Over the weekend Red Bull held their annual “Tires of Fire” long skid competition. There was a lot of chatter amongst the riders in the days leading up to the day, especially given the previous year’s result, with a winning effort and an unofficial world record 270m (885ft) skid. This year however, with the event moving close to the downtown area, Red Bull could only obtain a 200m road closure for the event, with a 50m run-up to the start point.

Unfortunately for the competitors it started to bucket down during the start of the competition. Riders wondered if it made it easier or harder, but all agreed that it made the competition a little harder in the run-up, with a few riders losing traction and speed sprinting towards the start mark. While the wet road enabled the riders to slide a little further towards the end of their attempt, it was hard work for them keeping the bike in a straight line with the weight shift from a sprinting position to a NtoS (nuts to stem) skid.

Incumbent champion and local messenger Ken White returned to defend his ‘08 title, and laid a solid benchmark at about 140m on his first attempt. Was quite impressive watching him take off in a sprint heading towards the start point and he managed to keep his rig on the straight and narrow.

The lone female competitor Tabitha (left) also managed a great effort - as Jenna Makgill, previous women’s CMWC champion watched on.

The podium.

1st place (centre) = Ken White (185m / 606ft)
2nd place (left) = Max Ginger (148m / 485ft)
3rd place (right) = Conrad Smith (121m / 396ft) (AY YO CHECK OUT HIS TEE YOHEI!)

Here is a ten minute edit chopped up by Red Bull, part of which aired on national station TV3’s “Nightline” news program over the weekend. “Pash the asphalt“.

Naturally, it wouldn’t be a fixed gear event without some reference to a sausage fest of sorts. Luckily for us, Jeff is an expert at drawing penixes. No beef.

A friend linked me to this on Leonard Goh’s asia.cnet.com blog the other day.

Japanese design firm Superheadz is well-renowned for its innovative film cameras such as the Blackbird, Fly and the cutesy Ikimono. However, the company has recently introduced its first digital camera, the Digital Harinezumi.

The Digital Harinezumi is also able to record videos, although the site did not mention what the video resolution is. What the company wants consumers to know is that the recordings have the vintage feel of old 8mm clips. Check out the video below to see the dreamy quality created.

silla-viento-peces from nick dangerfield on Vimeo.

Rather interesting concept - advancing technology to replicate older technology. Although the “Super 8″ video feel does seem rather appealing, it makes you wonder whether developing a digital camera to emulate a 110 film camera, to recreate the ‘out of focus’ imagery (once originally considered a fault with the 110 film format) and even purposely leaving out features like a viewfinder is stepping forwards to step backwards. Is ‘nostalgia’ itself becoming so much of a trend that we’re forgetting why we left it in the past?

It’s a pretty cool concept, no doubt, but it makes you think if it simply makes more sense to use an old 110 format camera instead. What next, a digital camera with no review option? Now there’s an idea.

Our friends Mark Ong and his wonderful wife Sue were in town for a quick whirlwind visit for the DC APAC sales conference. Mark and Sue stopped by the stores to check out mutual friend Sekure D’s installation and show currently running in the gallery space.

Was nice catching up with the original AMKPK (Ang-Mo-Kio-Pai-Kia) as we hadn’t seen him and Sue for a couple of years now. In any case, I admire the dedication Mark has put into his art, medium, and work over the past decade. Unlike others who have ebbed and flowed with the trends like the tide, Mark seems to have kept his work and aesthetic consistent over the years - no small feat in this industry.

Funny, Mark was wearing the exact same shirt as the last time we saw him in Singapore.

This is Minky Moo. I’m not entirely sure how to explain this character, aside from it being a figment of a 12 year old Ben Wong’s imagination that has remained rather unedited over the past 10 years or so. Whatever Minky’s purpose as a bipedal Bos Primigenius is, I’m not entirely sure, except that it’s probably buried somewhere deep in Benjamin’s psyche, right past the lyrics to bad rap and R&B tracks. Personally, I think it’s a self-portrait or some type of projection, but never mind that for now. For one reason or another, Mark took a curious liking to Mr. Minky Moo, after being introduced to him by Benjamin during a visit to his atelier in Singapore a few years ago. Thus began the Minky Moo exchange program - where Benjamin would patiently and painstakingly recreate this complex character for Mark every time they met over the years.

Mark lost his most recent copy of Minky, so Benjamin prepared a special 2009 version for him. The Royalefam seal of approval.

Mark & Minky. <3

Red Bull’s Tyres of Fire is back in Auckland tomorrow afternoon.

Pretty simple really - the longest continuous skid wins. Track bikes, SS MTBs, Cruisers, all welcome to enter, so long as it’s a fixed wheel bicycle.

Local rider/messenger and alltrack09 champ Ken White took out last year’s event with an unofficial 270m (885ft) record on his Kenevans track bike. It’ll be interesting to see if he, or anybody else can trump that this year.

No, not the airline, but the incredible Aitutaki atoll 45 minutes north of Rarotonga, Cook Islands. We spent five days there after Rarotonga to discover why people kept calling it one of the most beautiful places in the world. The approach heading into Aitutaki was absolutely stunning.

The view, every morning from the front door. I can probably think of worse places to be.

Voted one of the top three reefs in the world, the best way to explore the gigantic lagoon was on one of the many cruises offered on the island. This incredible sand bank is part of the uninhabited “Honeymoon island”, at the southern end of the atoll. It took about 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other on ridiculously white sand. I’ve never seen such clear, turqoise blue water before in my life.

