TKO

When?

http://www.scmp.com/sport/hong-kong/article/1368096/new-velodrome-can-host-worlds-best-cycling-events

Chunky

Here's looking forward to getting on some indoor pine. Fingers crossed...

Thames

All hail Industrial Romantic.

http://gizmodo.com/a-photographic-journey-down-the-old-industrial-banks-of-1471225736

HK InDesign

This should be of interest to any HK Design Professional. Though I suspect more ceramic tiles than the latest in nano technology...

http://www.hongkongindesign.com/

My Bikes: Turner Flux [Respray]

The last few months have seen me minus my Turner mountain bike, as I decided it was time to re-furb & re-spray my white 2011 Turner Flux using the Turner re-build program. I went for an iron glitter grey finish that seems to makes a good colour match for the components, some of which have also been re-furbed / replaced since the original build. So, I've taken the photos now whilst she looks good as new. All that remains is to get her dirty and use / abuse once more as intended.

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle.

Kowloooon

Nothing wrong with a bit of Neon.

Action Asia MTB Festival 2013

As our diet of MTB racing seems to get more and more limited each year it becomes more and more important to support the excellent Action Asia race series. It may only be once a year now, but it is certainly the best race we have in HK. Yet as the races get fewer and far between, the popularity of this event seems to grow each year, and so the standard rises also.

This year Thai superstar Jay Kiangchaipaiphana set new course records on Tai Lam Chung and Chi Ma Wan, also setting the record straight on the whole wheel size debate- it's not about the size of your wheels, it's generally about the size of your legs, lungs and having the balls / technical skill to match. So yea, 26" hard tails still do the business with the right pilot.

Meanwhile, on team Chiru, Pierre, Aron & I all lined up for Saturday's Tai Lam Chung speed fest, with some scorching times over the first lap- Pierre in a 40:29 and a 41:45 for me. Without the benefit of drafting on the tarmac the second lap is always a bit slower, but I still made up a place or two for 8th on the day. Pierre was evergreen in 6th, whilst Aron was fairly unique in that he went faster on the 2nd lap to come home in 23rd. Given I was riding a bike I'd only ridden twice in advance of the race and my summer mountain biking has been extremely limited, this was not a bad day's racing at all for me, and, Mr Leeper aside, everyone seemed pretty happy with their performances.
















Chi Ma Wan was a new day, with rain greeting our arrival by ferry. I decided to take a zero risk approach to the day, keen to avoid a fall ahead of Trailwalker the following weekend. This turned out to be a sensible approach given the medical tent queue at the end of the race- no shortage of scrapes & tumbles, though nothing too serious.

Overall, the time I lost by bailing the tricky stuff meant I dropped a place to 9th (2nd in Age Cat), whilst Pierre's excellent knowledge of the course and MTB skills moved him up to an impressive 4th overall. Aron's technical let him down even more on Chi Ma Wan's tricky rocks, but he was still happy with the day, as were we all. Bring on 2014!

Kashimax

I can't fault Mrs bnb's leather anniversary present- a Paul Smith Kashimax special edition saddle. Now the only question is which bike?

Poetics of Man Cave

One's Paris room, inside it's four walls, wrote Paul Claudell, is a sort of geometrical site, a conventional hole, which we furnish with pictures, objects and wardrobes within a wardrobe. The number of the street and the floor give the location of our conventional hole, but our abode has neither space around it nor verticality inside it. The houses are fastened to the ground with asphalt, in order not to sink into the earth. They have no roots and, what is quite unthinkable for a dreamer of houses, sky-scrapers have no cellars. From the street to the roof, the rooms pile up one on top of the other, while the tent of the horizonless sky encloses the entire city. But the height of the city buildings is a purely exterior one. Elevators do away with the heroism of stair climbing so that there is no longer any virtue in living up near the sky. Home has become mere horizontality. The different rooms that compose living quarters jammed into one floor all lack one of the fundamental principles for distinguishing and classifying the values of intimacy.

If this is Parisian living then what in God's name is Hong Kong? Gaston Bacelard's 'Poetics of Space' hasn't been the lightest holiday reading, but passages such as the above do have some resonance. On the one hand, I rather enjoy living on one level with no stairs to run up as you realise you left your jumper in the bedroom on your way out the door. On the other, I do miss the concept of cellar retreats and man cave hideaways. Intimacy is one thing, but identity is another. Perhaps this is at the root of the true meaning of metrosexuality?

Lightwallet

Meanwhile, as I purchased 2 spokes for $11HKD each, I pondered over how many other pairs of wheels I could buy for the cost of these Lightweight wheels in the aptly named Bull Bike. The answer:

• 2 x 2nd hand Corima 4 spoke track wheels - $3,500HKD
• 1 x 2nd hand Corima 4 spoke TT rear wheel - $2,500HKD
• 2 x New Ambosio Nemesis / Record training wheels - $4,500HKD
• 1 x 2nd hand BMW E36 3 series convertible (4 wheels) - $30,000HKD
• And it seems that I still have $17,000HKD left over to spend on oh, I don't know, a tricycle?