Wednesday, July 09, 2008

El retorno

I'm back on Aus soil, and so far it feels ok. The weather has been cool but sunny, and I got out on the Roubaix for a lap of my old route on Monday, taking in the coastline south of Belmont, down to Catherine Hill Bay and Frazer Park. Col was gonna come too, but had some excuse about vomitting or something... for a doctor he sure is unhealthy.No jacket required, just cool enough for arm and knee warmers, though I probably could've gotten away with BKW's if my legs weren't so pasty from the Wellington 6am rides. I called in to Hadley Cycles at Belmont, my old place of work and saw Levi, still plugging along and expecting his second rugrat. Nice work, if you like that sort of thing! The line-up of Giants didn't do much to excite me though. The old man has almost finished his restoration job of his boyhood Speedwell, and I must say it's looking fantastic. I wouldn't mind riding around Welly on that, it's got the old-school style goin on for sure. All the chrome bits are the original 1952 items, re-chromed and lookin sharp. He's got a Brooks saddle bag and leather bar tape coming for it, which will finish it off nicely. I'm trying to convince him that it needs to be run single-speed, the 3-speed hub isn't working anyway. Those brakes may look the business, but without pads they don't do much to slow you down. I found that out on my ride down the driveway. Caught up with the Kman and Kath for dinner, and got to check out his new Nomad and El Mariachi, both sweet bikes which I'm looking forward to sampling in Glenrock and Killi while I'm here.

4 comments:

Mike and Karen said...

That Speedwell does look cool. Does it come in a 52?

brettok said...

Yeah it does, and it is; a 1952. It's too much bike for you mate....

Flametop59 said...

Real men ride 52!

Hopefully the weather is better there than it is here in New Jersey. So far it is has rained or threatened rain almost every day. Not much riding. Makes me almost miss the winter.

Flametop59 said...

On Versus Network they speculated that Cadel Evans might be moving to Garmin Chipolte.