Category Archives: Main Page - Page 4

Resurrection Joe…

Posted by on 30/03/2010 1 comment

‘I said hep cats, sinners, brats
Suck on this for sunshine
This is the resurrection
Yea, of the good times
I said hep cats, sinners, brats
Sunshine
This is the resurrection
Yea, yea, yea, of the good times…’

No time to play recently but some hastily grabbed time allowed my first love to be rebuilt from the pile of parts that has been thrown in my shed for the last 8 months. It’s a shame to have such a nice bike all broke up so now its back up and running, alive an kicking….maybe one day I will get to take it out for a ride….


No more words….just lots of pictures…..enjoy

EWR-less…..temporarily :-(

Posted by on 16/03/2010 No comments

For the first time in six months I have been separated from my EWR

It has gone to the paintshop for a few weeks while the new Answer Accutrax get colour matched to the frame. It’s a task that needs doing but I’m gonna miss that legendary ride and will have to bring this old friend back from the dead as a stand in.

Sadly it does not currently look as nice as it does in the picture below, its been partially stripped and flung in the back of my shed since September 2009 when I started a wild love affair with my yellow EWR, turning my back on my first love……my Pace RC200

Never fear, it will be back but for starters this is how it DID look earlier last year:

Fork Gathering…

Posted by on 11/03/2010 12 comments

‘Stock Checking’ tonight revealed a glut of forks stashed at Goat Central so why not dig them out for a little group shot….its nice seeing just over a decade of fork design layed out before your eyes too….Answer Accu Trax from 1988 and RC36 Pro Class Ltd Edition from 1999

It’s Tool Time…

Posted by on 10/03/2010 No comments

“Does everybody know what time it is?”
It’s Tool Time but sadly I have no “Tool Time girl” to assist me with my duties….

Ok, so there’s a mega ‘Headset switchfest’ due to take place here at Goat Central, here’s the moves, try and keep up

EWR – Switch Chris King Devolution for Chris King Classic (now I have the correct forks..)
M100 ‘Dale – Remove 1 1/4″ Chris King NoLogo (bike being sold)
Funk Pro Comp – Switch non period-correct Chris King Classic for Chris King NoLogo
M700 ‘Dale – Remove remains of WTB Greaseguard headset (bike being sold).

I like to use the correct tools instead of Caveman Techniques when I can so the following weapons will be deployed…Star Nut Tool, Headset removal tool, Headset Press.


Last nights job was the EWR, the current Accutrax have been sold to another collector and I need to convert back to 1 1/8″ headset so I can use my new Accutrax

“More power!”

Brakes off

Magura mounts off

Bars and stem off

Just the pesky crown race to remove

No more riding my EWR for a while

Incoming….

Posted by on 09/03/2010 No comments

I know I am not supposed to buying, I am supposed to be selling but…………sometimes things come along that you just HAVE to have and some of these are just that, the rest are ‘just in case’ purchases (well, a man can’t have too many items of M650 DX laying around can he?……).

First things first, we have a NOS M650 DX Rear Mech in the most handy Long Cage version…just a ‘spare’ you know….



Secondly we have a used M650 DX Rear Mech, again in Long Cage flavour and great for spare parts or fitting to a beater.



Thirdly and getting cooler by the minute we have a set of Syncros Revolution cranks in Compact Drive……about bloody time too as I have spent embarrassingly large amounts of time trying to track one of these badboys down for my EWR and this will be among the final pieces of the jigsaw required to complete that project. They are missing a few items which is a bummer cos I’ll have to rob them from some of other sets of Revolutions but maybe I can live with that……just



Ok, now these ARE special. Firstly they are Answer Accutrax in 1 1/8″ flavour, something I have been hunting for since this time last year and only found these in California back in November. It took a while to piece the deal together but they have now arrived in the UK and I can set to work getting them ready for my EWR.

Maybe the cooler part of this story is these are technically NOS and…..wait for it…..hand made by Chris Herting only last year .

The story goes that he found a bunch of Accu Trax legs laying around in some dusty storage facility and word got out, he figured there might not be much demand but rumour has it the demand was HUGE and he set about making them up in ‘custom’ variations. This set have passed thru a couple of collectors hands before arriving at Goat Central but believe me, you can still smell the ‘new metal’ smell and they are spotless.

Naturally I will be sending these to my trusty painter soon to get them matched to my yellow EWR before getting them decalled up and fitted on the bike…..these are so cool and I am so pleased I finally got a pair

Salcey Forest – Sunday Ride

Posted by on 08/03/2010 No comments

Met up with another RetroBike member yesterday for a leisurely ride around Salcey Forest in Northamptonshire, despite the cold temperature, some of the first sunshine for months drew the crowds so it was a little busy there and people were blissfully unaware they were walking on a Bike Trail .

One of the big draws at Salcey Forest is the Tree Top Walk, one day I WILL ride a bike up it

We did 17.5 miles before going our separate ways…….some pix:


Klein & EWR

Tree Top Walk

The tide has turned…

Posted by on 25/02/2010 No comments

There’s been way too much ‘Goods Inwards’ over the last 2 years and My Cup Runneth Over as they said in the Hebrew Bible so, three months later than planned the first items have left the Goat Shed

This week this lovely Syncros Cattleprod quill stem left my ‘stores’ where it has sat untouched since I bought it back in 2007….’just in case’ (). The neat thing is this….the guy I bought it from three years ago was looking for one last week on RetroBike so I sold it back to him .

