Ye Olde Fashioned Skating 1970's stylee...

Oh bless them! Little did they know whilst practising their skating-into-the-wall trick many, many times that we'd all still be laughing at their obscenely short shorts 30 years later (I'm clearly only jealous - I had to wear my brother's hand-me-downs through the 1970's & 80's, including his old underwear & dubious combat phase, & I'm a girl... no one should have to suffer like I did!).

Check out this uber-cool retro offering from 1978 :

Happy weekend everyone!

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Extreme fly-fishing..

Here at SMB, we follow quite a lot of blogs & we must give credit to them for the inspiration behind many of our posts. This week's winner must be this though, from http://flyfishmagazine.blogspot.com/:

Yes, you are actually looking at a Great White Shark hanging on to some poor unsuspecting fishing fan's fly rod. As our office manager, Amanda, said "if they were holding a beer in the other hand, I'll bet that went straight over the side when they saw this little beauty".

A Great White definitely won't be on our top ten wish list, but then in

land-locked Oxfordshire we should be pretty safe!!

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BMX Star...

If you don't fancy venturing out during this damp squib currently known as the British Summer, then why not while away a few minutes indoors playing this free BMX game online?!

Check out http://www.mousebreaker.com/games/bmxstar .

Moursebreaker have lots of other great free games for you to try too.

Thanks to Sam Johnson for the great link.

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The UK's summer is a bit rubbish so far this year...

...So let's go ice fishing (you have to admit it's nearly been cold enough on some days)!!

For those of you who might have missed the perils of ice fishing (as outlined in our first post devoted to the topic earlier in the year), this clip might prove beneficial...

NASS '09 Skate highlights

Our little skate-dude Schaeffer Mclean's sponsors, Route One, bring us some tasty highlights from NASS 2009 - enjoy!

Also coming up, we have the ESBC '09, which should be amazing, check out: http://www.skateboardeurope.com/ESC09/ for more details - isn't summer just great?!

Buying a bike (BSO) this weekend?

A word of warning then, from Helen Pidd at the Guardian - don't buy it from ASDA.

Here is Helen's review:

"Earlier this month, Asda boasted that it was to start selling "the cheapest
bicycle in the UK". Having bought into the notion that to get a half decent new bike you had to pay at least £300 for it, I was intrigued to find out what you'd get for less than a quarter of that amount – Asda's adult machines cost just £70.

And so it was that I have spent the past month juddering around London on a 26in British Eagle 18-speed women's mountain bike in a patronising purple shade. My first outing on the Purple Eagle ended on a sour note when the handlebars started turning in an entirely unhelpful and counter-intuitive way every time I rounded a corner. The headset was horribly loose, and I had no tools on me to fix it.

Herein lies the first problem with buying what bike snobs refer to as a BSO (bike shaped object): you have to build it yourself. The Eagle comes in bits, meaning you have to attach the pedals, front wheel, handlebars and saddle to the frame. Asda's PR folks made mine, but the lesson is the same. Are you sure you know how to put it together properly? If not, you can either take it to your local bike dealer and hope they won't laugh you out of the shop when you ask them to do it for you (and if they oblige, you'll pay at least £20 for it). Or you can risk getting it wrong. The best-case scenario is that, like me, you end up walking home. Let's not contemplate the worst case.

The second problem was the grip-shift gears, which are operated by twisting the end of the handlebars. Very quickly I wished that British Eagle had concentrated on getting three gears right rather than making 18 substandard ones. Every time I went over a speed bump I changed gear; even on the flat there was always an irritating clicking sound which spoiled every ride. On the scale of annoyance, it was rather like being at the cinema and having someone kick the back of your seat all the way though the film.

To test the bike properly I decided to take it on a grand tour of north London's Three Peaks: Crouch Hill, Highgate Hill and Muswell Hill.

Yorkshire folk will no doubt dismiss these bourgeois mounds as mere hillocks, but tackling them on my weighty (18kg), graceless machine felt like I was scaling Pen-y-Ghent on a pedal-powered tractor. The good thing about mountain bikes is that they have super-low gears, but as the Purple Eagle could never stay in any gear for long, I may as well have been on a single speed.

After 40 miles or so of gentle bimbling, I took the bike into my local bike shop, Two Wheels Good, and got the owner, Jonathan Boyce, to give it a once over. He groaned as I wheeled it in – "We see these a couple of times a week and so often the repairs cost more than the bike," he said, adding that he gave me "four to six weeks" before the bike was too jiggered to ride. Jonathan's advice for those on a budget is to scrape together £100 to buy a decent secondhand bike rather than waste money on the Purple Eagle or any of its relatives.


Here are some of the flaws Jonathan noticed:

1. The Purple Eagle is a ladies' bike. So why the men's saddle?

2. The components are rubbish and made out of the biking equivalent of a supermarket own-brand. The derailleur, gear shifts and more are made by a brand that sounds like Shimano but isn't. It's even written in the same font.

