I’m turning into Nancy Drew

I’ve begun work on the lovely Empire in earnest now. At the weekend I stripped her of all her parts, with the help of Bob. This meant a visit to his magic shed where I got to drool over his Facile’s divinely pin-striped rear wheel and see progress on the forks. It was very exciting. Bob helped me extract the extremely stubborn stem, but the drive-side cup on it was beyond both of us. My cheap cup removing tool was apparently made of cheese and bent like a wire coat-hanger when I applied all of my brute strength to it.

This is what 60 year old grease and bearings look like, yummy!

This meant a trip to see Keith at Cycle Traders and the purchase of a new tool, very similar to the cheese one, but made of actual metal. I also meant to buy some bearings for the headset and one of the pedals but I forgot them. Duh! The pedal needs a lot of love, so much so that I was able to remove it without a tool, it was so badly seized up. Luckily Bob and his vice and expertise came to the rescue and he was able to remove the cap that covers the axle. Phew, I wasn’t keen on having to track down more pedals.

A present was waiting for me when I got home on Tuesday

After my visit to the shed of wonders I made the big decision that I am going to get the frame cleaned down and powder coated. Although it has a lot of lovely pin striping on it, someone has touched up the damage to the paint with some sort of fence paint and it just looked rough.  My plan is to redo the pin striping by hand once I get it back from the powder coaters. I’ve very carefully photographed all the original lines and I’ve also drawn them up with measurements on distances from lugs and depth and so forth. 

Carefully draw pin striping plans

This weekend I shall start practicing on the frame I have left over from the path racer build. While drawing her up I made an interesting discovery of an old grease port in the bottom bracket. Unfortunately it is not threaded and will function as a very efficient water delivery system into the bottom bracket. Not so good. The lovely Bob has kindly offered to help my remedy this problem when he has a moment spare. These moments are rather elusive with his vast project tying him to his lathe and his expert pin striping skills meaning he is in high demand by many.  

I didn't notice this until I saw red paint inside the bottom bracket, handy oil port

I’ve also discovered that the cranks, stem and seat post are all nickel plated, rather than chromed. This is quite an exciting discovery and has had me scouring the internet for more information on my lovely lady in an effort to put an age on her.

Gold paint on the left, nickel ready for polishing on the right

Believe or not, the internet does not know everything and I’ve been unable find anything on her. Today however, I caught a lucky break. I decided that after yesterday’s snow fall I should get out and enjoy the gorgeous sun and also get my bearings in preparation for a weekend of fettling. Once more I ventured into Cycle Trading and this time Keith had a treat for me. He’d found an old Empire catalogue and in it was my girl. She is the Empire Lady’s Sport. Probably dating from the early 50’s. Unfortunately she is bereft of her chain guard so I’ll have to keep an eye out for one. (Or if any of you dear readers have a spare chain guard for a 1950s women’s bike, I would be willing to buy it off you).

I spent the rest of the afternoon cruising around on my Duchess, enjoying the sun and the stunning snowy scenery. My knee is still quite niggley since the operation and I'm not up to much more than pootling. Although I did finally manage to ride one of my mountain bikes yesterday, braving the snowy conditions to get to work, only to be sent home again. Unfortunately the snow had become more treacherous on my return journey and I managed to fall off. Ouch.

Mandatory snowy tree shot

Tomorrow I must remember to get myself some plastic wire wool to start polishing up my chain ring and cranks. I’ve stripped the gold paint (strange!) from the chain ring and now foresee many many hours of gentle polishing to bring the nickel up to a nice rust-free finish.

Meanwhile Bastian has not been enjoying the snow and has had a bit of cabin fever as he has been pretty unwilling to get his dainty paws cold and wet. I’ve included, for your amusement, this action shot from last year’s snow when he decided it was fun to attack the snow. Hover cat – deploy!!

Urban Gorilla Art and Innerspace Photography

It seems that since I tidied the garage and hung up my mountain bikes I’ve only been riding my Duchess, with a brief interlude with my path racer. The Duchess is really the perfect vehicle for exploring the quake ravaged heart of Christchurch as little by little we can get further into the city. This shrinking of the cordon has inspired me to create an installation of pieces which reflect my frustration at the loss of the city to demolition companies and the army, and also make me feel a little bit more like I am taking my city back. 

I spent a lovely 2 hours riding around the city setting up and photographing my tiny tableaus and have created a website – CBD Exiles – to celebrate their existence. It’s been a couple of weeks now and many of them are still in situ. I’m interested to see how long they last as more and more people return to the city.

