Wheelworks.co.nz, Handbuilt wheels by Tristan Thomas

Paul O’Connell joined Christine and I in the car for day 4 – this is how the day panned out in his words: paul.w.oconnell@gmail.com

(more…)

Day 3 of the Tour of Wellington was a 165km stage from Masterton to Pahiatua and back.  With only 5 seconds between Michael Torkler in the yellow jersey and second place, and another 12 riders within 2 minutes of leading the race we knew this was going to be a fast stage.

The close time gaps meant there were plenty of teams trying to launch a rider up the road for a break, and plenty of other teams wanting to prevent loosing position by allowing a break to form and the result was a fast race from the gun.

This stage was the most exciting to watch from the team car as attack after attack tried to break free of the peleton.  Each attack would be covered by the peleton and as soon as it was brought back another rider would counter-attack and try again, and the first hour of racing covered 42km – not bad considering the 5km neutral start, the headwind, and this part of the course being gradually uphill!

The first 60km were ridden single-file as the elastic stretched in the peleton.  After 60km, as water bottles were running low, the pace eased a little and teams started feeding from the cars, but as soon as everyone had a drink the pace was lifted and again the peleton formed a long, single-file line.

Our boys are better climbers than they are timetrialists and they all did exceptionally well to withstand the high pace and finish with the bunch.

Stage 2 of the Tour of Wellington led the boys over 127 kilometers of the Wairapa countryside including the nasty Limeworks climb and finishing at the top of the 12km Admiral Hill.

The pace from the gun was high and the first hour of racing the boys had covered more than 41km…impressive when you remember the first 5 km was under neutral!  Early breaks were trying to get away but the bunch wouldn’t let them and the first 60km flew by.

The heat was taking it’s toll and we were called up a few times in the team car to provide water for our riders.  All of the boys were going well and they handled the high pace and stayed really calm.

The bunch stayed together until Limeworks – this was the first big climb of the day and those with an eye on GC took the opportunity to tighten the screws.

After a hair-raising descent back to the valley floor the last climb up Admiral Hill began.  Our guys climbed really well and Andy was the first of our team across the line about 6 minutes down on the stage winner, Michael Tockler.

Tomorrow is a long 165km stage up to Pahaitua – it’s going to be fast but after a wicked spagbol for dinner the boys will be ready :-)

Today was the first stage of the men’ s Tour of Wellington – I’m managing team BP consisting of Mike, Daniel, Jono, Andy and Chris.  For the first time in many years the race started in Lower Hutt and headed over the Rimutakas.

The race was neutralized until the base of Kaitoke and within a few minutes of the flag dropping the attacks started.  The pace up the Rimutakas was high and within minutes riders were popping off the back.

Drapac Porsche were responsible for most of the pace setting and managed to get two riders clear of the bunch by the 555m crest of the climb leaving a small peleton behind them followed by small groups of strung-out riders.

Descending the Rimutakas was a thrilling experience from inside the team car.  The riders who had been dropped on the climb were intent on catching the peleton and were descending with serious speed.  The road was closed to all traffic so riders (and team cars) were taking up the whole width of the road in an attempt to get down as quickly as possible.  It was absolutely awesome to see riders hitting 80kph down the twisty, traffic-free road.

Back on the flat and heading towards Martinbough most of the peleton was together with  Andy, Mike and Daniel all making the cut.  Chris and Jono had descended like mad-men but were unable to get back on and ended up in the large groupetto.

On the way along Longbush I saw one of the service vans behind one of my riders, Mike.  Mike had been nudged, touched wheels, and had gone down quite hard.  I jumped out of the car and took over from the neutral mechanic who was doing an atrocious job of trying to straighten his handlebars.  I quickly got the handlebars sorted, duct-taped Mike’s shoe to repair the broken strap, and jumped back in the car to pace him back into the race.  About a kilometer down the road, and doing 60kph behind the car, his back tyre flatted with enough of a pop that I could hear it from inside the car.  After a quick wheel replacement we were back at 60kph but not for long as the second big climb of the day started.  Mike was still a long way behind the peleton and he did an amazing job to ride himself back into the race over the next few kilometers.

Drapac Porsche were at it again with two of their riders setting a blistering pace up the climb and getting a lead of 30 seconds at the top.  The 90kph descent led to some rolling hills where the race needed to be stopped because of sheep on the road.  Only in New Zealand :-)

With the sheep cleared the race restarted and before long we passed the 20km to go kite.  Drapac riders Peter McDonald and Norris Lachlan were still clear of the bunch and were working well together until one of the final climbs which saw Lachlan return to the bunch.  McDonald’s lead was only 22 seconds by this point but he managed to time-trial the final 15km solo.  The bunch chased and lost a lot of riders in doing so, but couldnt catch him and Lachlan finished a few seconds clear.

