28th Nov...It's all about the bike! Part 4.

To see where I'm going at night I am using my slightly tuned (you think I could leave something alone wouldn't you!!!) Niterider TriNewt. I lightened up the head unit some time ago for a couple of reasons, well 1) I'm a weight weenie, 2) I really didn't like the rubber band or the spherical mount that kept coming loose. I have talked about this modification before but basically all parts from the Niterider parts catalog and something almost anybody could do themselves. I, as usual, went a bit silly with this particular one and then had to modify the bracket to accept the screw heads that were now prominant out the backside of the head unit. If anybody wants plans on how to modify their own with just one simple cut, just drop me a message. Also pictured is my "backup" light, I think the Newt is pretty bloody reliable, but having been caught in the past, you don't take the risk. Oh, and performance...I rarely use the high setting as low is heaps of light and 6-1/2ish hrs of burn time. I wouldn't say it's the brightest light I've had, but there is SO much of it that there is now way you need to mount it on your helmet, pretty much a wide angle flood light.

Not much to add here, ripped the sweet WCS stem off my other roadie as it had the 25.4mm clamp for the bars and have tuned it as per usual...I have been loving the Salsa handlebars for quite some time, 11 degree sweep is a great alternative once you have progressed from riser bars to flat bars. I notice Ritchey is now doing a similar bend for their flat bars...the mount on the stem, if you're not familiar with already, is for my Garmin Edge 305, look it up, it's a great piece of kit...maybe Santa will bring me a 705, LOL

Brakes are one of those things that you don't want giving you the irrits...at the moment I'm loving the Magura Marta SL's, plenty grabby when needed, pretty much rub-free, nice blades feel good under the digits and lightweight as a bonus. From experience the levers can get sticky, I have traced this down to one of the bushes in the lever and have tuned it away now...mud and dust can bring it on but once worn seem to remain consistent. They can be noisy esp when they get hot, but all round I give them the big thumbs up.

Not pictured is my long suffering Thudbuster LT seatpost, really good if you're a hardtail lover but need some shock relief for long sit down sessions through rooted terrain. It also helps keep the Ti screws/pins located in my spine, LOL. Sam put me onto a Selle Italia C2 seat that I'll be using for majority of the race, I'll have my ever faithful bareback Flite as my backup should it be a smoother track to save some weight. Grips I'm still deciding upon...I know, should be sorted but it ain't OK!

So tomorrow is it...6:30am pickup and head off to Forrest for some singletrack treats...oh, and a little box of pain! Next installment will be the race report, stay tuned to read if I survived, died in the....or other...hope to see you out there!

27th Nov...It's all about the bike! Part 3.

Frame and forks. I've now been riding a large size which replaces the medium I used for quite some time. This is due to being more comfortable being stretched out and is much closer to my actual frame size required. I'd always liked a 22" toptube length but things they are a changing!

Pictured is my one piece bottom bracket design as mentioned in other parts of the website. I much prefer the clamp style eccentric to the grub screw style, 1) it's easier to adjust, 2) if for some reason it gets stuck (yeah right) it's easy to remove, 3) it doesn't creak, 4) it self cleans internally out the slot, so any water down the seat tube exits out, 5) I've made the shell wider than the eccentric, so you can fine tune your chainline without the eccentric hanging outside the outer shell 6) the clamp bosses are integrated making them stronger and the bolt can sit closer to the eccentric 7) the rear carbon section slots straight into the socket machined in the rear of the shell.

I also got busy with the saw and linisher and removed the derailleur hanger at last!

Some nice KCNC seatclamps that I ordered with the frames, Ti bolt as standard and the clamp is nicely relieved of weight where it's not required. The Scandium pivot is a nice feature that removes bending stress from the fixing bolt.

I've replaced my long suffering Fox forks with some Magura Ronin's. This removed a nice chunk of weight and now have a similar buttery smooth feel to them. The forward facing dropouts make sure to keep you front wheel where it's supposed to be under braking and the double arch really does stiffen up the turn in feel of the fork for less weight gain. The right hand seal has been a little leaky, but it seems to come and go...