I’ve also been Tweeding again. An epic 20km tweed ride along the Heathcote River, with plenty of pubbery and a little crazy BMX tracking. Unfortunately no racing took place as the evil Chumly Pogward injured his delicate back. Ahhh well, it’s probably for the best.

And in the biggest news of the last couple of weeks I headed in for arthroscopic knee surgery last Thursday, to tidy up some long existing meniscal tears and floaty bits of cartilage. The operation went well, but resulted in a very disappointing prognosis for my knee. I went back to the surgeon yesterday for my follow up appointment and was informed that my knee is “Munted”. This is NOT a work you want to have associated with anything you care about, your city, bike, house, sewer system, but especially not with a part of your body.

Then the lovely Mr Penny told me that it may not be a problem for a long time due to the fact I’m not fat (his words – he is truly a lovely man) and because I ride my bikes lots. Unfortunately he then went on to explain the baffling photo’s I’d received after my surgery (the squeamish should look away now). While they look like pictures of faraway planets (or to the more filthy minded something else) they are interior views of my knee showing the damage removed and the damage that means my knee is basically a ticking time bomb of falling apartness.

Bad streaming trendils

Bad lump of meniscus that was causing my knee to lock

Very old cartilage tear causing some locking

Random floating bits

What it boils down to is the cartilage inside my knee is so damaged that in places it is non-existent and that’s bad. To be honest, I’m kinda meh about the whole prognosis, I’ve had trouble with my knee since I was 14 now, it’s just a normal part of my life so I’m not too concerned. I’ll just ride my bikes lots and lots, stay strong and fit, and hopefully get 15 years out of it before I need a whole new knee. 

Scoring in the cartilage

The top right is just bare bone now - rather bad news

Nasty ulcer in the cartilage

Luckily with the help of the lovely Bastian I’ve healed up quickly from my surgery and am riding to work already.

I just need to get rid of this man-flu I currently have and I’ll be hitting the road and the trail again to build up for an epic ride on the Longest Day. In the meantime I’m going to start work on my lovely Empire for the Great Poms and Cassels Tweed Run in July. You should come along to it, it is going to be brilliant!

Further down the Rabbit Hole

Well the last week has mainly been spent cleaning and polishing. Polishing chain rings and cranks, cable guides, handle bars, and a seat post. Now it’s time to move onto the really grimey stuff, bearings, cups, axles, cassette, hubs and rims. I’ve realised I actually don’t love cleaning and polishing rims. It is a big messy job that often batters one’s knuckles into submission. In the meantime I’ve been procrastinating by taking a trip to Dunedin with my lovely friend Rachel and picking up my new acquisition from my lovely friend Celia.

I shall name her Emmeline

The red Empire is even more stunning in real life than she was on the interwebs. Her narrow steeply upswept bars are jaunty and a little odd. Her fenders are shapely with chrome detailing and a built in rear light. Her carrier is like a freaking crocodile with the strength of its grip. And most surprisingly and endearingly she is still festooned with beautiful hand painted pin striping. Not bad for a girl who’s most likely in her 60’s.

Having little in the way of electrical knowledge I suspect it is unlikely that I shall be able to get this working again

The narrow, high bars make for an "interesting" ride

Original pin striping is still clearly visible

The discovery of the pin striping has led me to the realisation that she’ll be receiving a genteel restoration. The frame will be carefully polished, not stripped and repainted as planned. I rode her to work today and she runs beautifully, although it is going to take me a while to get used to riding with a coaster brake again. I’m itching to finish the L’Sprit so I can start work on the Empire and hopefully in the process put an age to her.

This is the head tube badge on a mean's frame

She’s lead me to become somewhat of a detective. She came without a headtube badge and my original thought was that it had been lost. However on closer examination I see that she probably never had one, given the clearly visible pin striping and lack of rivet holes.

As you can see Em has no rivet holes, but plenty of pin striping

 In my search to discover her age I’ve found she was made in Wellington at the Summit Cycle factory run by Hope Gibbons. A chat to the amazing Keith Guthrie at Cycle Trading turned up some gems of knowledge, mainly that Empires were produced from about 1930 to 1950, predominantly ladies’ and gentlemen’s cruiser style bikes, but with a few high quality racing bike models. I have various sources out looking for more information on the brand for me, but I suspect any further tid-bits will just be a repeat of what I learned from Keith.

The journey of the red Empire back to Christchurch was a lovely one with an extremely pleasant stop in Oamaru to investigate the historic precinct, which I hadn’t previously visited. Needless to say I highly recommend anyone with a vintage or steampunk fascination make a point of stopping, especially if you are passing through on the weekend. It is really magical.

