Rollapaluza in the Philippines this week using the dial i painted a few weeks ago....

rollapaluza phil tv from fatboyralph on Vimeo.

The thriller in Manilla

Boardroom bowl in 2008....the bowl we built still looks as good
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Confidence comes back really slowly...took a trip up to cuckfield with rob and ione to try and speed up it's return.

Alan was back from New Zealand for a holiday so it was a good excuse for a big old road trip to South Wales. Ally put the whole thing together at the Welsh end; all the spots, place to stay, new clothes for everyone, cheap surfboard deals....the Barr hospitality is legendary. I live in Swansea right now so i hooked up with Ally on Porthcawl seafront early and headed out in the Independent van to meet everyone at the Chepstow bowls...everyone was already skating when we got there, carving the bowls and getting as many in the bowl at one time as possible.....Kettering skaters seem to do this at every opportunity....i'm thinking of Romford last year when at least 30 tried to break some kind of coffin record down the big slalom hill into the bottom resevoir...maybe it was a record, i don't know and Kettering neither know nor care, it's just what they do. I think it comes from the long days and big bowls at Wicksteed park. Anyway it continues and i'm sure it always will.....






You gotta love the team shot......June 2009, Chepstow.

Team shot number 2.....Stevenage round about 1988, from the archive of Jess...3 of these fine looking fellas made it to the Chepstow pic...21 years later!!!

My charity bike ride......
Doing the London to Brighton a week on Sunday with Rob, any sponsorship will be gratefully received by the British heart Foundation, link below.....
As far as me goes it will be the longest i will have riden since i broke my leg just over a year ago....Clapham Common to Brighton seafront with over 40,000 others, might be a bit slow going but a few pics and clips should follow....
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Training rides have mainly consisted of taking ione out for afternoon rides to the park, she generally falls asleep on the back sometime on the way back.

Painted in white on black to get the strongest possible red for the finished dial.

The painted dial seems like an ongoing project, here is the painting process so far for the most recent model....it's a replacement for the thinner version i did last year that got damaged and buckled in the hot south london sun a couple of weeks ago. It's for a 1km 4 up dial so it will have four hands instead of the regular 2. Four hands means Four bikes racing. A roller racing Madison.....

Handpainted Rollapaluza Dials keeping me busy in the early hours after Ione has gone to bed...i got down to Herne Hill Velodrome to see the fruits of my labour. I can see the improvement in each one....they all look pretty nice from a distance though which is how they are mainly seen.