There’s a big bunch of top drawer parts soon to be leaving the Goat Shed in the next few weeks, including bike frames, 2010 is the year of the cull

Get your Tits out…..

Posted by on 24/02/2010 No comments

I’ve been sitting on this for a week out of courtesy but now that Jay is waving these around on his site I guess its safe for me to show these neat pix….I hope so anyway

Eastern Woods Research have not only resurrected the EWR E-Motion Race but they’ve done it in Ti and as a 29er

One sole 26″ E-Motion Race exists in Ti and belongs to Mr Ed but now the legendary ‘Emo’ will soon be available to mere mortals who like 29ers.

I don’t personally own a 29er but I’ve ridden one and it was better than expected to be honest so these would be high on my list if I was seeking one out.

Keep an eye on EWR Bikes.com for more news

Sneak pix of some nice Tits

Frank, it’s a Revolution…

Posted by on 18/02/2010 3 comments

Todays post is just for my ‘virtual Buddy’ Frank who lives in Canada and is a lover of vintage Canadian bike components, as is yours truly!!

I owe him some information and am famously slow at performing tasks like this so I figured, surprise Frank and also do a little piece on these, my most favourite of vintage MTB cranks. The Revolution Crank first showed it’s face in the 1991 Pro-Series Component Group (as far as I can remember) and it stayed around for several years with Syncros eventually making Road and Compact Drive versions. Material wise the early Revs were made from tubular Columbus Nivacrom and weighed 400g, which at the time was pretty damn light. Later on they were constructed from Tru Temper OX4 and tipped the scales at 410g.

The cranks were cold forged at 125 ton pressure which was supposed to make the metal even harder and stronger.

Syncros Cranks are either loved or hated, after all they are rather bland and boring looking when compared to something bright and garish like Kooka trash or Grafton etc, but they do the business and are very strong. They don’t look good on every bike but are a good match for any early Rocky Mountain, Brodie, Offroad Toad etc and they also look kind a neat on my EWR

For some unknown reason the value of these has gone sky high in the last year or so and its not uncommon for these to change hands on eBay for insane money, in fact a NOS set sold in Germany with the elusive Crank ‘o’ Matic crank bolts for nearly £400 just after Christmas 2009.

I am lucky to have three pairs of these, well in fact when I started typing this post I only had two pairs but I’ve just received news on closing a deal for a third pair so I now have two pairs in Standard Drive (110bcd) and one pair in Compact Drive (94bcd)

So, Frank….to get back to you, here are some pix for you, take note of the inner chainring bolt pix. The bolt is 14mm long by the way, let me know via RetroBike if you need any more info

Blog Weapons

Posted by on 17/02/2010 No comments

Just thought I’d make mention of some of the ‘weapons’ used to build this Blog, in case anyone is interested…

Prior to Christmas 2009 all the photo’s on here were shot with a Fujifilm FinePix S5600 Ultra Zoom digital camera, this is a fairly bulky 5 Megapixel camera with a 10x Optical Zoom lens (38 – 380mm equivalent) and a 1.8″ screen. It was a neat camera that took great pix but for the type of pictures I take (mainly out on a bike) it was too big and cumbersome and as a result it often got left at home. Based on this I was on the lookout for something better but smaller…

Enter the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ6….I picked up one of these over the Christmas break and ever since then all the photo’s you see on here have been taken with this little baby. It’s a 10.1 Megapixel ‘Ultra Compact Super Zoom’ camera with an f=4.1-49.2mm (25-300mm in 35mm equivalent) LEICA DC VARIO-ELMAR lens and a large 2.7″ TFT LCD Display. The pictures are the the proof as all the pictures you see here have had no post-processing done whatsoever so are ‘as-is’, give or take the odd ‘crop’ (but that’s rare)

Size wise its perfect for slipping into a Camelbak or a jacket pocket at 103.3 x 59.6 x 32.8 mm so as a result it gets taken out on every ride.

For more info on this camera there is a full review here.

I’ve tried carrying this while out on the bike in a variety of ways, my preferred choice was in a Chest Pouch attached to my Camelbak straps but I couldn’t find anything suitable to hold the camera due to its small size, the closest I found was a Blackhawk ‘Tactical Ops’ magazine pouch which was the perfect size but offered no padding or weatherproofing.

My searching eventually led me to a Berghaus E-case Large which I believe is marketed at carrying GPS devices and is a hard protective case that you can open with one hand and has a pull out rain cover, plus loads of fixing options. I slung to one side the various straps and fixed it to the waistbelt on my Camelbak so it sits right on my hip and out the way of my legs while I’m pedalling but still staying accessible for those ‘out on the trail’ photo opportunities.

When I get back to the ranch the Lumix gets plugged into a Samsung NC-10 Netbook to dump and resize/rename the photo’s and also to write this blog with. The Netbook is neat, has a long battery life and great Wi-Fi and most importantly it matches my TV

The ‘Old Toy’

The ‘New Toy’


Berghaus E-case (Large)

Samsung NC-10 Netbook