Hairspray and A Lack Of Gloves

I put my track drops back on this week.  I forgot how much fun it is riding with them.

Charge Shaker Hub Update

I posted something a while back (Here) about my new Charge Shaker hub. I was pretty impressed with it at the time but, as with everything bike related, the real test would be using the thing day after day, in the wet, racking up thousands of miles on it.

After all that I can tell you I'm still impressed with this hub. It was very new when I initially built my new wheel with it, I could find no reviews or opinion anywhere online. There were some people expressing various concerns, but that was it.

The reason I opted for the Shaker hub was down to the fact that I broke two or three hubs. I'm a big guy and I found that, when getting out of my saddle and climbing my cogs were slipping, occasionally ending with me on the tarmac. Now, I know what you're thinking, and yes, if I'd invested in a Phil Wood or a similar high end hub then I'd have no problems with stripping threads or lock ring issues. Financially I wasn't in a position back then to shell out that kind of cash.

This hub has held up very well. It's been very low maintenance, and I've gone from worrying daily about potential hub/cog problems to never giving it a thought these days. The bolt system which holds the cog to the hub has been great. I kinda expected to find these tiny bolts working loose over time but after routinely checking them, they have stayed tight. Although, I've noticed that the hub has become fairly noisy lately. I've not serviced the bearings yet as I'd have hoped, as they are 'sealed japanese', they'd not need to be looked at for a while yet.

A friend of mine, who has the same hub, has had problems with the axle bolts, both of which snapped while he was tightening them. Mine have been fine.

I've ridden a couple of thousand miles on this hub so far, including many runs of 50+ miles. Strangely, I've snapped four spokes on my rear wheel lately. This is more than likely due to poorly maintained tension, but it has crossed my mind that it may be something to do with the hub. After replacing the broken spokes myself the first couple of times (but not checking the tension or trueing the wheel) I finally took it to my lbs where they gave it an overhaul (cheers Gav!)

I Place A Lot Of Trust In This

I got myself a new Charge Shaker Hub a few weeks ago. As some of you may know I've been through quite a few hubs lately. The last 'mechanical failure' was during a steep climb between checkpoint 1 and checkpoint 2 in the Bristol Alleycat. I fell twice infact, both times due to a slipping cog. The second fall caused me to slam head first into a car, leaving a rather large dent it the passenger door. It's a horrible feeling when you don't have 100% confidence in your bike. It makes you hold back a lot.

So I thought I'd give a bolt on hub a try, and, after researching the few that are available (Phil Wood, Level etc), I decided on keeping it British (and cheap) and went for a Charge Shaker.

So far so good. I've done a couple of hundred miles on it now and everything seems to safe and sound. I can even climb again. I feels pretty solid. Before I wasn't able to get up out of my seat and get up the steep assents because thats when my other hubs/cogs tended to fail.

Don't ask me why I went for the red though. I bumped into the Charge rep yesterday and gave him some stick for the colour options they have initially put out. No silver?

Hills x 15

I did some more filming last week with Jfish. It was a beautiful crisp day with ice and snow around, but we managed to luck out with a few hills I'd had in mind to film. I'd been looking at this one hill for a while and it was dry!

We got some good footage on a street which drops down pretty steeply and then shoots back up again immediately. Apparently the hill side was hit by a German bomb during WW2 and made this super fun and photogenic cratered street.

I ended up tearing my tyre a new a-hole because we filmed it 15times from all sorts of angles. I need a tyre sponsor! We use Fisher's awesome car to do follow shots. It's all pretty technical. (Essentially, we open the sun roof and stick the tripod and camera though the gap, ha).

Excuse the bad photo, but I have a new phone and the camera is awful.

Filming begins (A giant ball of fire in the sky)

Today a few of us went out for a few hours of filming and riding. The weather was looking okay for a change so we got Fisher and his cameras and car and did some test and experimental stuff, trying a mix of different shots and angles. We tried some stuff using the car too.

I think we could well come up with something pretty good at the end of it all. Swansea has many many hills to use and with Fishers keen eye and editing skills I reckon something beautiful could happen.

I did forget how much standing round is involved with filming. All those winter days filming a single trick or line came flooding back from my skating days. Fun though.

See a sample at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEBo-Q4W9u4

Ty and myself went out today to try and get some bike photos. Turns out it's pretty tricky to get really good money shots. Ty reckons that this picture of me is the only usable one of the session. The wind was super strong today too (I could hardly trackstand!) with bursts of rain every 10 minutes so it wasn't really terrific conditions for riding. But we'll try, try, try again until we nail some good shit. Fisher is up for some filming for out documentary too. Anyone else in?

The pic is from Ty at thefootdown.co.uk

For Amy

Macaframa Soundtrack At Last!

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=670NQRC0

Been waiting for this for ages. It's probably going to contribute to my death. (Riding hills listening to bike film soundtracks only makes you go faster).