chewing the handlebar tape, son.......doing it real hard!

Mark Bowden at Appleby's is great. He's training up for a tilt at the world masters in October. Always ask for him if you need help. Tell him I sent you. Ray's OK is you get him on a good day. And oddly, despite his brusque demeanour in the shop, he always acknowledges others on the bike.

Chris at Ken Self's is OK; I think he was Ray's head wrench before going out on his own, but I've found him on occasion to be equally unhelpful as you portray Ray. And his range is limited. And he still tries to flog off year-old bikes at new prices.

Oh well, horses for courses.

cinelli breakfast = race that starts out super fast, i.e. head down, arse up, teeth bared inches from the stem.
Tristan Priem-Victorian former prefessional and famed big-gear slammer.

G'day taswegian dave,

reason I asked, I heard he's a bit of a legend over there in cycling circles...not a bad bloke, (dunno about his staff though!)...anyway, you may or may not know that Ray lost his right leg below the knee (never actually got around to asking him how, come to think of it?)...anyway...he still races, I s'pose he's in his late 60's....I got to know him thru gary & Ronnie Niewand...ray had this carbon fibre leg made up. We sat around quite intoxicated one night pondering the merits of having ya leags chopped off & replacing them with super lightweight carbon...hmmm, less weight, no more lactic acid build up, no more shaving, knee probs..........We reckoned Ray was just a cheat getting an unfair advantage...geez he can drink too, bastard has hollow legs...lol

cheers,

hitchy

Hitch....
Have you ever been down for a beer at the Beehive with Gary?

Needless to say.....another one of my all-time childhood heroes. I was at northcote on the night he and Patey had their massive grudge sprint match that left Patey on the deck in a shower of sparks and minus some bark.....

You're a bit younger than me, i know Ronnie better than gary, (& craig)....had a 'few' beers with gary...a man with a fearsome thirst!...lol...If ya get out with your life when Gary's in form, you've done well!


hitchy

Thanks Rowan. Like you say, horses for courses. I've found Nigel up at Ken Self's to be really good. I only remember seeing young guys working at Ray Appleby's. I must have been there at the wrong times.

I used to train and race and spread the bulls*t with Mark and Craig.....is he still into landscaping and what not? talk about some guys who never took anything too seriously!! Lol....

LOL...I don't think the word 'seriously' exists in any of the Niewand's vocabularies!....Ronnie was actually my first coach....once you took out all the 'expletive deleted' words.....there wasn't a lot left...lol......last i heard they were all flogging some 'snake oil' for recovery & stuff like that....Ronnie gets over to Europe every Aus winter with Ray & gets amongest the Vets competitions in Holland & belguim.....Ronnie is still ranked top 5 in the world for his age at the ITT...amazing family...& top blokes

Hitchy

Classic.....

Ronnie on the motorbike durnig the warmups at Northcote...

"Hey Ron! Take us up to about 40 kays an hour!!"

2 laps later, we're on about 55kmh hurtling around like a team pursuit squad. The bloke in front would come off the roller and you'd struggle to close the gap!!

Hooray.....big justin @ SBR just rang me.......thinks my keo's might be available in a 'couple' of weeks...hope so....I'd like to get used to them before 'Warnie' rolls around...till then Is'pose i'll just stick with my borrowed 296's...(actually they're not to bad!).....hmmm, bike ordered (including pedals 24/4/04)

hitchy

standard bike shop-speak.....

"couple of weeks"-translation-"You might get these for Xmas, Hitchy."

If you've spent some time "in the biz", why aren't you riding carbon like most of the other high rollers?

Is it 'coz you're 205kg?

Carbon? Meh.....[shrug]

the deal on the Scapin was just eye-poppingly too good. My real dream bike is a Litespeed Vortex or Ultimate (even with it's carbon bits!).

Ironically, I was riding a Merckx MX Leader at 72kgs. Talk about getting is arse-end about!!

It's hard to believe they hauled those things over the Alps.

Even Indurain's bikes were about 9kg


https://www.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?...ures/pinarello

Miguel Indurain's 1993 Pinarello Banesto Team Bike
"This was the first TIG-welded steel bike to win the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France, which happened in 1993. We also made the first aluminum TIG-welded bike to win both races in 1995. This was the first year we used Oria tubing. Indurain always had the same size bike - 59x59 - and on this model, we lowered the top tube by two centimeters to make the triangle more compact and more rigid. On the head tube, there was another spacer of two centimeters that brought Indurain's position up higher. That's the way he rode... in his last season, Indurain had an Aheadset stem of 110 degrees to stay in his preferred position. This bike weighs about nine kilograms; it's a very big bike! As well, this bike has 180mm crankarms... you know, Indurain never changed his position in the 15 years he raced on Pinarello bicycles."

I love those old Columbus SLX bikes form the 80s-90s....a much simpler time. Everyone had a vritually identical bike and just raced it over any terrain. Same bike for Paris-Roubaix as alpine Tour stages!!

....and doesn't the position look weird as against 'modern' geometry?.....I've got a couple of piccies of Big Mig in my TDF book, on his T/T bike......a really weird contraption......Speaking of the big fella, i got an email from him a couple of years ago!,.... (no really!)...there was a rumour doing the rounds that he was planning to come out & contest the World masters games in 2002 Road race & T/T. I got onto his website into the 'feedback' section & asked the question?......I think i said something along the lines of 'After I kick your arse, I'll buy you a beer!" ......my cheek must have 'tickled' him, cos about a week later I got this email in Spanish back from him...I thought it was spam at first....once I got it translated, he told me unfortunately he couldn't come, wished me luck & said If I could keep up with him, he would buy me a beer instead!!!!......

hitchy

Have you ever tried telling some young guy that there was basically only 2 types of frames: SLX or 531? (ok, there was also 753 and SL, etc.)

They give ya the dumbest look.

"Back in my day".......Stewart Cooke, John Fuller, and his mate on the pink Paconi used to hammer those SLX frames 'round VFL park at 45kmh, and none of us young punks could pass them -- but try tellin' that to the young blokes.

Did you see that shot of him on SBS during last year's Tour? Unrecognizable....flabbier than me.

....I used to get up 3 hours before i went to bed, my da' would beat us to death with a stick, then we'd work 37 hours a day down coal mine for threepence h'penny a month, come 'ome have stale bread & fetid water for tea, sleep in cardbard box in rain.....if we were lucky....& you try tellin' yung peeple that today...& they woon't believe you!

"Looxery"

Well, I'm not exactly old and I ride a 19lb steel bike. It has that hand made ferrous love you just can't get from anything else.

19lbs is super light by my standards.

Even my Kennedy Dedacciai 7003 is about 9.6kg

G'day all,

Just got in from this weeks 'Hell ride'....met up with Wattsy!......I must say, he rode much better once I convinced him to take the 5200 out of the Magtrainer!....he tried to tell me the doona around his head was a 'fashion statement'!...lol...but seriously Wattsy, I was hoping we would catch up for a brew after at Kennedys or Racer or something...looked & ccouldn't see ya...sorry we didn't get to have a yack on the ride.....the 'constabulary' deciding to provide an escort, always makes the boys a bit twitchier than usual, I needed to keep my mind on the job....fark it was cold though...4deg when I left home...usually warm up pretty quick, but the boys were unusually sedate today (& well behaved!)....maybe cos all the 'heavy hitters' are at the tour of sunraysia this weekend...or maybe our audience in uniform!....so I'm waiting for Wattsys hell ride report!,

cheers,

Hitchy

Sorry I'm so late this morning....just getting through my e-mails from Tony Rominger and Gianni Bugno...