Explosif

This is one of the best things I’ve seen for ages. As musicthing.blogspot.com reports, the after-school percussion group at Minnetonka High School, Minneapolis, rehearsed for months and can now play two tracks from DJ Shadow’s ‘Endtroducing’ album. The music was arranged by 25 year-old geographer/law student/vibraslap enthusiast Brian Udelhofen, who teaches the group. The Shadow Percussion Project page links to this amazing video [65mb WMV] of the group’s live performance in May 2005. They play ‘Building Steam with a Grain of Salt’ and ‘Changeling’.

I spent most of the evening building up the Explosif I picked up from C&G in Liverpool irst thing on Saturday. It’s come back looking very fine and tomorrow I’m going to finish it and get some photos taken and posted up on the site. The paintwork is immaculate and the chaps at C&G deserve a big shout for their efforts. You can find them here:

C & G Finishes
The Old Railway Station 274b, Smithdown Rd
Liverpool Merseyside
L15 5AH
Tel: 0151 734 3088

A big thanks is also due to Gil at The Cycleshed for the custom graphics, eBay for a bargain frame and to everyone at Harry Halls for their help and patience. It’s too small for me to ride properly, but it looks like it’s going to rock.

Wound up playing another game of rugby on Saturday afternoon. It was possibly the muddiest game I can remember, but i think everyone had a good match and it was uplifting to play with some really talented and experienced team mates. My back held up and even the following day when it was fairly tense, there wasn’t that niggly feeling that it was on the verge of going. It’s a big relief.

France is treating a certain Alaskan Pup well:

From: MacPuppy
Subject: News from Vercors

Please excuse the blanket broadcast e-mail …. but were now properly back online after a bit of radio silence. And some of you possibly havn’t heard much from us for a while.

The first alpine winter seems to be coming to an end as someone flicked the switch from winter to summer last weekend – it went from -10 to +20degC in a week and the snow has gone with it. Were sure it will be back again for a few days before summer kicks in properly but our local ski tows stop this weekend so we’ll be putting away the skis and dusting off the bikes.

I’ve put a selection of pictures from the past few months up on the web here.

BIG NEWS !!!!! we have signed a compromis …. which basically means were now buying a house or losing a lot of money if we pull out. It’s right in the middle of our village….

Makers of classic bike bits, Brooks have some new stuff out and have been spinning some publicity about them. Their pictures and press release can be found on their website. There’s information on their new products, including Brooks’ Leather Bar Tape for road bikes and their newest sports saddle, the Swallow Classic. Not really my thing. I mean they’re about as comfortable as Sheldon’s Real Man saddle.

Nick Wallis has been running a WordPress-driven blog for a long time and I like what he’s done with the right hand side links. There are also some classic posts on their including the classic Die Wikipedia, Die! 32:16 also links to Sentenced to Life a BMX movie trailer. It looks fantastic and there are some subtly outrageous tricks and fast riding in there.

Chilly, Tyrrell and I are getting ready for Wales. Counting down the weeks now. After that it’ll be time to start thinking about the Alps.