With most of my bikes, I get sick of the "lawyer tips" that make removing your wheel a real pain, so the dremel got a workout removing some excess material...now changing a flat tyre during a race doesn't involve having to undo your skewer and unscrew it as well!

I've changed the lockout remote for a Manitou item for now (thanks Consto) as the Magura one is a little too light. It hadn't caused any real problems, just wanted to play it a little safe for the 24hr...the lockout is indeed that, no movement whatsoever! Well you do get the first part of your sag movement so that the fork sits into it's travel which is good from a climbing point of view, but it really shines when you're dog tired and climbing out of the saddle, for me it's my change down in gear, LOL. Hey, I gotta have something to muck around with, it is a single speed, LOL.

Well we're getting close to a race start now, looks like 35 solo men's entries and I'm hoping my allocated number 7 plate bring some luck with it. If I have time I'll add one more chapter about the controls etc.

25th Nov...It's all about the bike! Part 2.

The wheels are what I consider one of THE most important components, the old saying of "an ounce saved on the wheels is worth a pound on the frame" means far more than it sounds. Once you've had a pair of lightweight wheels on your old clunker, you'll really notice it come to life!

I decided to utilize what I had and "tune" it some more. So start with an American Classic 350 MTB wheelset, replace the spokes with DT Revolutions and red alloy nips and run 2 cross instead of 3, replace the bearings with Enduro Zero ceramics and leave out a few seals...sweet, a 1,365g wheelset!

Add to this my well used Ti rotor bolts and some Marta SL disc rotors. I then opened up the inner valve hole to 8.0mm, wrapped the rim wells in Stan's yellow rim tape and inserted some Stan's UST valves.

Add some new Ozrider SPEX tyre sealant, wrap with some Schwalbe UST Racing Ralphs and we're getting pretty close to a really nice set of rollers. I finish the package with the ever reliable Shimano QR skewers, not the lightest clampers out there, but they hold tight and do so without having to break your fingers when you actually have to change a flat tyre in cold weather...hopefully not required with the Spex!

Next installment we move onto the frame and fork...

24th Nov...It's all about the bike! Part 1.

All this week is some close up details of the Bezerk I am building for my solo Kona 24hr campaign. First up is the transmission. I have been an advocate for short cranks for quite some time, thus my choice of SRAM Red. One of the very few carbon 2 piece cranks to be offered in 165mm and compact 110 PCD. A road style Q-Factor is also a bonus, the Bezerk snake-chainstays easily acommodating this. Also shown is the sweet Cycle Underground chainring that I got a little carried away with in the drill press...Cycle Underground is the only place you can get 1/8" chainrings to suit any set of cranks. XTR pedals are my favourite attachment to the bike, always easy to clip into and easy to disengage when it all goes wrong!

I was going to make another BB30 eccentric, may still yet, but here is the one I have "tuned" and installed for now. Containing the ceramic BB that comes with the cranks, it still runs smooth even though it's seen some neglect previously attached to my road bike. Cycle Underground again helped me out with a 1/8" rear cog blank. I have added the iiner spline and the couple of extra holes...

There are many important parts in the transmission and the chain is definetely a high one on my list. I love the Izumi Super Toughness chain, cool sounding name of course and one bloody strong chain. I'd recommend only running it with matching 1/8" cogs or you'll ruin the chain, it makes a hell of a racket and you risk loosing it on the trail. You can see the comparison with a standard 8spd chain, yes it weighs a bit more but it's resistance to stretch both pedalling and wear wise is also unparalleled.

So besides it's shear beefcake look, the chain also hides its superior inner construction. The 8spd chain below it shows the pressed/formed section for the rollers to run on. The Izumi's rollers run on dedicated inner bearing surfaces which are in turn supported by the chain pins. This "better" bearing surface combined with the greater width all equals its great strength. Last pic shows the rear sprocket and chain installed. Very hard to describe in words how nice it feels to ride this combo, best I can come up with is the directness of a unicycle, as if your pedals are attached directly to your rear wheel. Next intallment is the wheels...

23rd Nov...Thursday night, thanks to Mr. Bouwmeester, I got the opportunity to go to my first indoor velo racing, a World Cup race no less! Mello was showing off his new wheels for 2009, new custom hubs, some sweet hill-climb wheels with lightweight carbon tubualr rims. All pics below are expandable.

Below is a pic of young Aussie Jack Bobridge catching Russian Alexei Markov in the 4km pursuit gold medal final, truly inspirational.

Tomorrow will be the start of "It's not about the engine, it's about the bike!" Yes, some respite about me talking about me and a look into the Bezerk I'm building for the Kona 24hr.

17th Nov...Thanks for asking, yes the knee isn't too bad...I went out the following day and gave it a 45min workout and it felt ok, so did the legs after their Sat/Sunday spinfest, good news all round!

Wednesday night was another Dirt Crits heartstresser...A and B grade got to be the first cab of the rank so I only had the chance for a quick one lap warmup, oh well, they'll soon be awake when the race starts!

Lap 1 was chase a wheel and hope to hang on...Lap 2 go around and take the lead...following laps have Jason sit on my wheel...last two laps watch Jason go around and disappear out the front without me! So a second place for my effort, gotta be happy with that!

I continued the workout by chasing C and D grade around for their race, good fun practising your passing manouvers and trying to push your fellow riders along.

Sunday...well firstly a HUGE apology to my training partner Chris, first time I've stood somebody up on a ride, DOH! A misunderstanding had me thinking he wasn't going to be at Lyster, so I had decided I'd just start riding when I got up...that happened to be around 3:40...then it wasn't until I was taking the phone off the charger I see missed calls and messages, sh1t!

Fastforward and we meet up for some laps...Chris had decided to give the Perpetuem a go and try and squeeze some more out of his legs, to this it was a big thumbs up! The av speed slowly increased rather than slowed down and cramps kept at bay, one happy camper!

We worked our way over to the servo for a meet up with Nath, Russ and Tony. This was followed with a hectic pace into Lysterfield with A grade promoted Russ leading the way. Looks like there is a few changes going on with the Comm Games course, should hopefully add some more fun to this part of the park.

A departure from the norm was a more civilised stop at Trailmix for a latte, like you need and excuse to sit down, have some caffiene, check out bike mags and point out the eye-candy hanging from the rafters, ha ha ha.

Coffee comsumed (thanks Nath) and back to the trails. The knee was niggling for most of the day bugger it, so I know it ain't going to like me in a couple of weeks time...! I bid the guys farewell and scooted around for another lap followed by a largish bike path loop, nothing too exciting to mention, just some revision of my pedal stroke in the hope of learning something to delay the pain for the next run...

Baz kindly dropped off his bike for me to setup as my spare bike for the Kona, this enabled me to pull my regular bike down for it's new paint job and fine tune his for it's task ahead. A new addition to the Bezerk team frame is "glow in the dark" bands!!! This is some cool stuff (thanks Baz) and really gives a sweet effect at night with the logo going negative, really freaky stuff!

Parts are being tweaked to within a gram of their life and plans slowly being set into concrete, not long to go now...

10th Nov...Part 1...Wednesday night was great fun racing at the Knobbysports Dirt Crits. I spent the first half hour chasing C Grade around to warm up as B Grade was racing with us this time.

For some reason we started with what you could maybe call a parade lap, this turned out to be really bad as it then became a rolling start and everybody was nicely in single file for the whole lap to begin with so it was then really hard to make up a huge gap that appeared in front of you!

I found myself playing catch-up for majority of the race and eventually caught up with Leigh on maybe the second last or last lap who was following James. Second last climb and we both thought we had James' measure for the last climb, how wrong we were! It was pretty much a flat out sprint to the finish line, and anyone that knows me knows I ain't a sprinter...so I had to settle with a 191 heartrate over the line and a 4th place...happy with that considering majority of the training has been for distance.

So, with the 24hr fast approaching, Coach Plumb had my longest ride down for the weekend...16hrs of saddle time... this might a hurt a little...to be continued...

