WHILE THE CAT'S AWAY

Has anyone noticed how much MOVING TARGET has improved recently?

H.O.P. THE MARQUE OF SUCCESS

House of Pistard's favourite Spazzcore band have signed a record contract. We know nothing about the music industry but we're pretty sure this is a good thing, expect downloadable T.A.W.F.A.W.W. ringtones any day now.



Teamrider Joe wears vintage* H.O.P. to sign his record contract. Note the track bike in the background ...fucking hipster.



And here he is getting his toes tattooed in a full Creative uniform, God knows how he got a hold of that.

*well, something from the 2006 catalogue.

CAT O' TEN TAILS

Ian and his beard are leaving London. To celebrate this he's throwing an Al**ycat on Friday 9th May.
In order to get a better quality report from The Westcoastmess we're going to have him fully embedded like a BBC war correspondent* and we're also sending The Pistette along for added eye candy and to make sure The Mess actually turns up at the right place on the right day.
All proceeds are going to the London Courier Emergency Fund so you should go and enter even if you don't make it past the first checkpoint. The H.O.P. checkpoint will probably involve Buckfast** for the drinkers and a kick in the balls from the Pistette for the straight edge, also expect them to be standing at the wrong place.
There's a H.O.P. tee up for grabs so that should be incentive enough to race.

*he's doing a H.O.P. checkpoint
**the refreshment of choice for racers, it's even got the word 'fast' in it.

L.C.E.F. - LONDON COURIER EMERGENCY FUND

London now has it's own emergency fund for injured couriers. You can access the webpage at www.lcef.org.uk to find out all about it and to check out the amazing logo.
We can't stress just how important a fund like this is to couriers who have a variable income with no sick pay. Ask a courier how much they earn and they will tell you £500 a week but most of them are lying, most of them will also be involved in a hospitalising accident at some point in their career. So now there is the L.C.E.F. to help out, but it doesn't fund itself so give a donation or better still organise something to raise funds: an Al**cat or a gig or a track bike comp. If it gets folk hanging out together it strengthens the courier community and a solid community creates stuff like the Emergency Fund - it's a self feeding maelstrom of goodness.

This also means that from now on any courier event in London will have to donate some of the proceeds to the L.C.E.F. or the organisers face getting dirty looks from the other couriers on the road ...actually that happens anyway.

For our part there will be a fund raising tee, hopefully in time for Stef's 10 years party.

BANDWAGONESQUE

One of the current trends is to colour code as many components on your bike as possible although the fact you can now actually buy whole groupsets in a rainbow of candy colours kind of takes the fun out of it. Here at H.O.P. we've got numerous scars from mistimed jumps onto the back of the bandwagon as it trundles past, but not this time. This time we are at the vanguard of a trend sweeping a sub-subsection of cycling.
Have you co-ordinated your lock and frame? Didn't think so.

ONE STEP CLOSER TO THE DOOR

Well the Westcoastmess promised to do a good write up of Dazzler's Eat My Shorts alleycat but almost a week later and still no sign of anything on the site. I decided to give him a call to find out what went on and, even though this exposes the dysfunctional nature of the H.O.P. organisation I've decided to print the whole of the conversation verbatim:

Obergruppenpistard: Hey, Xander I'm just calling to find out how the alleycat went?
Westcoastmess: Aye, it was really good there was about 23 racers and they got plenty of cash for the L.C.E.F. I've just not had a spare minute to do a write up.
OP: Well I'm recording this conversation so why don't you just tell me over the phone and we'll put that on the site.
[ pause followed by the sound of a computer booting up ]
WC: Okay then ...um ...right ...well I got there a bit late and everyone was already hanging about waiting for the race to start. I saw someone, maybe Keith, talking to a bored looking Agata, Herbal Gerbil was there, as was Nhatt. Some people had made an effort and turned up on their nice bikes, there was a blingin' Colnago and a nice blue something that was only spoiled by riserbars...
OP: Woah,woah! Hang on a minute there. Are you just looking at Selimski's Flikr photos and saying what you see?
WC: No don't be stupid, I was there. I nearly raced but I was riding my 'going to the shops' gear ratio instead of my 'street racing' one so I thought it would be pointless to even try being competitive.
OP: Hmm. Okay go on then. But the next thing you say better not be something about Vojtech helping Muna fix a puncture.
WC: ...
OP: You weren't there were you?
WC: Um, no I got caught up doing something else and before I knew it I'd missed the start. In my defence it was won by Overdrive who was one of my tips so any gamblers that read this blog should be happy.
OP: Right, this is officially your last warning, one decent story about a bus driver is not going to cut the mustard, either you start coming up with some decent input or you'll be busted back down to where you belong: the comments section on Moving Target. And as for getting 'caught up doing something else' you will never find Osama Bin Laden's cave on Google Earth so you may as well give it up now. Got that?
[ muffled swearing followed by the line going dead ]


Selimski ( who actually bothered to turn up ) has his photos HERE

REMEMBER THESE?

I remember when Chub hubs were legendary in a "What the fuck is it? And where can I get one?" way. Well the best street track hubs are available again ...just think of the extra space for stickers one of these gives your bike. I'm getting one for the new H.O.P. bike.

IT'S A FUNNY OLD WORLD

I'm not really sure what the connection between "Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher" and Salt Lake City is but we're going to cite this as a precedent when people start giving us shit about the "Hitler Cat" we've got in the pipeline. When Thatcher was in power the only thing she did that directly affected me was stopping free milk at school. In later life I've broken both my thumb and collar bone twice and I 100% blame her for it ...bitch.

The Obergruppenpistard has just reminded me that I'm going to be doing a report on Dazzler's Eat My Shorts Alleycat this Friday. I think it starts at The Duke about 7ish but I've already lost the flyer* this time I'll be paying a lot more attention to what's going on and I'll be able to let you know just exactly who eats who's shorts.
H.O.P.s tip for the win: Janky James ( that's if he races, I haven't asked him ) or Overdrive.


*this sort of thing is the reason Time Magazine haven't been phoning me up to do reports for them.

WE PRINTED SOMETHING. HALLELUJAH!

To prevent ourselves getting too rusty while we sort out suppliers we knocked out this little baby top for Ten Year Veteran Stef. The tiny wee top is going to be worn by Alexander William Hooton the latest creation from Skin Grows Back aka Pretty Boy and Catt who also make a fine array of accessories for your bike and body down in Oz. Check out their WEBSITE it's just one temporary page but you can see most of their wares, they are also lovely people which is one more reason to choose their stuff.

BIKES OF NOTE #1

RESPECT YOUR ROOTS
Muddy Fox Courier


Remember that FIXED exhibition at Shad Thames where they had that 1990's "courier" bike that was built up with components and stickers that weren't available 'til after 2000? Well, this is what they should've had ...it's not quite as cool though.

I hope no one watching thought I was trying to take a photo of the crank-shaft "Architects" bike on the other side of the lamppost.