just gotta love the lines of a classic geometry steel frame, the engraved lugs and brake bridges to the fork crown, simply magic!

To be fair I'm running out of things to say about this bike, its simply a joy to ride and I love it! the pictures say it all so here are a few more....






Just want to say a MASSIVE thank you to Jason Rico and Ski for getting this bike to me from the US, wouldn't have been possible without you guys helping out so big BIG UPS to you both, Cheers G

Ride safe....G