3. The brakes are made from plastic, rather than more expensive aluminium, and so will flex and bend, wasting energy.

4. The handlebar stem is the old "quill" style (instead of attaching to a steerer tube it fits directly into the headset and screws onto the forks), rather than an a-head stem.

5. The rear derailleur is hooked onto the axle, rather than bolted straight to the frame, making it almost impossible to adjust the gears properly.

6. The cheap plastic pedals will "simply fall apart before long".

7. The rear wheel was badly out of true.

8. The front wheel wasn't round, and was wobbling about the place as if the bearings have already gone. Apparently this shouldn't happen on a decent bike until you've done at least 1,000 miles. (We can at least help you out on that one Helen! )

But the biggest problem I had with the Lumbering Eagle was that it was horrible to ride. Every time I was due to set out on it, I cast a jealous glance at my lovely, nimble racer and prepared myself for the unpleasant ride ahead. This is the real downer with cheap bikes: they put you off cycling."

Oh dear! And if that wasn't enough to put you off a budget purchase this weekend, then read what Real Cycling have to say about it, at:
http://realcycling.blogspot.com/2009/07/hangover-from-buying-cheap-bike.html

You have been warned... Happy shopping!!!

Accidental Fishing...

This may show all you fishing fans where you've been going so wrong over the years - never mind all the rigs & tackle, just take your dog & a loaf of bread out with you!

I just love this...

Schaeffer's back!

We are delighted to bring you the latest video from our sponsored skater, 5 year old Schaeffer McLean



Happy holidays little dude - we hope your summer is jam-packed with skateboarding!

Bike Fishing...

A couple in America have had a pretty nifty idea folks.

They've designed a rather nice bike-rack for fishing rods, thus combining two of our favourite hobbies. How clever are they?!

See http://bikefisherman.com/ for more details...

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Tour de France

If you are excited to be following the Tour de France again this year, you really must visit their website (click on this post's title to take you straight there). This 3500km, 21 stage race has a mightily impressive field of international cyclists & teams, battling their way across France. They take on flat stages, mountain stages & time trials in a Herculean effort to take the yellow jersey, as they arrive in Paris on Sunday 26th July.

We may not have succeeded with Wimbledon & England cricket may be struggling (the men's game anyway - well done ladies!), but there are Brits storming up the leader board in this year's Tour - all hail Mark Cavendish & Bradley Wiggins.

Currently in 7th place on time, after stage ten of the tour, Bradley looks ready for a strong finish. And as for Mark Cavendish, he is currently in 2nd place on points after stage 10. There is so much excitement still to come!

You can watch live streaming of the event on the Tour site & also keep bang up to date with the results - come on Mark & Bradley!

Roller blading heaven

Check out Julian Bah's new Vimeo clip - this guy is really pretty spiffy!

Julian Bah Im Back from david amkhinich on Vimeo.

Any other roller-bladers or inline skaters who've immortalised themselves in video, we'd love to see you so give us a shout!

Think Decks...

These new decks pay homage to some of the most intelligent, witty & charming ladies of our day... you can now ride on Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, or Nicole Richie...

Thanks to http://www.blackstork.com/ for the heads up!

For the ladies among us, this deck is possibly a bit more appealing:

Designed by Unkommon Kolor,

this deck is a real beauty & has just a wee cheeky dig at the boys... I want one!

Roller babies

Evian USA bring us the wonder of water...



Our mistake was clearly to drink too much alcohol...

Photo of the week goes to...

...Inu in Hakodate City, Japan, who took this amazing picture whilst out fishing over the weekend.

In the mouth of Kurosoi Rockfish that Inu caught at Ishizaki fishing port, there was a fingerling that the Kurosoi had eaten.

Visit http://inussaltwaterflyfishing.blogspot.com/ for more fantastic photos & fishing reports.

Something for the weekend...

We at SMB Bearings really pride ourselves on bringing you the latest cutting edge innovations (that James Bond himself would be proud to be seen around town with) & we truly feel that we've found a cracker with this one.

From a range of products rather doom-ladenly entitled "Innovate or Die" we bring you the Bike-Yak, a fusion of sea kayak & bicycle, for those days when a flood of biblical proportions prevents you from reaching the corner shop any other way.

If you'd prefer a product designed for somewhat happier times, then why not try this one...

...It doesn't show you the elephantine proportions of your thigh muscles by the time you've reached Bognor though.

Happy weekend everyone!

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Skate news...

We're in the process of developing a little clothing line for our sponsored skaters & we're delighted to bring you a sneak preview of our work so far - any comments welcomed!

We'll also have some decals available for your decks soon, so watch this space...

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We've found some funny guys at http://2headedhorse.blogspot.com/ who have produced the following promo vid for Fuel TV:

We thought it might strike a bit of a chord with skate-nuts everywhere!