New Charge Hubs

I just received the new Charge hubs to try out but unfortunately I don’t have the right size cog at the moment…. I’m running about 63 gear inches – 42 on the front and 18 on the back and I currently only have a 16 th charge cog. So more on these when I’ve actually put the wheel on…

Currently watching Victoria Pendleton in the women’s sprint at the World Track Championships. Go Vicky! She just won her 4th world title! YAY! Amazing how fast she is when she is so small compared to everyone else.

Started building up my Vivalo for the track at Herne Hill today but having colour issues…. what tyres? Pink, yellow or white?

Back In London

And its cold, rainy and windy. Sucks after the lovely sunshine in NYC. And the roads in New York may have been full of potholes but in between those holes the roads were fast and smooth.  I much prefered it….As always, more here and check Posy’s blog here for her perspective.

Anyway, since getting back there’s been a big birthday party and for the first time in recent memory, the gang was in non bike mode. It was wierd. The heels came off after about half an hour.

 

On Tuesday at tricks nearly the whole gang turned out – I was gonna get a snap but it was kinda dark. So we had Helen on her new pink Cutter which she is LOVING plus Sam on her new yellow spare parts bike, me, Emily, Kat, Mel, Georgie, Posy, Estelle and Minh Ai. It was great!

And other than that I started doing a but of filming yesterday and got performance anxiety. The minute that damn camera was switched on I couldn’t do anything. It was fun anyway though as I was looking at stuff with a new perspective; I rode up some banks and sculptures and stuff and jumped off them. It  jarred the bones a bit with my skinny tyres though….Must get some 28′s! Gonna try and do some more stuff this weekend and make a little edit although I always find its slightly disappointing when I watch the footage………..

New York Days 2 and 3

Jesus, we have been having the best time in NYC. I must confess, I feel really rough after last night’s shennanigans but here’s a few pics of what we’ve been up to.

Last night we went to Lakeside Lounge, ate Pizza and then headed to Second Chance Saloon. Then we all hung out in Jack’s fancy warehouse/loft , sampled some beer and tried on Posy’s latest thrift store purchase:

We put stuff on Posy after she passed out; we’re mature like that:

This morning we enjoyed the view from Luke Stiles’ roof after he cooked us up some breakfast. He also showed us some footage from Empire which looked really good. I had to stay away from the edge as I’m really scared of heights. Here’s Tom totally unfazed by it:

We checked out the Mishka store:

and Dave’s Quality Meats:

 

Went down to Dumbo

and had a look out over the water. It was so sunny and warm!

We rode over Brooklyn Bridge:

and hung out in the sunshine, razzed around town and had a good time. I love riding in New York, the big, wide, straight roads and fast traffic are fun.

I cant believe we only have a couple more days. Got a shit load of stuff to do tomorrow then gonna go to Peel Sessions on Thursday followed by a metal show somewhere in Brooklyn. We have to leave at 5am on Friday so I’m thinking it might be an all nighter. Right now though, its all about sleep.

New York, New York

We are having a great time in New York having already got our lips tattoed, ridden with some new friends, had a good brunch, drunk bloody marys, visited Boneshaker’s and Trackstar, Neighburrito and Economy Candy…. I stuck a couple of pics of the lips here. Below is Jack getting his done. It said ‘SHRED”!

Today started with a blonde moment to match my new shitty hairdo. I managed to set two packs of poptarts on fire. DUH….  I had to eat the second lot after chucking the first as they cost me a bloody fortune! The exchange rate is TERRIBLE for us at the moment. How the hell can it be 3 dollars for a can of soup? You can get soup for about 30p in England.

Anyway, we rode down by the Hudson and found some basketball courts where a guy was having a solo rollerblade session. We invited ourselves in and did some bicycle trickery for Sam’s lens and generally cavorted about trying to get some snaps. Sam’s saving all the good ones she took so here’s one of my snaps of Sam and Posy:

Jessica put a nice post on her blog about our day. Check it out here

Friday 13th Massacre Alleycat

I gave some Hell Yeah shirts as prizes at the alleycat on Friday. Normally I like to race but I really couldnt be arsed that day so I stood around drinking street beers and eating pizza instead. So many people showed up that they ran out of spokecards in the end and I think a total of 62 people raced. Here are the results, swiped from House Of Pistard
1 Pedro
2 Glauco
3 Yorgo 1st Fakenger
4 Jos
5 Tom Crowe
6 Ray
7 Janky
8 Ryan
9 Papillon 1st Girl courier
10 John Firefly
11 Joe
12 Sara Skull 1st Girl Fakenger + Team Awesome merit point.
13 Darren
14 Sano
15 Stojanka ( girl )
16 Laurence
17 Jordan
18 Mikey QBoss
19 Matt
20 Mario
21 Addison DFL + 1st Out of Towner!

