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Wherever you lay your helmet...
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A long time coming
There is a lot of personal history in this.
For one, the bike used you may have seen before under a different guise.
It was my first 'REAL' track bike, and the first I rode brakeless.
That same frame has carried me around Melburn, and the world working in Vancouver, San Francisco, New York, London and Berlin.
It has been to World and North American Courier championships.
It has been raced on the track at Hellyer in SF, it has been raced off road the Single Speed World Championships, Castlemaine. There isn't much that track bike hasn't seen.
I won my first and just about every subsequent alleycat on that frame.
I never crashed it, yet when I came home from my travels, it no longer resembled the glorious state that it came in when I found it the Sydney Trading Post back in 2003 as a complete Superbe Pro equipped machine. (sorry GoD)
I got car doored by the Victorian Police (in the bike lane) soon after my return, and organised to have it resprayed and the Campagnolo G.S. cranks I got from Mighty Riders (that'd I ruined the extraction threads on) removed and retapped.
In considering what colour to respray it, back then I wanted an hour record replica - Molteni Orange.
After much diddling about by the repairer I was told I needed to find a colour swatch for 'Molteni Orange'. I couldn't believe a bike painter wouldn't know probably the most highly coveted frame's colour. Surely they'd painted one before?
In my vein attempts to find a 'Molteni' swatch I had a vision of another shade of orange.
Charger Orange.Surely they knew that one. You know, Bo and Luke Duke's famed 'General Lee'.
The process begun, but half a year later it wasn't back from the painters so I left for Canada again on THIS which I picked up from Tasmania.
It was listed as a 57cm - but as many items I've bought over the years, not all tape measures are the same and it was a 56cm.
I was leaving in a week so just got a VERY LONG stem to give me the desired reach, which compromised the steering, but considering it was so steep you couldn't track stand 'no hands' on it without it turning in on itself, and the clearances were almost none existent - it worked, though it was still a 1/2 arzed subsitutue for a frame the correct size.
Months later, it looked like THIS.
I came home to Melburn, ready to lay my hands on an old favourite.
A year later, it still wasn't finished.
'Welcome to Hazzard County'
Growing up as a young boy, I watched my heroes launch their car through a barn full of hay with confederate flag ablaze. Luke was my favourite.
At the age of 5 I would hide the 'General Lee' under the shelves at Safeway so no one could buy it.
It was this one. The roof opened so Bo and Luke could get in.
Every week I'd return to Safeway and find that someone had taken the one I'd put under the shelf, and the process would repeat. I'd hide another.
Sure enough, Christmas rolled around, and my dreams came true!
Back then I had no idea what the flag represented.
For the most part, it doesn't represent good, which I learned when I went to college in the deep south.
It was like discovering Santa was Satan.
All the same, I wanted a 'General Lee' track bike'
I had Cyclomondo recreate the artwork all the same.
Then I had to find Daisy Duke to finish the project completely.
As a boy, much like Princess Leia in ROTJ, my attention to show revolved around the General Lee, Bo and Luke, Uncle Jesse, Rosco and Cletus, Boss Hogg (who reminded me of my grandpa) and Flash. In that order.
If you need a refresher of Daisy's antics from the show, watch them below (turn the sound down.)
'Daisy' in the pista case was even at the 'Ciao!' exhibition back in 2004. She asked 'whatever happened to that bike?'.
This is what happened.
I waited till now, you can wait till I'm back for all the photos.
Til then.
Ride safe.
*TC
As if we need more kms in the legs.
The pre-long ride bash.
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Comments
on January 15 2009 11:26:25
Hot rides! 
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on January 15 2009 19:07:49
hot damn! 
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on January 15 2009 20:52:53
Is the Roller Racing in Marrickville from Sydney????? |
on January 15 2009 23:21:01
there is a vintage wooden roller for sale in the smith street bazaar..check it out,looks rad.. |
on January 16 2009 05:17:51
Andy knows how to pick em; must also be a convincing photographer as most American women wouldn't do a scene like that unless they were persuaded to remove their tops. Modesty is so much better. |
on January 16 2009 09:19:52
Good luck everyone on the cannonball, you should have grown a Burt Reynolds mustache for the occasion. |
on January 20 2009 12:37:59
OMFG! Sploink!!! |
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Transmission 
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