Pam’s been testing a Sealline Urban Shoulder Bag for a couple weeks and reports that she likes it’s light weight, styling, and features, but found that the carrying handle was too small and the shoulder strap twisted when riding.
June 2007 Archives
Jerry Baker has been riding in the Northwest since the roads were dirt, back when shorts were wool, chamois were leather, and you switched gears by removing the wheel and flipping it around. Here’s Jerry with a new Davidson
I’ll admit to being a bit of a label-hound when it comes to my bike stuff, but other times I want the cheapest part to do the job. Then there’s that special case where the brand name part is the SAME as the knock off. Apart from graphics and color - these wheel bags are identical. I have a couple of each in my garage right now and after inspection it turns out they are the same. I got the Performance bags for $9 on sale!
I’m a big fan of wheel bags. Keep yourself and your car clean if you need to lug them around. Protect them fragile spokes from people trying to pack overstuff the trunk on the way to the race.
The Attack wheels have been on my Trek for a week now and I’m reluctant to give them back.
First off they are Carbon Clinchers — “Everyday Carbon” they say. How cool is that? I prefer tubulars for race day, but I can guiltlessly ride these to work without fear of being stranded with a flat. I’ve been running them in place of my Bontrager Race-X-Lite Aeros and the difference is noticeable.
... Read more »Reading about Cascade’s High Pass Challenge and the related High Performance Cycling group, I thought that has all the elements of a bike race, ‘cept they don’t call it a race.
The HPC is for the Cascade cyclist that wants to “ride fast, hard, far, and climb hills.” The High Pass challenge is an epic ride and whether they call it racing or not, you can bet cyclists are thinking right now of how to win it, place, set a personal best, or drop that dude that’s dangling just behind them and doesn’t take a pull.
... Read more »I first noticed the grizzly bear, then a girl in boots with a russian hat, and now the wolves on columns under the West Seattle Bridge near the Spokane Street Swing Bridge. I think they’re lithographed decals and wonder who the artist is … anyone know?
From Gregg’s Cycle’s blog is a post explaining their renovation/addition to the Greenlake store, move of Aurora Store to Alderwood, and construction of larger Bellevue location. When completed Gregg’s Greenlake will feature a two-story 10,000 square foot addition for a total of 18,400 square feet making it the largest cycling store in the Northwest.
Gregg’s Greenlake has been there since 1932 and started their business renting bikes.
Natalie was in Pike Place Market, standing next to a Bianchi, chatting with her friend from Team Group Health about bikes, messenger bags, and more.
A bit worried and wondering where in Japan Mark V is (we haven’t heard in a week and it wasn’t sounding too good for his knee), I’ve been checking a few Japanese blogs for any mention and found a Message to Fixie Riders: You Are Not Alone from Neomarxisme that laments hipster fixies and sarcastically acknowledges that
“this is the single most important change in the way we think about mobility and there will be no turning back.”
Check all the comments on that post for the lively discussion. In regards to an important change in mobility, note that that latest issue of Bicycle Quarterly is chock full of old bikes that were either fixed, single-speed or used flip-flop hubs. Example is the 1950 René Herse fixed-gear winter training bike.
Now that carbon frames are ubiquitous, that super-light frame of yours just isn’t turning heads like it used to. Lucky for you, my narcissistic friend, several companies’ new high-tech composite frames are sure to turn the tables back in your favor, and there’s little danger of wide adoption. I am of course referring to wooden frames.
Concept bikes from GP Design Partners and Waldmeister use traditional layering-and-molding methods to create these beautiful frames:
Cyclingnews.com shows us that Shimano appears to have entered the carbon-crank market. Why? - I don’t know. After my initial shock when the current Dura Ace crank was introduced, I fell in love with the aesthetic. I appreciated Shimano’s decision to stay with their Hollowtech Aluminum cranks. Now it appears that market pressures have pushed them into carbon. What’s next…11speed?
Agreed with Todd of Clevercycles, that this longtail bike from Pereira Cycles is “truly stunning.”
A few bloggy updates of note
- On the 08 Madones, added a Cyclingnews feature on Levi’s bike
- Added a bullet to Looking for a Sport-Utility Bike that Stokemonkey sales are on hold
- Team Bike Hugger posted about the Stillwater Crit of Destruction
David Byrne writes about riding bicycles in NYC for nearly 30 years, including the early years withTalking Heads (iTunes) where they made fun of him for being like Pee Wee Herman. While noting how exhilarating riding across town is
“A ride across town gets the adrenalin going as one heads to work or to the studio in the morning. By the time one arrives for a meeting one is fully awake — blood pumping, on alert — having often just had 3 near-death experiences.”... Read more »
Schwinn Girl popped into the bike shop with a loose shifter cable. We all agreed the bike was way older than her and it was a 50s or 60s era Varsity. She was convinced it was from the 80s, but loved the bike just the same and for her it seemed like a fashion statement.
