The Genderpretender & the Handjob

A while back I got my grubby hands on a beautiful Ibis Mojo. My Mojo really opened up my riding and allowed me to get into much more trouble than I had previously been able to on hardtails. Everything just got easy. I became both an Ibis and a carbon fan.

But I still love hardtails. Singlespeed ones especially. The lustiest I’d ever lusted after was Tim ‘Adonis’ Wildman’s Ibis Tranny which he’d won the SS Nats on. When he gave me the whisper that it was looking for a new owner, I sold everything that wasn’t nailed down at Aldred Mansions and grabbed it. After buying the Mojo it was tough to find things that were not nailed down which could be sold. The two highest value items in the house had heartbeats and I didn’t think I could get away with that, but I got there in the end.

The Tranny is Ibis’ hardtail/singlespeed/travel bike. I’ll probably never use the travel bike feature, which is where the back end comes off to enable fitting into a normal suitcase. But the singlespeed functionality I use pretty much all the time. There is a joint acting as a pivot below the seat collar on the seatstay. Then behind the bottom bracket there is a “Slot Machine” which is where the action happens. You loosen one bolt, gently push down on the bike, which extends the chainstays via the Slot Machine. Check chain tension. Tighten bolt. By far the easiest SS tensioning I’ve come across. Totally creak free too and no loosening.



The frame is awesome. Big fat carbon tubes and smooth lines, a lot like the Mojo. It has neat removable cable stops to clean it up when not running gears and the SS dropout (which I am yet to get) has a bottle opener, because we all know from the plethora of bottle openers on SS bikes, that all SS riders take glass beer bottles into the hills and crack them open on their bikes.

I built it up with a shortish stem for an ‘XC’ bike – a 70mm Thomson, and it keeps the steering nice and nippy and is great on the steep stuff. Its got a nice wide Sunline flat bar too. I think hardtails look more business-like with flat bars. Its got some Hope hubs with Flows. People scoffed at my heavy rims, but I wanted bomber strong and uber stiff wheels which could jump and get thrown about a bit. The Flows are not heavy anyway. They just look heavy next to very light Stans rims like Crests and wotnot. I am not even allowed on some of the lad's wheels as I weigh over 80kg. That is just wrong.

She/he has a straight 2:1 gear. Its is sometimes a little tall around Wellington, but making it easier would mean tossing in a man card and I don’t want to do that. So it’s a strong build, not a weight weenie build, although the light frame would certainly enable a low weight build if it was my thing.





I banged some gears on it the other day for the Porirua Grand Traverse and it was the fastest bike I’ve ever raced. Although the only other decent hardtail I’ve raced was a 1999 S-Works, so things have come quite a way! I looked forward to taking the gears off though to reveal its true beauty again. Although no sooner than I did so, Boner Toner whisked it off to Keith Manor, put stripes on it and raced it at the SS Nats in Napier. Tones got a fine 5th place which was fantastic.
Credit - BluedogSS Facebook. Thanks

She/he is a mint ride. Its hard to say if She/he is my favourite over the Mojo. It depends on the day. I love how stiff the Tranny is when giving it the beans. I stamp and she goes and goes.

Is owning two Ibis bikes enough? Haha, I lol at you – of course it is not enough. So what is it I want now? An HD? The new SL-R? Maybe a Hakkaluggi for the Crosstafarian's Wellington CX series?

No. I want Simon Kennett’s early 90’s Ibis steel tandem.

Simon and I ended up on the same initiative/workshop the other day around the relationship between buses and cyclists in Wellington. The wily, wiry fellow bought along an extremely rare Ibis tandem. I made my starting bid at an insulting $500, hoping maybe Simon didn’t actually know anything about bikes. But it turned out that Simon has some knowledge of these maters and he lolled at my offer. By the end of the session I had upped my offer to about $1,500 for this ancient iron horse, but he was still not budging.






If I come into any money I will be straight round to Kennett Mansions with my next offer. I need that bike and it needs a good restoration and Simon is too much of a hippy to do it. He would probably cover it with something sustainable like hemp paste and bits of vegetable.

Just look at the wonderful handjob. Snakes alive – it is too marvellous to even bear witness to without weeping.