Part 2...so with the suggested training ride I thought it prudent to get some new knicks sorted out, I was itching to try out some Skins cycling knicks as the chamois sounded good as well as the usual compression advantages that go with it. Frais rang around for me to check out who had what in stock, so I ducked over to see Daz at Cycle Science Glen Waverly and picked up a pair, thanks!

Armed with the new shorts with an application of chamois cream and some fluid food, I was locked in to meet up with Chris at 8:30pm on Saturday night for some Lyster laps. Fortunately the only real high heartrate for the whole ride was the climb out of Churchill into Lyster, the only 2nd time in recent history that I've climbed up it non-stop and Chris whipped it up nice and clean too, sweet!

We just started lapping from there and made up a course as we went and stuck to this for our four laps. A stop up at the top carpark for water refill and food intake and then dropping off into the darkness...well it was pretty light actually, at a pinch I'm sure you could have ridden sans lights, but having them made the riding a tad faster, LOL.

Each lap got progressively slower as Chris was tiring, not too much mind you! We finished in Lyster up the Comm Games climb and I was just in my own little world getting the job done, up to almost Trig point and awaited Chris's arrival...then minutes later not realizing his lights had had enough too! No probs, he trailed me back to his place and there we parted company, thanks Chris!

So there's 5+ hours down, only 11 to go...off back home to top the food supply up, change to a thicker vest and change the headlight over...1st mistake...don''t use a headlight you haven't used for such a long time you can't remember the last time you used it! The little Sun light is great as a "to be seen" light, that's all I needed as I was going to bikepath it until sunrise and get to Westerfolds for a lap or two...put it on flash mode and get the occasional snap shot of what's coming at you...well, until the batteries go flat!

The 2nd mistake was assuming I plenty of clothing on, went from the thin vest to thicker one, had arm warmers on, should be all good hey? Sh1t no, froze myself from about 3 until 6, then the sky slowly lights up and no sun, just a cloudy morning...a few climbs to warm back up and then the next disaster...

Well my knees have never been great, esp my right. I don't know if it was the cold temp or the overuse, but by the time I had gotten to the sharp little climb up to Belford Rd I had to walk up it as I was no longer able to put pressure on the right hand pedal...I was now at an even lower point than a few hours earier in the teeth rattling cold...what to do?

So I was into one legged mode, just push mostly with the left and let the right go along for the ride. I got to Westerfolds and wondered whether to give it a go...got through the first section of singletrack and had to turn around, no surpises there hey! I then had to plan the route home, annoyed that I had only been riding 11ish hours...

By the time I had limped on toward Mitcham, the knee started to ease up a bit, so I swiftly passed another rider up the climb to Springvale rd and was already trying to work out where to get my extra kms in! Another lesson learnt, accute pain does subside and turn into just annoying, happy with that!

Rode to Lyster again and decided another couple of laps would test the knee to make sure it was actually ok,what's that, bugger, flat tyre...found a nail through the tread that I'd picked up on Lyster rd, DOH! That repaired and I was at the servo, checked for any familiar cars, looks like a familiar ute and then went through the gate for some more laps.

Thought I might catch Steve, Russ, Tony or Nath, no luck this time. I did catch up with Gary and Glen from the Crits and said a quick hello to William, but it was pedal to the metal to see a. how the knee was b. how much fuel was actually left in the legs. Positive on both counts, whoohoo!

Two training weekends left till the big day...

3rd Nov...Sunday, the previous weekend, was spent on the SS with Chris. We left Bezerk HQ around 2am and hit the Dandenongs for a few hours of climbing. After ticking off several climbs we then headed on over toward Lysterfield. We hit the steep climbs in North Lyster which can really sort you out if you're not up for it...bummer for Chris as the cramps were starting to rear their ugly head...

So with cramps continuing, we decided to make our way through Lyster/Churchill and I bid farewell to Chris at the gate. Many thanks to Chris for the 5 hours plus of company!

