Kinetics – the blog…

Rohloff Optibike, originally uploaded by Ben Cooper.

Just fitted a Rohloff hub to an Optibike electric bike – the internal cabling was a bit fiddly, but it looks very tidy…

Momentum Magazine, originally uploaded by Ben Cooper.

I just got a print copy of Momentum Magazine, an American urban cycling magazine, a bit like VeloVision. It’s very, very good

They used some of my photographs in the latest issue.

http://www.momentumplanet.com/

So, just in time for Spring, I’m having a clearout of some of last year’s demo bikes – they’re in my eBay store.

There’s recumbents (a Scorpion, a Spirit, a Scooterbike, a Speedmachine and a GreenMachine), an electric bike (a Koga Tesla) and a folder (a Koga Founder-S).

I’ve also found an attic full of junk useful but esoteric bike parts which I’ll put up on eBay as well.

I just got some reconditioned drives back from Florian – they’ve been fully serviced by him and are in full working order. They are:

2 x Mountain Drive for Brompton – these had been used for about a month before the service. They don’t have chainrings, though they take standard rings – I can supply if necessary. They’re about a year old. New, they’d be £385 – these ones are £300 each.

1 x High Speed Drive – this is an early version, only used as a shop display, never fitted to a bike, so it’s absolutely mint. It would be £375 new, but this one is also £300.

All of these drives are conical-cup type – the bottom bracket shell needs to have a 45-degree mitre cut into it. I do have a tool for this I can lend you, as soon as I get it back from the last person I lent it to

Gadget Show 21, originally uploaded by Ben Cooper.

Yesterday I spent the day filming with The Gadget Show (Channel 5) – they were having a race between two unusual tandems; a Hase Pino and a Greenspeed tandem trike – racing from Arthur’s Seat to Edinburgh Castle.

The Pino won – though, for the sake of accuracy, I should point out that the race was run in several stages with lots of takes

I’m very grateful to Keith Russell for the loan of his Pino – due to a mix-up with timing, the one Hase sent is still in transit. I’ll have a demo Pino in the shop by the end of the week, though – it’s one of the new folding aluminium ones…