I really enjoyed talking to Sam Grover from The Big Idea about artists promoting themselves and their work.

You can read the interview here, but essentially, it’s:

• Have a clear goal, and know what success looks like
• Don’t get bogged down in meaningless metrics (And don’t compare yourself to others. Good advice for many areas of life, ahem)
• Own your audience. Don’t rely on Facebook or Instagram’s mechanisms as they change all the time, not always in your favour

Hopefully there’s some ideas there to stimulate or reassure. As always with, I think your time is best spent working on a strong story rather than the minutia of social media / algorithms etc etc.

My little newsletter project recently turned one – here’s a run down, remember that you can sign up any time at sportreview.net.nz/newsletter.

52 not out – thanks for being part of the first year of the Sport Review newsletter. It’s been a bloody pleasure hitting send every Friday for you. 

First, massive thanks to you, dear readers for signing up. Every bugger’s after your email address these days, I appreciate you trusting me with yours. Your enthusiasm and encouragement make rolling out of bed every Friday at sparrow’s fart with the laptop and a strong coffee very much worth it. 

Thanks also to this fine nation’s sport journalists, who produce world class work every week, full of depth, passion and insight while making a living in a tough business. Get around them, support their work by paying for it, sharing it and supporting crowdfunding efforts like the brilliant LockerRoom. 

And thanks for putting up with my own writing – the goal of the  sportreview.net.nz blog when it started in 2004 was putting a bit of humour into the nation’s sporting discourse. You will be the final judge of course (!) but I’ve loved writing it for you and enjoyed the discipline of doing my own thing every week. 

Ultimately this newsletter’s kaupapa is ‘caring about sport’ and ‘having fun’, and I hope it’s added something to your sporting week.

Sometimes sport feels like hard work with the week in week out grind, the shit posts, sports that feel more marketing machine than actual sports, while other athletes survive on oily rags. It can be harder and harder to justify spending your valuable leisure time on actually getting out and supporting your teams when the big screen TV and pistachio nuts are RIGHT HERE IN THE HOUSE!  

But there’s so much to enjoy – the big tries, wickets, goals, winning trophies or losing them in enjoyably frustrating ways, and being part of a tribe and a culture. Sport catching up with society and starting to recognise female athletes properly has been huge and a real injection of enthusiasm and fresh energy. There’s a whole lot of sport happening this year with all those world cups on, I hope you have a great one. Thanks again for reading.  

Sharing makes you look intelligent and cool 
A problem shared is a problem halved – I really appreciate you sharing this on your social feeds, or forwarding it to your family, friends, workmates and enemies and then badgering the crap out of them until they subscribe at sportreview.net.nz/signup. 

Plans for the year ahead? More of the same. Maybe some T-shirts. Would love your feedback at richard@sportreview.net.nz, let me know what you’d like to see more of and less of. Cheers! 

Top three most popular newsletters

1. Best of 2018 – year in review
2. Ric Sallizzo’s Instagram is New Zealand sporting Taonga
3. All Blacks end of season questions edition 

My owns favs, in no order: 

• Love letter to Test Cricket 
• Auckland stadium power rankings 
• Campground leisure activity power rankings  
• Lost Amazonian tribe discovered in All Blacks touring squad 
• A Crusaders fan on coping with a long, rugby-free summer 
• Big serve – catering the right food on game night

You can enjoy all the old editions again at the newsletter crypt. 

Moving to Tauranga, we now live an easy ten minutes or so on the bike from the office. I wanted a flat pedal bike that’s more upright than the road bike, and that wouldn’t be out of place on the light gravel paths around here.

Luckily I had this – my father’s old Batavus Criterium. It’s a 531 steel road bike with older Shimano kit. Batavus is a Dutch company that usually makes yer upright town bikes, but also did these road bikes – Google tells me they were high quality builds.

It’s got a fairly laid back geometry and seemed a perfect candidate for flat bars and a general re-jig. It’s well worn but in good shape. Hopefully the sweet purple / green / yellow and white paintjob make it stealth and unappealing to anyone wanting to nick a bike at the supermarket.

Here’s the after:

Dad’s tubular wheel set had to go. They were excellent Weinmanns that rode very smoothly but I’d tried tubulars for city riding before and they’re a real PITA when you get a flat. In came a robust (code for heavy) aluminium wheelset I’d obtained for commuting, keeping the original rear cluster with a spacer, and a set of Panaracer Paselas.

The drop bars were replaced with a no-name flat bar (it can be hard to find a flat bar in road-bike-compatible diameters I discovered). These are a set of Shimano brake levers specifically designed for caliper brakes, they work really well.

As I’m stuck with downtube shifters, I don’t need the combo shifters/brakes. I didn’t bother putting a computer back on, I really like how bare bones it looks.

I got a set of 700x25s as I was a bit unsure how much clearance I’d have, but I could have easily gone to 28s. I reckon I could get a set of proper fenders in there too. And check out that badge!

The original plan for this bike was a fixed gear conversion, and that may still happen, these dropouts look likely to me.

Steel is real. It’s an extremely smooth ride and is working perfectly for the ride to work. I’m delighted, and stoked to get something so nice back in regular use.