MARCH 1993
Newsletter #2 A DISCLAIMER - Everything in this newsletter has been submitted to us by anonymous contributors. We at Cycle Services do not encourage wild or irresponsible riding, or the reckless destruction of equipment. We also recommend that correct use of vocabulary should be strictly adhered to, to drink carrot juice, and to abstain from alcohol (and any other stimulants). We suspect that our anonymous contributors are not really mountain bikers at all, but are actually undercover road posers attempting to infiltrate and undermine the serious sport of mountain biking. There is a saying that talent makes up for a lack of money, better than money makes up for a lack of talent. This especially applies to bicycles. Putting suspension forks on a bike won’t make you a fast downhiller if your brakes are gutless. When it comes to going fast and still being in control, brakes are the # 1 hot item. It’s not that important what kind of brakes you have - any Shimano ones will do. If you have ones that say "Dia Compe", or something like "Hsin Wah Fong", you should burn them and get some Shimano ones. What’s more important is the state of the brake pads and the way the brakes are set up. Sadly, most brake pads wear out much faster off road than people expect. A four-hour ride in the mud can completely wear out a brand new pair of pads – e.g., riding once around the Karapoti in the rain can destroy your pads. What this means is that most mountain bikes have worn out pads. As a rough rule of thumb, they need to be replaces once half the brake pads have worn away. We have had a lot of bikes that have had the metal base of the pad rubbing on the rim causing the whole side of the rim to wear out and blow off. This is best avoided. Brake pads should be set up with around 2mm of toe in, to avoid squealing, and for maximum leverage, straddle wires at right angles to the brake arm – see diagram. Recommended replacement brake pads include the Raleigh Shimano copies at around $6 a pair, and Aztec high performance pads at $17 a pair.
Hot Word Action From Cycle Services :
C.U. (pronunciation varies from "see you" to "sioo") Not going off, thrashed, wasted, useless, demoed, cheap, undesirable, not happening "Ever since my bike got run over by a bus, it’s been totally C.U. " "Those ‘Ferrano Mountain Pig’ mountain bikes from The Warehouse are just C.U. " Can also be used for people: "Mr C.U. is a tosser" or as a replacement for "See you later" etc
Shralving Going out on the edge, riding to the limit, loose going off high speed action, going fast without crashing "All the tossers crashed on the downhill, but Team Nihilist was shralving"
From hell An extra good example of whatever is being discussed – makes going off stuff better, and C.U. stuff worse. "There goes a C.U. bogan tosser from hell" – very derogatory "John Tomac is a hot. Shralving, going off, hardcore action thrasher from hell" – very complimentary
The business Getting on with the vital act – riding a 10 foot vert, blasting down The Elevator, doing what everybody else is standing around looking at and waiting for somebody else to do. "Let’s do the business"
Geoff Marsland from Havana Coffee likes to do the business in our doorway
Leppin Squeezy. Long Chain Carbohydrate Polymer, known as wallpaper paste or elephant spoof. One of the little squeezy sachets contains roughly half the energy of a power bar, and takes only a fraction of the time to eat. They look gross, but they do the business and at $1.30 each they are cheaper than eating energy bars. Don’t be put off by the fact that they don’t resemble food – it’s more like eating flavoured elephant spoof. So don’t BONK – raise your intramuscular glycogen levels with enzymatic partial hydrolysate of maize starch! Available in lemon/lime, vanilla and peach flavours.
Picture this, a heavy night and an earlyish morning rise to go riding with nine other guys hell bent on being first up and down everything that resembled a hill. Well, it turns out that the evening before was a little heavier than everyone thought. Grovelling home from the hours of a measly 9pm for Wheels who was racing on Sunday, to grand effort of 3.30am for Steve F (the hardest man on earth). A few quiets out the back of C.S. led us to Magpie Lawn where we to liaise with Johnny, Oli (really a roadie, but generally a humourous kinda chap) and Wheels, an observer extremist almost voyeuristic who loves to kick back and chill. 2pm Saturday afternoon, an appalling game of Hacky with motivation at sub-zero level, riding great distances was not looking good. What, no gut bashing ride, what’s that I hear you say, "Softcocks !" Well, you see, attempting to play tag at high speed on a mountain bike is not easy, especially when endo’s, dabbing and full on over the handle bars is an every second possibility. There was one vicious single track come vert that was attempted several times by only five of the boys. Steve F put out the challenge, with Brendan going over the bars and almost off a ten-foot drop. Johnny put in a fine attempt face planting at everyone’s feet – classic stuff. Luckily no serious damage, apart from ego and a little blood. Bike tag resumed, until Steve F snapped his handlebar stem, yeah his handlebar stem. He claimed Hellman status, while everyone decided on closer inspection that the only part of the hardest man on earth was what he was holding in his hand ! Oliver Twist, think laterally fine readers, bled the most, how typical of a roadie. The unfortunate thing was he gained the most sympathy on a typical roadie pose ride back through town to C.S. It would seem that Midnight was almost closed until ten cups and saucers mysteriously disappeared, it seems that their daily take had almost doubled. And that was that, nothing mind bogglingly heinous, just another typical ride in the day and the life of a mountain biker.
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