wicked wrenching customs

While working at Cycleworld I got interested in road cycling. Until that time I had only ridden and raced mountain bikes and BMX. Most of the staff at Cycleworld were road enthusiasts, and it didn't take them long to get me on the bandwagon. The first road bike I purchased was a BMC SL01. It was a mixture of aluminum up front and carbon in the rear. It was a solid racer, but after a while I was interested in trying out a full carbon speed machine. 

 

Cycleworld was well known for having a multitude of brands, and I wasn't suprised to learn that we had recently picked up dealership of Ridley road bikes. They were all handcrafted in Belgium, the detail and paint were top notch. Sometimes as a mechanic you look at a new feature on a bicycle and think 'that is truly genius'. When I first saw the shift housing lines pierce through the head tube on a Ridley that was one of those moments. It just made so much sense and completely solved the housing rub on the head tube issue that is apparent on so many frames. A good mechanic will cross the lines to avoid the housing sitting up against the headtube but this can not be done on every frame design.

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I really wanted the Damocles model, mostly because that was the frame being ridden at the time by Aussie grand tour riders like Cadel Evans and Robbie McEwen on the Davitamon-Lotto race team. One day the Ridley Rep came buy the shop with a couple of frames undertow. One was a Damocles in the Lotto team finish that was exactly my size! I asked Dave to quickly buy it before it went through another dealers doors. I built it up with Dura Ace, which is not the correct choice as the team riders were all using Campagnolo. I tried Campag parts on some bikes in the past, but it never grew on me. I really like how Shimano feels so it's become commonplace on my builds. The FSA cockpit however, was installed to mimic the team bikes. same with the tape and tires. I decided not to build up a set of wheels this time round, mostly because I was interested in the new (at the time) Mavic SL wheel sets and could get a really good staff discount on them. 

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This bike was incredibly fast. I would participate in a weekly ride called Dawn Patrol that went all over the north east parts of Sydney on a Wednesday morning. We would do just over 100km in just under 3 hours, with some good climbing and descents in the middle. I usually stayed at the back of the pack on my BMC, but with the Damocles I was right up at the front pulling my weight and the train along! It annoyed some of the riders, because I was not a real roadie - just a dirt rider on a flash bike. I rode the Damocles up to 400km a week for a while, and took it with me when I moved to Darwin. As is the case with many of my bikes- I find it hard to refuse a good offer, so when one came up from a local racer in Darwin...the Damocles changed hands.