Tai Hang Textures

/ Cat on a hot tin roof.

2002

Blood Oranje for this Bimmer as seen on Tin Hau Mui Doh.

Mondial

Some cars just have to be red.

Testarossa

As seen in a car park near me. 80s Automative shoulder pads.

Patrol

Good for keeping beasts at bay.

Colossi DS

Think old Citroens, not new team managers. Nice to have a Colossi on London's streets.

48 x 911

Forgive the gratuitous Porsche pron on offer here, but if we're talking classic motors it's hard to beat the timeless lines of an original 911. And as an experience to drive (even if only for 2 days)- wow, what a pleasure! Who knew driving could be quite so much fun and put quite so many smiles on people's faces. Of course I'm a 2 wheels good kind of guy, but these things have their time and place. As do red trousers :-) The only problem now is I want one to call my own...

Behind the Wheel

This weekend I shall mostly be behind the wheel of a 1968 Porsche 911 in Nortfolkshire. Let's hope the steering wheel has wooden trimmings and all! :-)

Mini 911

Two design classics head to head against a crisp (BMW museum?) backdrop.

http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20130607-to-porsches-911-from-mini

Lambo Cycle

Interesting retro find- an all titanium roadie made by none other than Lamborghini in 1978.

http://www.speedbicycles.ch/showBike.php?enr=241

Christo 911

Orange & Abstract.

http://cprclassic.com/images/portfolio/TangerineRS/images.html

Turbo Wagon

Volvo ran some good adverts back in the day. And given you can fit a double mattress (or a good bike collection) in the back of a 740 they're pretty much on topic. Pfff car nostalgia.

http://flickriver.com/photos/autohistorian/sets/72157622782488541/

Lambo

As seen on the street outside the flat today. Interesting custom finish- expect this on a Pinarello TT / Zaha pavilion any time soon.

Don

A little off piste from the usual topics, but doesn't Don look sharp as a knife in this Jaguar presentation? More bikes/buildings should look like E-Types, and more cyclists/architects should look like Don. Nice blue stripe.

http://www.gq.com/style/blogs/the-gq-eye/2012/05/mad-props.html

Modena Yellow

I guess this is what a Ferrari sky light looks like...

http://www.dezeen.com/2012/03/15/enzo-ferrari-museum-by-future-systems/

Wheelbuilding

This week I was unlucky enough to have yet another crash (my third in 3 months), and while the resultant damage to my body was not too bad this time (just some minor road rash), the damage to the bike was, whilst visually small, very tricky to repair. See that hairline crack along the hub body in the above photo? It may not look like much, but it does in fact make the whole wheel loose, as well as rendering one of the spokes useless.

Now, obtaining a replacement hub for a Corima wheel in Hong Kong might sound like a bit of a tough task, but it was in fact quite easy, courtesy of the fact I have a spare Corima Winium rear wheel in the spare room. This is a left over from another crash where I wrote off the front wheel a couple of years ago in a minor collision with a car (the driver paid for the replacements). What proved to be much less easy was the process of getting the actual hub off the old wheel and re-lacing the new.

Given Mrs bikesandbuildings was off for a long yoga session and it was raining outside I thought a solid couple of hours wheelbuilding should do this. Little did I appreciate quite how much longer carbon wheels take to deal with. The all internal spoke nipples mean you can't see what you're doing, the hub requires the removal of the axle to remove the spokes, and the mix of radial and 3 cross lacing took a good 15 minutes of moleskin sketching to work out the lacing pattern and sequence.

Lastly, upon dismantling the existing deep section Corima, I discovered that none of the spokes really want to leave the rim. I managed to get the outer half of the two cross off in order to remove the hub, but in actual fact the re-lacing was a mix of rim to hub with the more conventional hub to rim.

I got there in the end with the lacing, but to use a car analogy, I tend to think of replacing a hub as a bit like replacing an engine, and replacing a Corima would seem a bit like replacing a rotary wankle engine. OK, I should probably stop writing about embedded nipples now...

4 hrs later, I still wasn't there with the tensioning of the spokes, and I must admit I'm not 100% confident I'll be able to produce a well tensioned wheel, as it'll be my first attempt at a 24 spoke carbon wheel, but nothing ventured nothing gained. And, if nothing else, I feel I have a better understanding of my equipment. Of course, there's something quite satisfying about building wheels, and any excuse to take something apart jn the living room and put it back together is always quite welcome in my book, if not the wife's.

Alfa Squiggle

Squiggles in the sky by the man you call if you want to hang a car in the sky- Mr Gerry Judah. I rather like.

http://www.dezeen.com/2010/07/10/alfa-romeo-centenary-sculpture-by-gerry-judah/

S&X on Wheels

Another day, another cool car to take inspiration from. Check the video:-
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/efficient_dynamics/phase_2/bmwvision/introduction.html

Lambo Jet

Tenuous link on how to get this car on my bikes and buildings blog- The guy who designed it should take over the design of this. Bad Ass.
http://www.sub5zero.com/auto-news/lamborghini-ankonian-concept-slavche-tanevsky