Moeraki boulders on a stunning day

This awesome skull is actually the viewing mechanism for a kaleidoscopic moving picture display

40 times !?! I  must have one. Oh, wait...

In actual bike riding news I have actually been out riding, but not a lot. I’ve been taking the path racer out on “training” rides over the Cashmere Pyrenees. Knee shattering good fun. I’ve been cajoled into a bit of a race and at this stage I struggle to push the big gear up the little bumps, let alone sprint along. I suspect the race is going to be a fiasco, but great fun.

And, of course, here is my lovely Stoon deciding the not only am I a great and warm cushion, but also that the camera strap is just the right sort of toy for a lazy, happy cat.

The Path Racer rides; and more grease under the finger nails.

Last week I put the finishing touches on the path racer. You know, mere aesthetic details like working brakes, repainted lugs and a head tube badge. A big thanks to Dave and Aaron at Velo Ideale for fettling my brakes in submission so that they actually work now.

She looks right at home in the forest

Today was a momentous day. After a few frankly vigorous rides to work, she’s got a big gear on her my lovely lady, I took her out to where she belongs, the dirt paths of McLeans Island for a blat. To be honest I was slightly concerned that my knees would explode riding up the stop banks but all went well and it was actually my wrists which gave me the most gip. I will be tweaking my cockpit for a better level of bar and perhaps discussing with Bob further shimming options.

Anyway, being a lovely day I took a few shots to showcase Jimmima’s beauty in the setting sun. I couldn’t quite believe how well she handled and she railed the berms out there like none of my other bikes. I think she shall become my official McLean’s bike.

In other news my new found obsession with fettling continues and I have started work on my hubby’s bike from his school days. It is a large framed L'Espirit ten speed, which had unfortunately been covered in hideous Yak stickers.

There is a front wheel, it's just in the shed.

Despite these glaring horrors I was able to see that under the years of grime and dust there is a rather lovely old bike waiting to come out.

Progress has been good so far. Working with just one bike rather than bits from one and a frame from another, is much easier. The bike has been fully stripped of all parts and the laborious cleaning and polishing process has begun. I find it so satisfying to take a dirty rusty piece of bicycle and transform it into a sparkling piece of bling.

Lovely detailed little tab off the gear change levers

Old, crusty Suntour rear derailleur

Shiny bling one

 I suspect I’ll have this boy ready to ride by the end of the week. Then I’ll just have to persuade my lovely man to join me on a Tweed Ride (the next one being Sunday the 13th of May which I highly recommend all Quake dwellers with steel framed bikes and a penchant for dressing up all fancy like, join us for – see the Stalkbook group).

Finally both Bastian and I have been enjoying the glorious autumnal weather. I’ve been exploring the fringes of the red zone and have discovered that the central city is being reclaimed by nature and it is lovely.

I’m not sure where Bastian has been exploring, but wherever it is there are a lot of grasshoppers there as he’s been bringing us at least one or two grasshoppers every night for the past few nights. Mostly they survive and are released but I suspect when we move the furniture around next there will be a number of little green surprises waiting for us. Bless him.

PS - I have purposely included an error in this blog somewhere, the first person to guess right will receive a much coveted "I want to ride my bike" sticker made by the lovely Mel at Black Swan Designs. If they want it.

A Weekend of Two Halves

 Despite my recent all-consuming preoccupation with old bikes I actually managed to do a race at the weekend! Even better it was a team race and my lovely hubby joined me on the team.  We were entered as a team of 4 in the Krank 8hr race at Hanmer Springs with the effervescent Anna Ross and newbie to racing Greer Swinard. It was a horribly early start as we decided to go up the day of the race which meant a pre- 6am wake up call. Bastian provided us a distinctly unwelcome one just before 5am and I couldn’t get back to sleep after that. Bloody cat!

Monster alarm clock enjoys fresh washing

The drive to Hanmer was uneventful and the setting up and registered chaotic as I thought the race started at 9:30, but it started at 9. Lining up on the start line I was feeling flat as a pancake so when the gun went I was very glad to have Michelle to ride with and push me to go a little bit faster on the first deceptive climb. I’d taken the 9er with me for this race and as soon as we got into the singletrack I realised this was a mistake. I couldn’t corner to save my life and wasn’t carrying speed which meant I was on the brakes and working harder than I should have been after most corners.

