MAJs gay bikes [she’s in her fitness era]

audience settles as someone appears to play an audio recording from off stage

Hellooo guys, gals and non binary pals, the night you’ve all been waiting for is here! All the way from Denmark and Germany to our very own gremlin island, MAJ, with the pine cone hunter, LIVE from her bedroom in north London!

venue crowd is unimpressed, fruit machine bloops and bleeps, barmaid lights a cigarette

Hey, hey people, nice of you to come out tonight

I’ve received a lot of nice messages recently, it’s been really nice …

Sorry, I’m a bit nervous, no idea why, I’ve done this something like 13 times before..

audience member heckles

And I didn’t like the handlebars on any of them

Ahaha, Turns out neither did I apparently because they’re all sold!

Anyway, the parts arrived today, thanks to richard at DCR wheels, can we all give it up for richard at DCR wheels? Ey!?

crowd largely silent with a single woo from a man at the back, but upon a closer look he just won £5 on the fruit machine

With them all here I’m going to have to build the bike, which was daunting when I laid all the parts out, not least because I thought I lost an end cap to one of the wheels but it seemed to be lodged inside a hub protector.

You ever been there?

Your new bike? All the parts?

You’ve been dreaming of riding it for months but your monkey brain conveniently forgot to render the part where you had to build it all

It’s kind of like warhammer in that sense

crowd murmers

Anyway I got round to test fitting a few parts and it reminded me that really it is kind of plug and play, only in the same way a raspberry pie is plug and play

It is right up until it isn’t then you’ll need the help of approximately 3 different dead internet forums and 50 men and women telling you conflicting things, 2 crying sessions and one threat to throw it all in the bin.

Anyway, I’m older now, I’ve been to therapy and as my therapist told me just break it down into small manageable tasks so let me lay them out

My First challenges:

I need to source a 180mm rotor as I left mine in Dresden, this shouldn’t be too hard as I also need some inner tubes.

rather loud, nasally person speaks up and leaves annoyed

inner tubes? I saw thought this was a tubeless space with the thru axels and all, I’m out

…sorry to see you go! …bigot… I hope the rest of you are more accepting of the endangered inner tube..

Anyway,

Next is far more annoying,

I need to get this damn Chris king crown race on, i failed last time with this, I had to take it to the shop. Unlike hopes split ones you can just push on this is as stubborn as the man who designed it. Clever mikes closed last year so I can’t even swing round the corner, and the idea of seeing the sbc guys with maybe the 4th bike they’ve seen me with fills me with dread, not to mention it’s a bit out the way now

Maybe this is when I buy a crown race setter

Then I have a couple of challenges for future me:

I need to be hoping and praying these brake hoses are not too long or too short, because then I will be forced to go to sbc

I refuse to learn how hydro brakes work, sorry, that was my only condition when agreeing to them.

Then I will also need to hope and pray I still have a 10 speed chain and ht2 bb somewhere?!?! I think it’s in the big cupboard… if not it will go on the wiggle order.

Laying it all out like this it doesn’t seems so daunting really?

smarmy voice again raises

Ye’ thought that the last 10 times ye’ ol’ bahg’!

Correct you are ma’am!

So as you can imagine with my now found experience I’m even more apprehensive to start, none the less I will begin by looking for that bottom bracket and chain

Until then I have got this small slide show for you

projector spools up, the light cutting through the barmaids 3rd cigarette and the dim candle light

First you can see the colour of the pink headset and the blue frame, looks good don’t it? I like it.

projector clacks

Second here is a seatpost in the frame, and this box I actually took down to the recycling the same day it entered the house

audience seems to murmur enthusiastically for the first time all evening

I know I know!

projector clacks one more time but less healthily

And thirdly here are all the same parts you’ve seen before, except it turns out I don’t need those cages as I have the new hulsroy ones which are very nice and can be bought from his stand on the way out

hulsroy waves as the crowd turns

Having them side by side with the kings the difference is night and day, I can’t believe I used the kings for so long, people must have thought I was destitute and insane. They’re not fit to hold my empty bottles let alone be relied upon to deliver hydration in a race where the line between Winn…

..Really?

hulsroy signals me to keep reading

…Where the line between winning and losing can be a fraction of a second and the knowledge of knowing you lost due your hydration delivery system not allowing you to remove bottles with a half frame bag easily is eternal…

hulsroy smiles and gives two thumbs up

They’re really nice, they feed his kids, but you only really buy bottle cages once so why not buy some nice ones and skip on things that don’t matter.. like your frame material choice or stem.

barmaid points to her watch

Anyway people, that’s all I have time for tonight, I’ll be back soon, I’m off to the big sains to get some pasta and maybe one of those green sour cherry cola things, they’re boss, look out for them

Good night!

crowd murmurs and the the beastie boys can be heard playing over the failing duke box in the corner

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