Aitutaki is also where they filmed Survivor: Cook Islands, for fans of the TV series. Depicted above are the last remnants of the set from the show, situated on a motu close to Honeymoon island. The production took about six months from start to wrap, and they commandeered not only one island in the Aitutaki atoll, but three. One for the main set, and two for support crew/staging points. Despite the ‘ruggedness’ they like to portray through the program, the scale of the production was so large that they paid and compensated all local tour operators and cruises to shut down for the entire time of production, had a couple of helicopters shipped over from Tahiti just to ferry crew/cast from island to island, as well as booking out entire resorts for the support crew and some of their families, including series founder Mark Bennett. As it goes, he was so overwhelmed by the locale that he flew his entire family over, who remained on site for two months of the production. The project employed hundreds of locals; not bad considering the entire population of the atoll barely exceeds 2000 people.

When in Rome… you know.

Bottoms up.

On the southern end of Rarotonga lies the ill-fated (and allegedly, cursed) Rarotonga Sheraton/Hilton development. The Sheraton chain never owned this but signed a management contract with the Cook Islands government to develop the site into a five star beach resort. The entire development however became entangled in a web of intrigue that began with a NZ$52 million (US$37.8 million) dollar loan from an Italian bank. The entire behind-the-scenes happenings will never be known thanks to “misplaced”/missing records but, in a nutshell, it may have involved the laundering of Mafia money, a debt blowout to $120 million that won’t be repaid until 2025, part control being handed to a Japanese investor who was arrested for fraud and between 10 and 20 million dollars that just ‘disappeared’ into the ether.

Stopped halfway during construction, the development was left to rot in the tropical temperature, which quickly deteriorated over the years. It’s a strange feeling creeping around the ghost resort, and seeing some of the still half-furnished rooms rotting away.

Currently looking for investors.

Back across in JDM world, my friends Fraser and Kojiro (Fragment) will be spinning together at club ageHa tomorrow night, in the island bar/lounge section. I haven’t had the chance to head to ageHa yet, but I hear it’s quite the experience and that the sound system is excellent. It’s a bit of a trek out there, but if you’re in town do head over to check them out, as they both always put on a good set.

SATURDAY 7.11.09
CLUB AGEHA
ULTRA MUSIC
VINTAGE NOISE - ISLAND BAR / LOUNGE
START: 23:00PM
ENTRY: 3,500Y, 3,000Y (member)

Sorry for the silence. I’ve been away from the office and most of civilization for the past week or so, for a rather special occasion. Thanks for all the well wishes.

See you back in civilization soon. Ka kite.

Thanks again Japan. You never, ever, fail to amuse me.

See you next time.

Time warp time. It’s been a minute since I left Tokyo but I thought I’d finish up the updates from the trip. I bumped into Blake from UNDFTD JP whilst strolling through Harajuku, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the new UNDFTD Harajuku fitout, which was renovated a few months ago. Popped in to check out the décor.

New fitout looked great. Lots of wood panelling, and a lot more warmth to the space compared to the quite black/white/neutral tone that it was beforehand. Simple, but quite effective. I like the sliding door system for the changing room/stock system.

I met up with Blake and Kazz later up in the evening at the aforementioned adidas plants exhibition. We stopped for gyoza before heading out to Shin-Maru. It’s always fun catching up with these two as they have a pretty nonchalant view of the industry, and I check Blake’s blog quite often, which makes for a lot of humorous conversation. Allegedly, Kazz’s ability to speak the English language seems to exponentially increase with the addition of ethanol into his bloodstream, so we decided to test that theory. I think we confirmed our hypothesis.

Sorry Fraser. This was the real reason we were late for the honeyee.com event.

Moving along - when Dave told me that he was going to take me to a pretty good tonkotsu ramen place, I just shrugged. Just in case you didn’t know, ramen is like the fast food of Japan. It’s cheap, fast, and people tend not to eat it unless they’re in a hurry. Then again, he didn’t tell me about ICHIRAN.

The entire place was a trip. For a start, being that it was located right across the street from the infamous “Seventh Heaven” in Roppongi and then up a dodgy lift, I thought Dave had inadvertently taken me into some kind of weird hentai peep show. You sit in individual crammed ‘cubicles’, separated by rather dodgy looking dividers and a vinyl seat, with a tissue box right behind you. Riiiight. As you sit there staring at this red curtain, a hand darts out from underneath it and grabs your ticket, and it’s not until they pass you the order form that it dawns upon you that this really is a legit ramen place. It’s generally normal tonkotsu (roast pork slices) ramen, but you can specify everything from the fat content, flavour intensity, spicyness, the amount of their ‘secret sauce’, to the “firmness” of the noodles. The result – perhaps the best bowl of tonkotsu ramen I’ve ever had in Japan, topping Jangara Ramen in Harajuku.

The view from above. Also recommended – the hard boiled egg. I’m not sure if I’m spoiling the spirit of the message by showing you the second picture – it’s a little message that you’re only supposed to see once you finish your entire bowl of ramen, something along the lines of “Thanks for going all out to finish this bowl of noodles”, or something to that effect. Or perhaps it really says “hey sucker, you just ate double your daily calorie intake, you stupid foreign guy!”. I dunno. A lot easier said than done though, especially if you chose the ‘double-spicy’ option like I did.

Thanks again for everything Dave.

Rip says hello. Still looking for the perfect 10?