Iron Maiden Movie

I went out for dinner with some friends last year and my friend’s husband told me that he was going on tour with Iron Maiden. He’s a lighting technician and having previously done the lights for ‘Riverdance’ of all things, he’d stepped us his game and got a gig doing  lights for the Maiden. Anways, he told me over our meal that Bruce Dickinson was going to be piloting his own Iron Maiden airbus and that the flight was going to be listed as Flight 666 at every airport. Now, I never got to find out for sure whether that bit was true but judging by the title of this Iron Maiden rockumentary it looks like he was telling the truth. YEAH!

Also, Iron Madien have been nominated for a Brit award in the Best British Band catergory so you’d better get voting if you want to stop the likes of Coldplay and Elbow beating them to the top. Voting starts on Febuary 2nd.

Hell Yeah Skeleton Shirt

I just got my new Hell Yeah shirts back from the printers and they came out really well! Based on the Juan Posada print. Click here if you’d like to purchase one of these fine garments. Remember, black will always be the new black. But having said that I do have some other shirts for those who shy away from the darkside.

Jenny Jones wins X Games gold

I am so happy and excited! My friend Jenny Jones has won a gold medal in the X Games slopestyle. How amazing is that? A British girl winning the biggest snowboard competition in the world. Yay!

I can’t for the life of me get this bloody video to embed, so click here if you’d like to check out her winning run which includes an 80 foot 720. Go Jenny!

Rollapaluza XII Kingspin

After our dismal failure at the last roller race, team SBC are having another go and entering two teams into the Kingspin competition at Bloombury Bowling Alley. I am as shit at bowling as I am at roller racing…so it should be pretty funny! This time there is a Madison race so the Rollapaluza guys have got a four bike rig. The idea is that the first two from each team set off spinning their 500m and you have 100m either side of the 500m mark to ‘hand over’ to your partner. So the partner starts spinning at the 400m mark and is hopefully at full speed by the time the first person stops – but you don’t want to get up to speed too quickly or you’ll tire yourself out.

If you want to go, get your tickets soon! 17 girls have already entered and there’s a maximum of 20 places. There is secure bike parking outside which will be manned all evening.

I went over to Tour De Ville last night to have a go on Keith’s rollers and get some practice in. Rollers are NOTHING like turbo trainers or the roller racing set up so it was useless for that but really good fun. It’s SO hard at first! Your front wheel keeps sliding out and wobbling all over the place and its really funny just trying to get the bike going and stay upright without getting spat off. I got it in the end though!

I got my new Dalikfodda hat through today as well. Luckily its in the most skin sallowing pink and makes me look like a complete retard. Phew!

This weekend should be fun – myself and Posy Dixon (below) are going out filming with Grace Ladoja. We are making a short film about riding in London which should be showing at the Bicycle Film Festival if all goes well. Grace is also making a feature length documentary about the rise of the fixed gear bike and its similarities to skateboaring; she has been out in SF and NYC filming for that over the last few months and it sounds like it’s gonna be ace. With a bit of luck (and some money!) Posy and I will be in New York for Grace’s birthday in March. Fingers crossed.

Tom Lamarche and Tony Fast in London

Tom LaMarche and Tony Fast touched down in the UK before heading off to Paris and Germany on the Fixed Gear London Euro tour. It was great to get to meet them both, and even better that they are gonna be back here for Tony’s birthday before they fly home. Tony told me that the timing of this trip had been planned around Amebix playing in New York so I hope their plane isn’t delayed….

More on this on my Charge blog, along with a photo of me looking funny in road gear.

Also, I ordered my new Hell Yeah shirts so I should have them in stock sometime this week. Unfortunately I am gonna be putting the price up a bit as I was only making about 20 pence a shirt before – and that’s not counting all the ones I just give away… I reckon I need a bit of a rethink… maybe I should pay a bit more attention to what I am doing!

Charge Scissor prototype

I went round Fixed Gear London for a look at the new Charge Scissor frame that Ted and Tom La Marche are gonna be riding. It looked nice and felt lighter than my frame. The fork looked particularly good – I want to get my hands on one asap!

Ted’s just finished building one up as you can see here.  Can’t wait to have a go!  He explains all about the geometry of the new frame on his Charge blog as it’s different to the standard Plug frame.

Pic courtesy of Greg Falski. Check out his flickr here

New Hell Yeah logo

I’ve been working on a new Hell Yeah logo, a new shirt design and a Hell Yeah cap. Its taking me bloody ages as I only ever seem to be at home for about 10 minutes every few days. Here’s what the logo will look like ( I think).  I keep tweaking it again and again; it’s hard to get it exactly right. Maybe the two l’s on Hell are too close together?

I should have a the new shirts and caps available sometime next week. If I finally finish the design and get it off to the printers….

Girl’s bashed up face club

Founder member of the bashed up face club, Mel, has added another facial injury to the collection.

I went out riding on Sunday so I arrived at the pub late and was greeted by my buddies who’d been on it since 3pm. It was an attempt at being civilised that went slightly wrong; everyone thought ‘if we meet at 3pm, we’ll have a few and still be home in time for tea and an early night’. Of course it didnt work like that and when I arrived at 6, Mel was already on the shots and everyone was dancing. Ted turned up late as well and was therefore the most sober person in the room. I think this has to be the first time that has EVER happened. Ted was even alarmed by the amorous attentions of one drunken female! TED! Scared! Hahaha!

Anyway, Mel fell off and ended up spending half the night in A & E having her face superglued. I am worried that one day someone will not be so lucky and the the damage will be a lot more severe. Please be careful! I think we are going to have to start confiscating bikes!

And here is poor Posy, who had to have her chin glued back together in Hawaii at Christmas. She broke her front teeth as well so she is having a double root canal on the top front two teeth and then getting them capped. OUCH!

New Charge Forks

The new Charge protoype frames have arrived at the Fixed Gear London HQ and I can’t wait to go over there and check them out. At the moment, only Ted and Tom are getting them as there are only three in existence and the guys at Charge need to keep one. Dammit! I’m gonna try Ted’s and hope that I don’t like it I guess!

Here’s a pic of the new fork. I’m pretty keen on getting this as soon as possible as I’m struggling with the weight of the Nozzle forks that I just put on.

SBC

I went out for a London ride with the girls on Thursday night and we bombed around going back and forth over the Thames. It was brutally cold but I have discovered a good new sock combo that kept my feet warm. I tend to kinda give up trying to dress well in Winter because I would rather be warm than worry about that but when I met all the girls they were looking so damn stylist that I wished I’d made more effort! Kat dispenses some of her fashion tips on her blog here  

Below is a pic of the gang,  SBC, but minus Posy and Helen. The next outing is the Rollapaluza on Wednesday at which some if us will be competing.

I did a lot of riding over the weekend and thought me legs would be killing me today but I somehow seem to have got away with it. I wrote a bit about what I got up to onto the 4x/dirt bike and the road machine here on my Charge blog.