Raleigh Gran Tour on trademe - SOLD

This week's Trademe delight is a slightly hard done by but basically decent 60cm Raleigh Gran Tour frame.
With a bit of love and elbow grease this will make a great winter bike, commuter or credit card tourer.
If you don't believe me, take a look at Oli Brooke-White's stylish but low-budget Gran Tour:

Vicariously Pro

Today CTB is a guest rider for Team Bici Vida at Race 4 of the Benchmark Series at Taitapu, Christchurch.

Cecil Walker frame on Trademe - SOLD

As the ruthless cleanout continues the Cecil Walker frame that I rode at Eroica in 2006 goes on the block.

CTB Tour of Tahiti updates

After a couple of bouts of food poisoning CTB has finished the Tour of Tahiti 23rd on GC and 4th in the masters competition.

After stage 12:
CTB: "Wahoooo. Just finished a 48kph crit.
Teammate won.
Feeling satisfied"

DB: "Good work! Do you have beer yet?

CTB: "Yeah I had money in my pocket and had a beer at the first pub past the finish line."

Before the Stage 12 criterium:
"I am amped. Mark (Langlands) won yesterday.
We just want to stay upright. And tomorrow we have a specatcular day off planned"

After Stage 11:
"Hi I am sick again but made it to the finish. It was a 10km climb to 600m today so not much fun. Lost a couple of minutes. Only a criterium tomorrow night to go! Yay."

Final results are up on the Tour of Tahiti website

Ron Cooper reminisces

A podcast interview with legendary framebuilder Ron Cooper, podcast from English radio show THE BIKE SHOW

Photo: hairyeggg

CTB suffers on Stage 9

Stage 10

From CTB:

"I blew with 10k to go. Gutted! I dropped to 2nd on the masters and 26th on GC. First weak day. Hopefully tomorrow will go better."

Stage details for the French speakers among you.

Stage 10 results

After stage 6

Tour of Tahiti, stage 9

A brief text report from CTB:

“Eagle from Onehunga hangs on to lead on another summit finish! I hate skinny little climbers who make me look so slow and hurt so much on 20 min climbs!”

With three stages to go, CTB is still in the masters jersey, but dropped three places on GC today to 19th.

Photo from stage 8

CTB strings out the bunch

From stage 3

More vicarious suffering

A text report from CTB:

"Today was hard. 120km. 4km climb to 300m to the finish.
Ave 42kph
Pulse for the last 15mins 185BPM
Still leading masters. 16th on GC"

Stage 8 Results

A couple of photos from Stage 5: