Potted History: 1800 to 1900ad

• 1800 Population of the world estimated at 1 billion.
• 1814 Napoleon exiled to Elba - Burboun reign restored.
• 1815 Napoleon defeated by British & Prussian forces at battle of Waterloo.
• 1818 (to 1848) Emily Bronte.
• 1819 Factory act passed in Britain - no children under 9, under 16 less than 12hrs per day in textile mills.
• 1821 Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile in St Helena.
• Napolean III crowned.
• 1831 (27.12) Darwin sets sail on Beagle for 5years.
• 1837 Queen Victoria take throne. (1819-1901)
• 1840 The Treaty of Waitangi signed.
• 1840 Potato famine in Ireland begins (lasts through to 1851)
• 1840 Deportation of convicts to Australia officially ends. ?
• 1843 Hong Kong proclaimed a British crown colony.
• 1844 Samuel Morse sends message from Washington to Baltimore.
• 1846 Anesthetic 1st used in a Massachusetts Hospital.
• 1851 (12.8) Isaac Singer granted patent on his Sewing Machine.
• 1859 Darwin publishes 'Origins of the species'.
• 1860 Paris commune.
• 1861 - 1865 American civil war.
• End of slavery in the USA.
• 1864 Waikato Wars
• 1865(26.5) end of U.S. Civil War.
• 1867 Alfred Nobel demonstrates dynamite in England
• Louis Pastor.
• 1874 (b.30.11) - 1965 Winston Churchill
• 1877 Edison records + plays back sound.
• 1879 (1.1) Edison demonstrates light bulb.
• 1880 Ned Kelly is wounded & captured.
• 1881 (25.10) Pablo Picasso born in Malaga, Spain.
• 1887 (12.8) Edison makes 1st sound recording of 'Mary had a little lamb'.
• William Morris
• Liberty opens in London.
• Bell conducts 1st successful telephone experiments.
• Charles Worth goes to Paris.
• 1889 Eiffel Tower opened in Paris.
• 1893-7 Penny Farthing the rage.
• 1896 Marconi makes prototype radio

Potted History: 1000 to 1800ad

• Richard Lion Heart comes to Rule Britain (French)
• 1066 Battle of Hastings
• 1066-87 Rule of William the Conqueror
• 1076 Irnerius rediscovers the Roman Digest of Law in Bologne.
• 1086 Doomsday book compiled for William the Conqueror.
• 1098 after 5mth siege Antioch falls to Crusaders.
• Ghengis Khan sweeps across Poland,Hungry defeating Europe's best.
• 1215 King John signs Magna Carta granting more liberty to his barons.
• 1314 Robert the Bruce crushes the English under Edward 11 at Battle of Bannockburn.
• 1347 The Black Death hits Europe. In less than 20 years 1/2 popn. of Europe dead.
• 1397 Medici start lending money internationally. Begins Italian Renaissance.
• 1429 English are defeated by French forces lead by Joan of Arc at seige of Orleans.
• 1450s Guttenburg develops 1st printing press.
• ? First books printed in English by Caxton.
• 1490s? Leonardo di Vinci
• Templars stamped out by the French
• 1492 Columbus discovers the Americas
• 1509 Henry 8th ascends the throne.
• Catherine of Aragon(d1536) - Mary1
• Anne Bolyne(ex1536) -Elizabeth1
• Jane Seymour(d1537) - Edward.vi
• Anne of Cleves (d1557)
• Catherine Howard (ex1542)
• Catherine Parr (d 1548)
• 1514 Copernia proposes that the earth rotates around the sun.
• 1515? Luther nails list on church door
• 1527? Death of Machiavelli.
• 1531 Henry 8th breaks from Rome to form Church of England.
• 1533 Atahualpa, king of the Inca, executed by Pizarro, after paying ransom of 1 room gold + 2 of silver
• 1547 Death of Henry 8th (b1509)
• 1547 Edward vi takes throne (1537-53)
• 1553 Rule of 'Bloody' Queen Mary i. (1516-58)
• 1558 Elizabeth i. reign. (1533-1603)
• 1564 (21.4) Shakespeare born
• 1566 French astrologer, physician & prophet Nostradamus dies.
• 1587 Mary Queen of Scots beheaded
• 1558 (23.7) British forces assemble to combat the Spanish Armarda.
• 1591 Galileo takes up of Prof. of Mathematics of Padua.
• 1603 James i (vi Scotland) takes crown. (1566-1625)
• 1611 Henry Hudson, famous for trying to find Asian route via Arctic, set adrift in Hudson bay by mutineers.
• 1613 The Globe Theatre burns down.
• 1616 (18.4) Death of Shakespeare (51yrs)
• 1619 First Africans brought to America by Dutch, the beginning of slavery.
• 1620 (21.12) Pilgrims go ashore from the Mayflgwer at Plymouth.
• 1625 Charles i. to throne. (1600-beheaded 1649)
• 1644 Cromwell's forces defeat British royalists..
• 1649 Charles ii.-restored 1660. (1630- 85)
• 1653 (16.12) Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England Scotland + Ireland.
• ?Reformation in England.
• 1666 Fire of London.
• 1688 William + Mary offered joint monarchy over England + Holland.
• 1687 Isaac Newton publishes Principia Mathematica, 20 years after apple.
• The Mayflower
• 1720s onward - good weather in Eng. for 30yrs.=popn. increase + slave trade money +.technology = industrial revolution.
• 1753 Benjamin Franklin flew kite to prove lightning was electricity.
• 1759 m2 chronometer perfected
• 1765 Watt patents steam engine
• 1767 James Hargreaves invents spinning jenny.
• 1769 Cook 'discovers' New Zealand
• American Declaration of Independence.
• 1769? Napolean Bonaparte born in Corsica.
• 1773 (16.12) American colonists stage Boston Tea Party.
• 1775-1817 Jane Austen.
• 1780s? Alessandro Volta produces 1st battery in Italy.
• 1789 (14.7)The storming of the Bastille marks the start of the French revolution.
• 1789 George Washington inaugurated,
• 1792 (30.11) British & Americans sign peace articles in Paris ending American Revolution.
• 1799? Napoleonic era
• Victory in northern Italy , Austria
• Victory (?) in Egypt.
• French lose almost entire navy to English near Alexandria.
• Napoleon named 1st consul
• Crowned as Emperor.

Potted History: 0 to 1000ad

• 14 Augustus dies aged 75 years.
• 14 Tiberius becomes Roman Emperor. Died 16.3.37 aged 78, loathed by his people.
• 33ish Ben Hur
• 37 Gaius (Caligula) Roman Ruler aged 24 - assassinated 24.1.41
• 37 Paul converted from persecutor of Christians to Missinary on the road to Damascus.&
• 41 Claudius (b1.10.10bc)
• 54 Death of Claudius - succession of his stepson Nero.
• 60 Uprising against Romans in Britian lead by Boudicca.
• 68 (8.6) end of Julio-Claudian line when Nero kills himself. Galba becomes Princeps.
• 68-69 The year of 4 Caesars. Nero, Galba, Otho, then Vespasian.
• 70 The great Temple in Jerusalem sacked by Roman troops, lead by Titus (son of Emporor Vespasian.)
• 79 Vespasian dies & is succeeded by son Titus. (First time 'natural' succession)
• 79 (24.8) Mt Vesuvius erupts.
• 138 Hadrian dies.
• 158 Taupo erupts
• 408 Roman legions withdraw from Britannia.
• 410 Collapse of Roman Empire with the sacking of Carthage.
• 500 King Arthur (regional leader) resists invaders at battle of Mt Badgn (Dorset).
• 622 Mohammed begins his flight from Mecca to Medina.
• 700ish? founding of Islam
• 711 Moors invade Spain.
• 750 Charlemagne ressurects standards of learning through monasteries with 7 principles of learning
• 860s onward. Beginning of the Viking invasion of England - which lead toward unification of kingdoms in resistance.
• 900(approx) Invention of the plough.
• 973 Edgar claims crown of England, Scotland & Isles. First United Kingdom.

A1GP 2007 at Taupo, New Zealand

My mate Simon Arkwright (aka The Professor) with his consultancy Sport Research Group gets some great gigs endeavouring to unravel the mysterious behaviours of sports fans, mostly in situations where there is a problem attracting or keeping them.

The model he has developed is called passionEight™ which I could explain but it's better you head off to his website for the full story. It's powerful stuff for decoding your fan or customer issues. The reader's digest version of the passions is this:

Principle #1 – There are 8 passionEight™ Passions

• Passion for Novelty/Occasion relates to the desire to attend an event to experience something new, different or special.
• Passion for People relates to the desire to attend the event with others rather than a strong desire to watch the sport event itself.
• Passion for Player taps into the inclination of fans to form bonds with particular players for whatever reason.
• Passion for Party relates to the entertainment factor which includes the atmosphere in the stands, event enhancement activities and/or the exciting play and players.
• Passion for Contest/Success is about the desire for competition, and success. The focus here is results not style.
• Passion for Community relates to loyalty to, and pride in, a particular community; whether that the cause of that pride and loyalty is territorial, ethnic, religious or cultural.
• Passion for Code relates to the love of the sports code.
• Passion for Team relates to a strong emotional link with a particular team rather than a love of the sports code or feelings of community.

