From Russia with...

You remember those hubs from the new Russian brand Infect, that I posted a week back. You know, one looked bad and one looked good? I've got to admit that in a glass half empty moment, I more or less disregarded the nice simple looking one and, in my own mind, tarred the Infect brand with the light-weight, loud-mouth brush that was presented by the other.

Well, these cranks made me think again:





They're machined from bits of 7075, that most hard-ass and inflexible of all the aluminium alloys used in bmx bikes. So that's different. And they've also got that nice simple machine aesthetic thing going on. But looks aren't everything right - there does seem to be at least a little weirdness going on. That little plate with the crank bolt is odd, and it does seem weird that the pinch bolt pinches together the thread that accepts the crank bolt. Or is it that the crank bolt plate holds apart the thread that the pinch bolt pinches? Well, it must work and the look of them works for me.

But there is one final Infect mystery that I need an answer to... What the hell does their logo mean?

Cheese, Wine and Meth

Melbourne just had a weekend of wind and rain and general anti-bike-riding weather that leaves you back to work on Monday feeling unsatisfied. But it does make for good AusBike weather. AusBike is like Australia's little version of what I imagine InterBike to be, but since there was some BMX stuff on show so I dutifully attened.

Along with the Australian distros like Triplesix, Kick Ass BMX and Elite Cycle Imports, Colony also had a stand showing off all their 2010 stuff like the Descendent completes and the new Phantom frame all built up and looking fine.

The Phantom is Liam Fahy-Hampton's new signature frame and I'll tell you something about him that you wouldn't know unless you've done the same exhaustive research that I have, unturned every stone and even read his team page on the Colony site. And that is that he enjoys fine wine and cheeses. That's a 100kg street ape that drinks shiraz and manipulates cheese with one of those upturned fork-knife things. That's cool, I like cheese. I wonder if Mike Hoder likes cheese? I always thought of him as more of a Meth kind of guy, but maybe he's just a Merlot man. Either way check this edit and you'll have to agree that he is in some way altered.

So back to Colony... Here's a few photos of new stuff and modified stuff for 2010:

Pivotals that look like... pivotals. Nuts.

New graphics everywhere and a little extra machining on their hub shells. Why? Why not?

Colony cranks now have an extra little hole on the crank bolt boss. Interesting eh?

Pretty sure the rest is business as usual. Like I said, AusBike is pretty small but I'll post up a couple more photos in the next day or two. Until then, just sit back and try to keep your excitment in check.