All the boys finished safely – Andy was the highest finisher at 7 minutes back.  Mike crossed the line and announced that his frame was broken – apparently at 90kph down Limeworks hill it didn’t feel quite right and closer inspection showed two large cracks on his seatstay.

Back at the hotel, and with a spare bike for Mike found, I went about swapping his cranks, pedals, seatpost / seat and wheels across and gluing a new tubular to his wheel.  We got really lucky – the replacement bike was the same model Avanti Quantum in a 1.5cm smaller size so with a longer stem the fit and geometry will be very similar.

After a great rosoto for dinner (thanks Andy) the boys all hit the hay leaving me to rinse and fill the waterbottles for tomorrow and sit down with a glass of vino.

The latest issue of New Zealand Mountain Biker magazine has a write-up of an interesting pair of wheels I built using Hope Pro2 hubs with custom polished centers, light weight DT Swiss Revolution spokes, and Stan’s ZTR Arch rims.

The rear wheel is dishless, meaning that the rim is centered between the two hub flanges.  On a normal hub this isn’t the case because the cassette body pushes the driveside flange in towards the centerline of the wheel.  The result of the wide, symmetrical flanges of the Hope Pro2 Singlespeed hub is a huge improvement in wheel stiffness compared to a normal ‘geared’ hub.  Normally the Pro2 can accept 6 cogs on it’s short freehub body, a nod to it’s heritage as a trials-specific hub and the old requirement for 26″ bikes to have 6 functional gears.  By mounting the freehub body in the lathe and removing some steel from the back of the freehub I fitted 7 cogs from an XT cassette giving a 13/32 ratio.

Why?  Personally I’ve run only 7 or 8 gears on my rear wheels for years – by moving the cassette outwards the chainline in the middle chainring is greatly improved for climbing in the middle ring and I find that I don’t miss the two smallest cogs unless I’m riding long distances on the road.  By squeezing these 7 cogs onto the Pro2 SS hub the wheel has the advantage of better chainline as well as a huge increase in lateral stiffness.

Both hubs had their centers polished to match the silver spokes and some custom Wheelworks decals applied.  The front wheel can be set up for 9mm quick release, QR15 or 20mm thru-axle forks.

This wheelset is designed for aggressive cross country / all-mountain / light freeride and weighed a total of 1705 grams (the magazine typo’d and said 1800) which is incredibly light for a wheelset of this stiffness and durability.  A lighter version for cross-country could be built using the lighter 355 or Crest rim.

The guys at the magazine really understood the purpose of the wheels and were impressed by them -

I wasn’t thinking ‘my current factory-built 28 spoke wheelset is flexing a bit and makes for a slightly vague ride’ until I tried this wheelset.  The difference in feeling is striking and I can see big benifits for big or aggressive riders.

The magazine is in all good bookstores now.

Well first graded road race was a good new experience. Race started at a nice sedate pace which I was pretty stoked with. If this is all I had to do as a roadie it was going to be an easy day. Regretfully about 10k in we took a turn and were struck by a strong crosswind so some of the heavies went to the front and drilled it. This left me in serious trouble just holding the wheel in front of me. Now from thinking I was in for a cruisey day I had begun to contemplate how painful it could be. Thankfully for me the pace settled down and I managed to sneakily loiter around at the back of the bunch and do as little as possible. I think most people were a bit intimidated by the hills to come.

For the next while quite a few little solo breaks tried to go up the road but these always seemed doomed to failure with the full bunch behind so I never gave them a second thought. In my attempt to make my proper road racing debut as successful as possible I had studied the course profile and noted that it was mainly flat until about halfway. Therefore at about halfway I stopped loitering and slowly made my way towards the front end of the bunch. On a small riser a small split started to form in the bunch, being towards the front and nice and attentive I quickly leaped across the gap to safety. This split came to nothing pretty quickly but at least it made me feel good about my attentiveness.

The race started in earnest when we finally hit a decent hill with Alex Revell animating the race. He lit it up on the first decent hill and left everyone including me scrambling up the road after him. I was in trouble but managed to slowly drift back through the mangled bunch and join back on the downhill. On the next hill that same tactic didn’t work for me again because there was no downhill. I tried my hardest to rejoin with a group of three but blew myself to pieces only to have a larger group of 5 or 6 steam past to rejoin leaving me out the back with one other guy. We managed to sit about 300m off the back of the bunch for about 10k to Kurau hill. Frustratingly close yet agonizingly far away. Kurau was a horrid hill, it went straight up with a strong headwind. I must have been reduced to a cadence of about 40 and zig zagging up part of the hill. I managed to drag myself agonizingly close to the tail end of the remnants of the bunch but on the slow downhill I probably lost all that distance again.

Finally I was confronted with the climb of Admirals road. Just put myself in the box and proceeded to climb past a mixture of B and C grade making most of them feel very ordinary to the point were one even commented I had wings as a danced up of the road. At this point I definitely didn’t feel like I had wings…. more like a couple of bricks in my pockets. I think I managed to pick off at least 10 people on the climb and finished in the big chainring and proceeded to feel rather toasted.

