Mixing and matching with Sram Exact-actuation If you are a constant tinkerer and insist on doing inapproriate things with the SRAM Exact-actuation shifters and derailleurs that appear in your parts bin, then this may be of interest to you. If you are a luddite and eschew modern advancements like batteries and brake fluids then you can also have a lot of fun with the older SRAM parts utilizing very cool stuff from Ratiotechnology and Growtac . SRAM has some confusing nomenclature.  Eg. Exact-actuation and X-actuation for example. Don't mix them up... Derailleurs are largely agnostic ..read more

 When I saw the Growtac Equal cable brakes come onto the market a while back I wondered how good they would be and if they could be a worthy replacement to the randomly dragging Sram Force hydros on my OPEN UP. My buddy was doing one of his many trips to Japan for work so the timing was right. There are no agents for Growtac in NZ and buying locally in Japan was a smart move. As soon as he saw mine he decided he needed a pair for himself, his being gold anodised post mount, vs my blue flat mount variants.  Flat-mount front Flat-mount rear All the reviews ..read more

The Big Finish Line Party is the brainchild of Andy Chalmers. A bikepacking event that doesn’t have a start, only a finish.  .... well, it does have a start but that’s up to you, where and when you start, and with who you ride. Don’t like rules? There is only one rule. Don’t be late. See you at the finish line. 5pm Saturday. Born from the idea of maximising camaraderie and letting people chose their own experience and level of difficulty, the Big Finish Line Party is in it's third year. I had limited annual leave so it would be a short trip for me, time enough to catch the evening Ferry ..read more

 UrbanGrinduro - 2023 The Urban Grinduro is on again this year. I am looking at July 30th. It will be similar to the last course, maybe a tad shorter. Check out the previous Grinduro page to see what you can expect.  This is just a notification of the date. More updates later! If anyone has some sneaky trails to let me know about send them to me ; ) Cheers Jeff  Jeff's bike stories and links from Wellington New Zealand ..read more

 For the last few years somebody has been eating SRAM's lunch, and SRAM have finally caught onto it. When they launched their 12 speed road groupset in 2019 it was wireless only. The heavier and way more expensive wireless kit was financially out of the reach of a lot of people. SRAM had officially turned its back on cable gears for 12 speed road/gravel and left a big hole in the market for people who didn't think that you should have to pay a premium just to charge their derailleurs. Enter Ratio-Technology. Armed with the knowledge that SRAM road levers are actually an easily tunable it ..read more

 Swap from drops to flat bars and back again with DaVinci cable splitters. Jeff's bike stories and links from Wellington New Zealand ..read more

UrbanGrinduro : Like a Grinduro, but with amenities! Come for an adventurous ride around some of Wellington's Urban trails.  Link up some Single track, back-streets, and bits of dedicated trail. Bring your gravel bike and indulge in some #underbiking.  Record your ride with Strava.  #UrbanGrinduro, we can invent some crazy KOMs for the hard-outs! Come back later to download the GPX file. You will need the GPX file as there are no course notes. It's only about 40 kms but it will take you 3-5 hours depending on how many cafes you stop at. See you at 9am at the foot of the Transien ..read more

Stag Saddle A chat with Ollie Whalley, rookie winner and record setter of the 2012 Tour Divide, on completion of the inaugral Tour Te Waipounamu. So Ollie, it's been a few weeks now since your very successful ride in the inaugural Tour Te Waipounamu and on the surface it appeared to be a fairly trouble-free run. With the amazing weather we had it will take a special effort to beat your time of 5 days and 10 hours. Were there any issues that happened that we may not have noticed? For instance, we heard that there was a GPS cable issue?  Yep a fairly trouble free run with the most ..read more

The Tour Te Waipounamu was held in Aotearoa New Zealand, starting on February 14th 2021, it covered 1300 kilometres of rugged back country. When word filtered down about Brian Alders Tour Te Waipounamu there was a lot of speculation about just how hard it would be. Brian said it would likely be harder than anything we had ever done before. A limit of 50 riders was set, and by the time the event kicked off, 13 of the entrants had either injured themselves in the pursuit of "normalising difficult" in their training or had had second thoughts on whether or not it was actually a good idea. 1300 ..read more

 We were on a family holiday down south. Covid lockdown had decreased to a level where we were able to get out and stimulate the economy a bit. We'd been staying with my cousin in Christchurch and were on the way back home and passing through Hanmer where Steve Halligan lives. Steve invited us around and made us an amazing breakfast. He asked me what I thought about Brian Alder's new event? Brian's event? It was news to me.  Steve told me all about Brian's Tour Te Waipounamu, a 1350 km route taking in some of the South Island's gnarliest high-country. Once I got the appropriate perm ..read more