Sooooo glad the first lap is over

There was then a rather unfortunate organisational breakdown with no marshal being stationed at the most ambiguous corner of the start loop, which was meant longer than all the other laps. Luckily a local directed Michelle and myself back onto the right track and soon we were all alone in the autumnal forest as half the field had gone the wrong way. I had more troubles with the big hoops in here and found it to be a slog. Then we were finally under the bridge and the climbing began in earnest. Up the biggest climb of the day I was impressed I managed to ride all the way to the top, but blasting down the other side I just couldn’t trust the cornering and was much slower than I would have liked.  A gentle (read slog) climb back up Dog Stream and then onto Mach 1 which was a mixture of climb and descent, then another longish fireroad climb and back to the camp. The lap seemed to go on forever and I was an extremely grumpy and underfed bunnie after an hour 16mins of riding.

Greer coming in after her first ever lap in a race! Great work

Luckily I had 3 hours to recover and by my second lap felt surprisingly better, plus much shorter than the first monster long one. Bike control was a little better, but I missed my Anthem still, especially since Anna had her shiny new one with her.

Michelle being epic again

Despite the course being in the opposite direction to the way I like it was still a fun day out and was great hanging out with my awesome teammates and heckling/cheering for people.

Anna and Pete enjoying the comforts of our pit site between laps

For a recovery ride I was lucky enough to have a tweed ride to go to the next day. This one was to convene in Sumner, so I gave myself plenty of time to ride there. Along the way I met up with the divine Lady Andrea and her husband Kevin and we braved the causeway in a fierce headwind together. Andrea was riding a lovely old bike from 1914 and did an amazing job powering into the wind while I made use of my gears to spin along. Unfortunately a fit of optimism had seen me strap a pentenque set to my rack and with every bump the heavy metal balls would crash about making not only an awful racket, but making the bike feel quite unstable.

Myself and Lady Andrea looking very spiffing

Luckily we made it to the carpark in Sumner in once piece and joined the rest of our finely dressed compatriots with their array of lovely bicycles. Cruising pleasantly along the esplanade we drew many an admiring glance and at the end a challenge was laid down about riding up the Taylor’s Mistake hill. I was initially apprehensive, having smashed myself the previous day and frankly struggled in the headwind on the causeway.  Plus having about 10kgs of metal balls strapped to the arse end of my bike didn’t make the idea a pleasing prospect. 

Half the group.....

 

.....and the other half

After making excuses about tiredness, high heels and weight on the back of the bike I was provoked into a duel. It would have been a fairly uneven match without the heels and the petenque set on my bike as I have the luxury of 3 modern gears, whereas Chumly had only his strength and the size of his chainring to power him up the hill. He took off like a bat out of hell, lithely bunny hopping off the curb and streaking up the hill. I had to find a driveway to go down so didn’t manage to get a sprint on at all. Halfway to the first bend and my legs were demanding I drop a gear and suddenly life was much better. I found Chumly doing the chivalrous thing and waiting for me at the head of the corner, but I continued onwards for this was a race of endurance. Halfway to the next corner I decided I had made my point and hurtled back down the hill. It was awesome fun. I’m almost tempted to take the Duchess to Halswell and see how far I can get up Kennedy’s Bush Rd on it!

Victory was mine!!!

More riders venture forth encouraged by Chumley and my sterling efforts. Note Chumley's excellent cornering form in the background

We then toured around the back streets and containers of Sumner for a while before settling in at the Thirsty Mariner for well-earned drinks and a staggering and sometimes unidentifiable array of deep fried snacks. There a plan (ill-fated for me as it turns out) was hatched to head to the Brewery. Andrea, Kevin and I headed off with a now gentle (soooo typical) tailwind speeding us across the causeway, while the others drove down to Ferry Rd to park up and join us by cycle for the rest of the ride.

Beautiful delivery bike

In no time at all we were enjoying the live music, fine beverages and witty banter at the Brewery. However dark clouds of impending doom (well deep embarrassment) were fast forming on my horizon. As we were leaving to partake of the path beside the Heathcote I came a cropper due to a combination of a sudden stop, a weighty rear end (of my bicycle) and my stylish high heels. I found myself sprawled on the ground, one shoe arching gracefully over my head and the contents of my basket strewn about me. It was incredibly mortifying. I still feel a bit sick about it today.

Pipe smoking is a very serious Tweed past time

I gathered my things and the tatters of my dignity and off we set along the Heathcote. This bit was brilliant and very challenging with gapping cracks everywhere and tight turns to catch out the unwary or those with a limited turning circle. After much hilarity we were back at the others’ cars and I was, for the third time, heading along Ferry Rd, this time with home in my sights. It was a truly marvellous day out and I can’t wait for the next one. In the meantime I have plenty of rusty bike parts to polish and hopefully a visit to Bob’s mythical shed to look forward to.

The joy of the Tweed Ride clearly evident