He was kind enough to share the bounty of one of those gigs by getting me a photographer's pass to the A1GP in Taupo in early 2007. Would the A1GP model of fans dividing by a passion for their country work in a nation of rev-heads divided mostly by a passion for a brand of Australian 6 and 8 cylinder motor car? My task was to capture the context of the days of racing and the fans in the stands.

Here's a slideshow of the best images - bugger all of which are of fans!

Bikes I Love: 1930 BSA Racer

A friend returned from the antique store in Devonport in Auckland wondering aloud why a company would build a bike in the 1990s with wooden wheels. An hour later there was a new bike in the family. Platinum plated frame (before chrome plating was possible), cane rims and last ridden in the 1930s this bike bleeds passion for cycling. It originated in Christchurch, and was sold at auction in a household lot in 1995. I like to imagine a tragic tale of a young kiwi officer from a wealthy Canterbury family, so passionate for racing he had his bike completely platinum plated, putting it away in the summer of 1939 as he answered the call of the Empire, only to be cut down in fierce action on Crete and the bike stored away in sorrow for the next 50 years. Wherever that young man may be, the BSA’s in good hands today.

Bikes I Love: Bianchi Rekord 1979

The cheapest bike in the Dalton fleet by far – costing slightly more than one of Backie’s race tyres ($275) on TradeMe in NZ. Indulged over a twelve month period with 100 hours of searching for parts and information around the world on vintage bike sites, eBay and Trademe, plus a handcrafted paintwork restoration by the best in the business.

For all intents and purposes, it’s a new bike – most of the parts came in boxes older than some of the staff at R+R. And at a modest hourly chargeout rate, quite possibly the most expensive bike in the fleet.

And we won't even count the Creative Director's time spent researching the correctness of vintage parts and stickers for the build...


The Back Story to This Bike

It was the year America went to the movies and saw an amazing film – Breaking Away. The story of four friends finishing high school in Midwest USA in the 1970s, one of whom has an inexplicable passion for cycling Italian style. When the heroic Italian Cinzano team visit the region for a race, Stoller is forced to face down the demons of parental expectations, community intolerance of anything outside the norm and just growing up. But, like most of us, he turns out to be crappily average on the bike. But not so crap that he and his misfit buddies can’t enjoy the sweet taste of winning in their own world.

Bruce Springsteen must have been watching the movie when he wrote ‘The River’ a year later. No bikes in that song though.

Generations of young people like me identified with the movie’s vibe. The youthful rebellion, the inevitability of repeating our parent’s lives, taking a win where you can. And lusting after Italian bikes like the Masi Dave Stoller rode, Olmo and Bianchi. It was my second to last year of high school, and I now knew what cool looked like. It would be as long time before I had it.

Restored across 12 months in 2005 and 2006, the original frame was found languishing on TradeMe in NZ as a complete bike, one listing away from being sent to the Salvation Army by the guy’s wife. He’d been to America with his family in 1979, was mad about cycling and had saved up for years to buy something European and cool.


The so called ‘Auckland’ listing turned out to be in Albany, creating a logistics nightmare for recovering the bike. Eventually picked up by Andrew Venter and dropped off in Auckland for collection later. Upgrades over 25 years of using the bike for commuting meant not much was salvageable. Condition would be best described as worn. Only a mother could love it would be more precise.

The ragged condition made the decision about the restoration easy. It was so bad that there was little point in leaving it ‘original’.

In the 1990s I had sourced some random old Campy Super Record parts (pedals with ti spindles, 26.8mm seat post – no idea why other than they were beautiful) and these became the seeds of the rebuild.

To cut the costs of production, Bianchi took a single frame and made several bikes by fitting cheaper or more expensive parts. The remnants of mine were a bunch of Fiamme, Campagnolo, and Bianchi branded parts.

Combing the internet, I found gold – the original catalogue of models from that year from the USA, posted online by some kind hearted Bianchista.

Bikes I Love: Merckx Motorola 1991

Shimano Dura Ace 8 speed with old school hoods and brakes, rare Shimano aero seat post and the a freewheel tick that would embarrass any Campagnolo of its era. This bike is put together as homage to the American invasion of Euro cycling before the Armstrong era.

Motorola grew out of the 7-11 team, pioneers in Europe for whom Andy Hampsten won the Giro in 1988.

Knocked together quickly to take advantage of the frame (dodgy vintage shifters, wheels ok but laced badly), it is not very consistent or authentic, but is built with Sean Yates in mind - he spurned the new STI levers in favour of downtube shifters.

Stem, seat, brakes, frame, grouppo, blue cables, even bottle cages are right. So's the computer, picked from Glen's amazing spare parts cupboard of that era. The bikes were only labeled Merckx for a short period, after which their bike sponsor was Caloi - the team just repainted the Merckx frames with the new name.

A genuine Lance Armstrong Caloi Merckx in these team colours was once on eBay - allegedly raced in Paris-Nice in 1995. Oh how I wish...