Brush with Fame

Had a great day Sun at the Downhill Race - good racing, nice people, plenty of excitement - top marks to everyone involved. Won't bog down with detail, but with the lack of official timing software (read: locked in someones house on the Club laptop, unfortunately the house owner was in Tassie with the keys), we had to do it from scratch.

Step in the (former) Excel guru - me - and I made a fairly clunky timing system from scratch. It ran - with the assistance of 2 other people plus a stopwatch. Hi-tech - NO. Effective - YES.

Brush with fame today...

Someone wandered in the back door of the shop carrying a Ridley bike. Didn't pay a great deal of attention, they just wanted someone to pump up the tyres for them. I was happy to help.

Then they started talking. The bike was none other than the Ridley Noah, ridden by Robbie McEwan in this years Tour - complete with his signature on the top tube. They'd won it in the SBS TDF comp earlier this year, and it only just arrived.

My GOD - what an awesome bike. You get a feel of how small some of these pro riders are - Robbie comes in at about 5"7', and it was not a big bike. Carbon everything, Campag Bora Ultra carbon wheelset, with carbon hubs. Campag Record groupset - carbon cage front and rear mechs, carbon shifters and bars, shallow carbon bars with the hi-rise hoods on the shifters... on and on it goes. Independently valued at $13.5K.

Didn't get a chance to chuck it on the scales, but I'm betting it would have been spot on 7.1kg - UCI limit. Still had his numberplate (#2)on, plus the R. McEwan sticker just forward of the seat tube, plus a "Team Robbie" sticker on the down tube.

Drool...