After a huge mixup I finally caught up with Steve for another few hours of Lyster with a sweet route that he had run himself plenty of times, nice mix of steep climbs, fast sections and general Lyster cruising. By the time we got to Steve's place I'd pretty much had enough for the day. So off toward home arriving there at around 11:30...

Monday was some wind training around Windermere for around half an hour of CP training...

Wednesday was my first venture back to the Knobbysports / Pinnacle Cycles Dirt Crits. This year was the introduction of your own number plate, a great idea as it has your name on it too, esp good so you can learn your fellow rider's names!!! If you're anything like me, a face is easy to remember but the name to go with it...

Not quite sure where I ended up in race, the first couple of laps were spent with Adam as the legs were waking back up...riders were fast approaching from behind so it was time to make a move past and reel in some of the other riders ahead. The course has had some new sections put in which really helped adding some places to pass on and finally got rid of the bottleneck at the three tree combo. The final climb is still there and is still my favourite place to catch riders and make a gap if possible. I ended up 4th I believe... there was no way I was catching the three up front!

So finally to yesterday's ride with Sam, certainly a ride I won't forget for some time!

So we drove out to Warburton and mounted up and started to ride out toward Reefton, what a great section of tarmac and oh so quiet. The gradient of the climb was awesome, not steep enough to get the heartrate up there but steep enough so that you knew you were doing something. It was also very consistent. A left turn toward Cambarville which gave us some more climbing and a right turn up to Lake Mountain. Did I mention this was a climbing day! LOL

Lake Mt. was another great piece of road, gently winding up and proved even better coming down it again. The memory of Sam nearly getting slapped in the face by a small bird on the descent was priceless! Back to the main road and it was a right turn on toward Marysville. Some more climbing followed by a screaming descent. Looking at the Garmin telling you that you are going over 70 is something to experience, certainly past my usual threshold of comfort!

A quick break here and we headed out of town toward Granton. Another hair raising descent with a new PB of 78.4! Sam of course outdid me with over 80...but no surprises there, LOL. A left turn up the Acheron Way for some more unknown territory. A very pleasant climb was followed by a rather long stretch of gravel road. The climbing part seemed un-ending but the flat/descent was cool fun with the pace around 30kph until I flatted the rear tyre. That fixed it got a little steeper and we were sitting on around 40 on a gravel road, sweet! We finally made it to Cement Creek and Sam proceeded to whip my butt down the fast descent as per usual.

So off to the servo for a drinks purchase and back to the ute for some food supplies. We then had to decide whether to proceed as planned and head off to Healesville or the alternative was to ride back up Donna. The climb up Don Rd was a little unkown if it was going to be more gravel so we chose the climb back up Donna.

Sam was determined to get up there at any cost, so we stuck it out and just kept a steady tempo all the way to the summit, nice work Sam, took some real balls to not just pull the plug and turn around. Another quick food break and back down the sweet descent. Once again I only saw Sam for a short period as he rolled away from me, I think my usual descent time is around 19 - 20 mins, Sam was knocking on the 16-1/2 door when a car proceeded to slow him down!

Finally back at the car and loaded up ready to go...turn the ignition key and completely nothing...bugger, left the headlights on! Within 5 mins had borrowed some jumper leads from the great guy at the servo and talked a lovely lady into providing the juice to get it back to life...phew!

So end tally was a bit over 160km travelled and just under 3,500m climbed in an average of over 21kph, gotta be happy with that!

At Bezerk Cycles I strive to provide a service that many others don't provide, from servicing to problem solving, part sourcing, custom build ups, custom frames, modifications, TIG and OXY welding, refinishing, machining and wheelbuilding.

A life long experience with bikes and welding, there's not much that I haven't had a go at making or modifying. Specializing in Cromoly, I have done various projects in aluminium.

The current passion is single speed mountain bikes. I am currently working to have a line of off the shelf frames made to my specs that cater for both single speed and geared applications. Check out the Products page for more info...

I am currently working on a wide array of custom projects, hope to add some pics as they are created.

Bezerk Cycles, designed from experience, made by hand.