From Cameron:

————

My weekend was pretty awesome. I rode out to Makara as part of my warm up and then stood in a registration queue for 15 minutes which wasn’t particularly helpful which left me with 10 minutes to sprint up and down the road to warm up again.

Senior Men started with Master 1 Men which has some rather fast people including Hisky. At the start heaps of people flew off up the road and I did my best to not over cook it to early which I have a bad habit of doing. Ended up riding a good portion of the early race with Hisky who looked a bit shocked that he was being beaten by quite a few people.

I’ve been testing a few designs of new rim decals and have come up with these.  They’re vinyl-cut, UV-stabilized, very high quality, and I think they look great.  I stocking them in a good selection of colours and having custom colours is no problem.

What would you like your wheels to look like?

To get away over the Easter weekend Erin and I headed over for pizza at Cockoo and a night in Greytown. I took my Salsa La Cruz cyclocross bike for some gravel road riding while Erin browsed the shops on Sunday morning.

I left Greytown and headed west towards the Waiohine gorge – I’d driven up the paved road on the north side of the gorge but the map showed a gravel road on the south side which I wanted to explore. Only a couple of kms out of Greytown the road turned to gravel.

Heading into the hills the road climbed gently and gave some amazing views of both the Waiohine river and the Waiarapa planes.

View north of the Waiohine

The views really were astonishing and I snapped quite a few photos as I climbed up into the hills. The road got narrower and rougher until finally finishing in a farm paddock – time for another couple of photos before turning around.

Paddock at the end of the road - turnaround time.

Riding quickly on gravel is one of life’s greatest thrills, so with the road gently pointing down the valley I gave it a bit of stick and got the speedo up to 50kph :-) I only stopped once on the way back down the valley to snap a final picture of the view and of the Salsa.

I headed back down to the valley floor and after consulting the map decided to take the gravel road through Woodside and Fernside to Featherston. According to my map the road went all the way though however the map maker neglected to metion there is no bridge across the river. Not to worry as the water wasn’t too deep but I suspect it was fresh run-off from the snow on the Tararua’s as it was freezing! Note to self: Carbon-soled road shoes make crappy hiking boots.

Heading towards Fernside

Cold water!

Across the river I faced a maze of farm paddocks and electric fences’ to get back to the gravel road. I only got zapped once :-)

From Fernside it was a few more kms of dirt road before arriving into Featherston and heading north along the main road back to Greytown. I snapped one final pic while riding which shows the Waiohine gorge in the center of the frame. After a quick shower Erin and I drove to Lake Ferry for fish and chips (and a beer) by the ocean before heading back to Wellington. A perfect weekend away.

Waiohine gorge (in the middle of the frame) from the State Highway

Ian  Paintin’s race report after stepping onto the top of the Masters 2 podium in Nelson:

The rain set in at 8 am, and judging from the rain radar I downloaded off MetService’s site, we were going to get a decent hosing. I’d have preferred some better mud tires but was committed to the WTB Wierwolf [front] and Crossmark [rear]. As it was my last year in M2, I was keen to get near the podium but there were some heavy hitters on the start grid. The decision was made by BikeNZ to shorten the number of laps for all grades by 1 in light of the conditions.

Rob Kilvington set a smoking pace up the shingle road and I struggled to hold his wheel. The single track through the creek was awesome with so much water running down the track the wheels were not clogging with mud. At the end of the first lap, I was in fourth place, but still in sight of the leaders. I closed the gap on the shingle road climb to follow Chris and Rob into the creek single track. Through the forest switchbacks, I had Rob and Chris Gaze in sight 30-50 m ahead. I managed to get past Chris on a steep root section through the top of the course. Trevor had me in his sights on a steep descent where I was slowing for the corner but Trevor sailed through the corner and took a while to reunite with his bike.

I managed to pass Rob on a flat section before hitting the single track and the descents back to the start/finish.

Rob and I extracted maximum effort each other with Rob slowly pulling me in on the descents and I’d get away slightly on the climbs. There was no let up and I was not going to give up the lead easily. Back markers from the earlier starting grades were generally very accommodating letting us pass where they could.

We never lost sight of each other from half way through the second lap and so coming out of the forest descent on the third lap into the finish paddock Rob was right on my tail.

I was probably in a better gear than Rob and managed to hold him off, despite my rear end mildly fish tailing on the sodden grass.

The rain was actually a blessing as it kept the track well washed and the mud very sloppy. Any less rain and the mud would have clogged the tires making the descents much more exciting. There was surprising grip on the climbs as long as you were smooth in the pedal stroke.

Apart from a small flat section in the big ring I did the whole course in the middle ring using momentum to get up the short steep pitches.The bike behaved very well and the Stans ZTR wheel set was easy to spin up quickly.

ciao

Ian