After all this lyrical waxing you could be mistaken for thinking I was sponsored by Ibis or something. But alas no. Ibis (and Santa Cruz) bikes are bought into NZ by Mike at Hyperformance Hardware, and he mostly supports athletes rather than Whopper scoffing, chubby weekend warriors. Mike is an excellent ambassador for his brands and has been brilliant at dishing out all the right advice to me on many occasions. Thanks, Mike!

See you on the trails (every few weeks when I get a chance).

Cheers
Dave

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Where are the frickin' keys? : Porirua Grand Traverse 2011

The PGT mtb ride is an awesome, non-technical XC smash from Battle Hill, across Belmont into Porirua. Nowadays most courses have a good amount of technical riding and people pull away and drop back as their technical skills come into play - but the PGT is just a drag race where shanks of steel, massive hearts and lungs like bin bags rule over the ability to pop wheelies.

It clashed with the Super-D on Mount Vic this year which was a real shame. But Tiger, Dave and NCX2 decided to spare the downhillers the competition and race the duathlon. We bought in some excellent ring-ins with the goal of doing well in the Team Duo and the Mixed Team Duo.

We had:

The Elites [NCX2 and Stephen Day]
The Sifters [Tigs and Glen Hughes]
Fatman & Robin [Davo and Jo Doherty]

>> Banter and warm up for 8am start. Plenty of friendly faces.

>> Davo drops chain off line but gets back to the front asap and tells T-Rex to pull his head in and get in behind so Dave can cross stream in lead pulling epic bedroom face, to reinforce to his spectating wife that he is not as washed up as everyone says.


>> Timmo also pulls a face depicting his usual role in the bedroom.


>> Davo quickly gets overtaken by Tim, Clive, Tigs, Nick Waring, Marcel, Trevor, their neighbours, tennis partners, some old people and some cats.

>> Gaps appear and get stretched. Timmo, Clive and Nick control the front.

>> Super loose gravel logging road downhills threaten hardcore skin loss, but take no victims.

>> Dave catches Trevor, Trevor drops Dave.

>> Clive goes wrong way and maintains he now has to ride with 'slower riders' in order to stay on course. Still at front of race though.

>> Nick Waring drops T-Rex and takes the mtb win.

>> Tigs and Marcel, dsitracted by each other's impressive calves and gate jumping skillz, head the wrong way in Bothamly Park to spend 5 minutes alone together.

>> Trevor, closely followed by Dave, steal Tigs and Marcel's positions.

>> Transition - The runners take off across the park and up Colonial Knob.

>> The boys return to the car. One of the runners have the keys. But which one?

>> The boys sift to the Titahi Bay beach to bromance on the sand and cheer on the runners. Stephen comes through first, with Glen hot on his heels. Tigs runs along side "Have you got the car keys?.. Tell me where they are and you can have some water..."




>> Marcel and Tim come past. Clive and Dave cheer and nod respectfully. Tiger drools and jibbers on about what amazing specimens of manhood they both are.

Marcel


Tim


Tony Keith


>> Jo is not far behind and comes through fresh and pissed off for going the wrong way for a few minutes. She looks strong though. And little.


>> Glen pulls Stephen in and holds the lead to the finish. Bushlove Sifters win the duathlon for the seond time, narrowly missing out on their record time.

>> Stephen comes in second. Bushlove Elites are the first losers.

>> Jo holds off Penny from the wife swapping Drew/Stewart A-Team, to take the mixed duathlon win.

>> Good free BBQ and Jo and Davo get massages from Cindy from "Muscles Knead Therapy". Thanks Cindy! Tigs gets pummelled by the "Proactive Physio" dude.



Another awesome day out. We'll definitely be back. The drag race mtb and brutal run are fantastic fixtures on the local calendar. Now will any of us try a kayak to do the full thing next time?

The next outing like this is the Crazyman in May. Not sure about anyone else, But Davo and Jo are back in action with Liam 'Vin Diesel' Drew kayaking, as the fairy tale team, "Beauty & the Beasts".

Regards
Leonidas of Sparta
BLR Press Sec & Manscaper

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White Man Can't Jump

1 second! 1 small but critical second is all that stood between me and the win at the inaugural Mt Victoria Super D. Don’t get me wrong I’m happy with race, but if there is one famous phrase to explain where that second was on the race track: White man can’t jump!

