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I had this Paul Components order turn up today, some of this is just for stock but a few sets of brakes, the levers and other small parts are for various bikes that I have in the queue. One of the bikes is Bob’s touring bike which is now finished and ready for the painter, another is my new commuter bike which will be back from the painter next week.

I have another small order on the way which contains one of the limited edition purple anodised seat posts and a bottle opener for a friend.

Caldera Cycles is a Paul Components dealer for New Zealand so if you’re after some of their amazing parts, all the way from Chico CA in little ol’ New Zealand, send me an email.

Got to start them out right – Custom steel all the way!

More photos on Flickr

The rest are on Flickr – Here

A lot of this race is on relatively smooth gravel roads, there’s a section of moderately technical single track and a little bit of sealed road at the beginning and end.

I’ve done the event 5 times now, although 4 of those were actually on mountain bikes, I actually don’t own a mountain bike now and figured it was cyclocross’able. That theory went reasonably well except apparently my core strength wasn’t up to the jarring of that much gravel road, corrugations and bumpy, technical (for a CX bike) single track…. By the end of the race I felt like my core had been shaken to bits, all of my muscles around my lower back and ab’s were stiff and tender. My shoulders, forearms and triceps were about the same.

My hands felt like they’d done all the gripping and hanging on that they could do for the day… The worst section was a descent on farmland about half way through the race… the bumpy, rutty trail was a bit of a challenge in terms of hanging on. I’m sure a full suspension 29′er would have no problem at full speed but on my cross bike… different story. At least I didn’t get off to run down the steep switchbacks at the end of the singletrack like the mountain bikers in front of me!

None of that was really a problem and nothing less than I expected. The biggest issue was that from the point of signing up and knowing I was doing the event on a CX bike I was afraid of crashing on a slidy, corrugated, gravel descent, to the point that I think I jinxed myself! Coming down from the highest point of the course (only 15-20km in) I took the first few corners very cautiously as they were very slippery and were lined with big chunks of rolly gravel. The next corner I saw an inside line that I thought was ideal and thought that I could take it at speed…. Turns out I was wrong. I got half way around the corner, messed up the line, put my front tyre into some rolly gravel and the bike slid out from under me. I landed in the gravel and slid along the rocky, grittiness on my hands, elbows, hip and knee…. Grating off chunks of skin with it. Next thing I know, I’m laying on the road, my bike sitting in the middle of the corner and I can hear mountain bike tyres approaching, FAST. In fear of being run over or causing another crash, I rolled over, tried to put my foot down to stand up but ended up falling down, into a ditch on the side of the road.

The ditch was as high as my shoulders and there wasn’t really anything to grab onto to pull myself out. I’m sure the riders going past were probably wondering how the hell I ended up down there, and so far away from my bike. They were yelling, asking “You alight?”, I yelled back YES, Fine! kindof laughing at myself, trying to assess the damage as pain hadn’t set in yet and trying to pull myself out of the ditch as fast as I could to retrieve my bike before someone ran it over.

Back on the bike, the derailleur had been hit hard so I checked that the hanger wasn’t bent badly just in-case it was going to jump into the wheel and then I was back into it… Hip, elbows and knee dripping blood and quite shaken up by that stage, It took me at least 20 mins to really get back into it and focus again. Even then, I was feeling like i’d been beaten with a bat. I finshed the race at a time of 3.39 which I was happy with but a little disappointed at the same time, If i’d trained on gravel a little more (or maybe more running would help?) and had a bit more core strength and if i’d taken the descents a little more carefully I’m sure I could have easily done a better time… At least I know for next year.

If you want to see all of the photos the’re in this Flickr Photo Set. Otherwise, head over to the portfolio page.

Ever since Christmas and the New Year, everything’s been pretty hectic but I have been working away on a few frames.

John’s Touring frameset is back from paint but still waiting on a few parts which were held up because Shimano had no stock. These are some photos the painter took in the booth.

I’ve finished the commuter bike besides one tiny braze-on that i’m waiting on (Big package of materials which was held up by customs). I actually don’t have any photos of that but will get some before & after it goes to paint.

I’m also about 75% through building Bob’s touring bike which i’ve been taking photos at every step.

I used a whole bunch of pins in the head tube of this one, especially the lower head lug – I had to manipulate the lug angles a lot to get this working and the lug fit well, it just needed some help to keep it all sitting where I needed it. More on that later when I do a post about this build. You can checkout the photos i’ve taken & uploaded so far on Flickr, here.