Incomplete / Wrong Manifests
Finishing position before DQ:

1 Rick
8 Captain Buckles / Biffalo Buff ( only did 8 checkpoints )
11 Bongo
13 Alex Fromemory
14 Johhny H
15 No Name
16 Canadian Dave
17 Will
18 Felipe
20 David 83
24 Roger 71
27 Superkid
35 Arsene
36 Oliver ( Midnight Finish )

Wah Magazine and Wah Nails

Go check out the new Wah Magazine site, here. Its looking amazing! We’re gonna be making a little vid in NYC for Wah TV so watch out for that. In the meantime, there’s a bunch of cool stuff on there including blogs from several people including Grace. Looky here.

And coming soon: Wah Nails, a new salon in Dalston. I reckon I would look bloody hilarious with some crazy airbrushed nails stuck on. I had  nails glued on for a photo shoot once and it felt fucking feaky having these great big talons shooting out from the end of my fingers. I am gonna have to get the most retarded airbrushed design I can dream up. Hmmm… or maybe I will get them painted to look like watermelons.

From Sharmadean:

“Soooooo, anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE nails! But what people dont know is that I HATE getting them done, its so boring! You sit there for an hour or so just not talking, you cant read a book or listen to music…some salons have TV in them now but that is hit and miss. I used to put off getting my nails done for as long as possible as I just found the whole thing tiresome. So what better way to please myself and expand the WAH brand than by opening my own nail salon?!! We’re gonna have a fully fledged WAH HQ, with WAH Nails salon upstairs and WAH Magazine office in the basement, catering for all your WAH girls as well as the local Dalstonites.

You’ll be able to watch the latest music videos, movies, chat to young enthusiatic nail technicians precisely about your treatment and proper nailcare, have a cocktail on the weekend and generally just hang out with a bunch of cool girls in the heart of East London. Best of all – whatever you want on your nails – we will make it happen!”

Post Tenebrae Lux Jewellery

Myself and my buddy Ash make jewellery from time to time. I made these silver teeth and ears way back last year but never got around to putting them on a chain. Ash very kindly did this for me recently so I was finally able to give Emily her Christmas present. Pretty hard to get a good pic as they’re so damn shiny!

I’ve been pretty busy recently –  just finished off a new shirt design for Boxfresh which is quite  surreal… the design I mean, not the fact I have done a shirt for Boxfresh. I’m really looking forward to seeing the samples.

And I’m off to New York tomorrow! Myself, Posy Dixon, photographer Sam Hart and filmer Grace Ladoja will be mucking about on our bikes, drinking beer and having fun over the other side of the Atlantic for the next week. I can’t wait. Check out Grace looking super cool in Kate Moross’ illusrated portraits for Nike:

Lovely Carmela from Les Ettes hooked us up with a friend of hers who is lending us her appartment in NYC… which has a hot tub on the roof. YEAH! We are a lucky bunch. I’m gonna have to take some proper tea and some marmite with me but I am looking forward to trying strange American snack items such as squirty cheese in a can. And grape flavoured sweets. And Pop tarts.

We’ll be writing some stuff on the Huck Magazine blog which should be here.

Kylesa – Static Tensions

I suggest you get your mits on this. Its ace and helping me get through a cocktail hangover. I saw Kylesa at the Water Rats with Baroness last year and it was awesome. This new album still keeps their signature sludgy sound but has a slightly more pyschedlic tinge.

Yuck. I feel rotten today…. but there is more booze to be drunk this evening. I have a feeling I will not be making it to the re opening of the track at Herne Hill tomorrow…..

St Patrick’s Friday 13th Massacre Alleycat

House of Pistard and Team Awesome are organsing an alleycat next week so get your arse down to The Foundry for 7pm and race.

I’m giving them some shirts and there will be prizes from H.O.P. and Hell Yeah for the first male and female courier and non couriers.

Sam, if you are reading this, please can I have my A-Z back?  Ta muchly.

Metallica at the 02

Emily and I are two lucky ladies – yesterday we were given free tickets to Metallica by our fantastic wee Scottish pal, Mackenzoid.

We decided to get a ferry along the Thames to the O2 as we knew that it stopped directly outside. It was such a nice way to travel – as Londoners we rarely do things that a tourist might do so we miss out on some good stuff! We rode onto the boat, parked our bikes and cracked open some beers.

We sailed under Tower Bridge….

and got off at the O2 where we were immediately told off for riding bikes.

Metallica played way too much of the new album but then I guess that figures seeing as its the Death Magnetic tour. Luckily they played a lot from the first three albums too to make up fot it. Emily doesnt know a single Metallica song and found the whole thing hilarious prefering to laugh at the crowd than to watch the band. I had to ignore Trujillo as I find him insanely annoying.

We had an epic adventure after we left. It was IMPOSSIBLE to get away from the bloody place – no matter which way we went we seemed to continue circling the dome. We tried and failed to convince two coppers to let us ride under Blackwall Tunnel and didnt manage to find our way home for three and a half hours. And you can practically see the 02 from Emily’s place! It was kind of amazing getting  lost in our own city – there was something really enjoyable about it. At least for the first two hours there was….