After being drummed up for a few months, Sunday April 3rd rolled around (along with an extra hours sleep) and the first of hopefully many Mt Vic Super D’s was on. As I mentioned Super D takes the nice bits of XC, combines them with the fun of DH and throws up a short but sweet mostly downhill race. Mt Vic is traditionally the home of many XC races including nationals, so instead of burying myself for 2 hours in the Mt Vic pines, a quick 5 min sprint was a nicer way to zoom through the trees. If Makara had a great turnout for its Super D, Mt Vic’s would have to be outstanding for it’s first effort; somewhere around 150 riders!



Onto the race. To say I hadn’t practiced the course that much is an understatement; I had been hammering it all week. After throwing on a brand new Bicycle DH top (complete with Amanda Jenkins name on the back to confuse a few people), off I launched into the track knowing every stone, root and corner that was going to greet me over the next 5mins, but what didn’t help was my lack of affection for the time I would spend in the air on each jump; terrifying for an ex-roadie like me. Even so, they all had to be hit if I was keen on a shot at the win.

The first section was a nice fresh track built just in time for the race with oh yes, a nice decent jump in the middle of it. After scrubbing a bit of speed on the approach I cleaned it smoothly, released my death grip on the bars, rolled the next two bumps, then did what a XC gimp does best; turn my pedals hard! The next section is basically what we use often in XC races, just in the opposite direction. Apart from almost shoulder charging a tree, this went by all smoothly. Next up the Bomb drop which had been causing all sort of talk for the last week on Vorb.

Great pic by Jordan Moss, made my jump look madcore!

Unfortunately after some great track work on this section during the week by the Wellington MTB crew, the quicker line was to just ride around it to set up the next rooty section; if that hot line had been blocked off it would have made for a wilder ride. After a smooth run through the roots and ruts around the Bomb drop section, the middle section beckoned; this where I had to make my time up as it was a solid minute of pedalling much to the DH’ers dislike.

With my heart in my hand and fire spreading in the legs I just buried myself over the knoll, along with a motivational cheer from my friend Adrian who reminded me how much money I was racing for: $500! A quick descent back down the other side followed, including a testing roll-over into the football field and more cheers this time from fellow Bushlovers and the girlfriend. Even though I had only been racing for 3 mins I was absolutely smashed by this stage, but luckily it was completely downhill now.



I can remember many a crash on the water tower track, rain or shine. Not this time, just a clean run including the shortcut to bypass Ricky’s punter long line (he’ll do anything to make a track easier). Straight across the road that on a normal day would involve a bit of car dodging (thanks Marco and his crew for holding the traffic up) and yes, I have seen people play chicken on that corner. Through the rooty hill section and onto the jump that proves I suck at jumps.

Another top pic Jordan, too bad I'm not smooth like Hadley

Not that it was a big jump but rather the speed you could get into it was the scary thing. Hadley showed me how cool it could look whipping it in practice, but I took the XC line strolling around the side (at least I hit it on my race run). After breathing a sigh of relief and negotiating another set of roots it was onto the part where everyone wanted to look their best; past all the spectators down the chute off the road, heading down to the skills field (at full noise to look cool of course). Through the final 100 meters of trees, quick jump/dip into the very bottom field and across the line; 4mins and 26sec of Super D action!

Instead of finding out how I did the organisers were crafty and hid the results from everyone until prize giving. After a clean run down the hill I was hoping for a top 5, but when Marcus (N-Duro races, did the timing) dropped a hint that I did a good ride hopes raised that I did in fact get a top placing. 5 min’s later and I found out that my run was good enough for 2nd place, 8 tenths of a second too slow for the $500 prize! I’m not going to lie, I’m gutted I didn’t quite do it after coming so close, but to beat a rider like Kurt Lancaster down a hill involves a perfect run that also requires jumping better then a punter XC jey boy.

Will the Mt Vic Super D be on next year? I hope! Will I do more Super D races? Of course! Will I do DH races? Um, think I’ll give that a bit more time.
I really have to thank all the crew involved in the 2011 Mt Vic Super D, from what I saw it was a roaring success. The tracks were mint, the weather was spot on, the organisation was second to none and everyone that rode looked to be enjoying themselves.

Time to go buy a jumps video!
(Ricky, you still need to beat me in DH/Super D race)

Credit to the anonymous photographer, great pic's.

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