Pam and I rode the Tour de Blast on Saturday. Still not feeling well, we backed the pace off after I blew on the first climb and rolled it recreationally with the thousands of cyclists.
Tour de Blast is a well-ran, fun event with stunning scenery of Mt. St Helens.
Tour de Blast photos in the Bike Hugger Photostream.
From the Team Bike Hugger blog, that’s a photo of Team Group Health at the Nature Valley Grand Prix, where they took a podium spot.
Byron just rolls up on Bettie and parks right next to the Vans, SUVs, and Cars.
Maybe Microsoft will add HOV lanes, bike lanes, and showers for bike commuters to a hugongous parking garage that’s “four stories deep, four football fields long and 1.5 football fields wide, with room for nearly 5,000 cars.”
Getting press on this, I wondered if MS is proud of that monster garage. How do you possibly offset that much carbon?
Built for a tour of Denali National park, this Adventure Travel Bike features S&S couplings, the biggest knobbies ever made, lots of room for fenders, campy shifters, and an XT drivetrain. Bonus is the retro paint. More photos in the Hugga photostream
Resurrected from the dregs of someone’s basement, is this early 90s Davidson Impulse — that’s just one of the frame models that gave Bill his frame-building cred and he’s been at it for 38 years. Bike trivia: “Davidson Impulse” can be re-arranged to “Damn Livid Spouse!” and Impulses are still trading today amongst collectors, on eBay, and that’s damn lucky to find one in a basement.
Check this Bicycling magazine review of Custom Bicycles for Specific Needs, written by Gary Fisher, in March 1978.
Sadiq Gill built the frame up with older Mavic SSC stuff, Phil Tubular wheels, and wrote that she “rides fantastic” … tripping the bike fantastic.
It’s no Bike Hugger T, but I just picked up this Blue and Hot Pink shirt from Denver-based Vital and am loving it. The lightweight cotton Alternative Apparel t-shirt is comfy and runs fitted. Check out their assortment of other cycle-themed t-shirts.
via the Goat
Bike Hugger is already planning our Interbike trip this year, where we’ll cover even more of the show, cycling in Vegas (you’d be surprised), and announce product from some supa-secret projects we’re working on.
Bonus this year is the Las Vegas World Criterium Championship with it’s Industry Cup division, the Red Rock Casino Resort Spa, and check this out: At the Red Rock, you can test ride Cannondale’s System Six or Synapse Carbon SL 1 with a set of Lew Racing’s PRO VT-1!
... Read more »
When writing the post on Coudal’s Swap Meat, I googled Orange Krate and from various forums, fan sites, and collectors arrived at this ad from 1968 posted to the Schwinn collector forums.
And it don’t stop there … check the Krate-designed rooms, the 32 Ford Sedan that inspired the Krate, and the chopper controversy about the Raleigh design on the back of an envelope.
Cross-posted from Textura Design … for all you DIYs out there in the big ‘ol blogopshere, check Swap Meat, where you send Coudal (a creative agency) the cool thing you’ve made and get a cool thing in return, like a book about a guy that wore red pants for 30 days straight, a lovely Box of Documents, or this Cat on a Bike print (since sold out).
... Read more »
Mark V report from the 15th
After our slog through the monsoon to Shirotori, the sun came out accompanied by a stiff wind from the north. My knee was questionable, but if we were to maintain our schedule, we had little choice but to pack the bikes up and go.
Rolling out of town, my knee immediately began to protest. We decided to bypass Shirokawa-go and head for Takayama. That way, we would be able to take a rest day and still maintain schedule, but it would make the current day’s riding steeper and longer. The initial kilometers were flat but we were plagued by strong headwinds until we could turn east into the mountains. For the most part, we could stick to the smaller roads without traffic.
I don’t really remember too much of the ride….basically I spent the whole day with tunnel vision on Angelo’s rear wheel trying to focus out the pain in my leg. I’m told we climbed multiple passes, the highest being 1085m. Whenever we stopped or descended, my leg would seize up. The second pedal stroke would have me gasping in pain. If not for the threat of being stranded in no man’s land between towns, if I were home in Seattle, I would not have been walking, let alone propelling a 56 lbs bike up mountains.
... Read more »
Tobym tipped us to the sweet sweet coffee tee from Unicorn Burger.
Toby knows that cyclists are as obsessed with coffee as anyone. I’ve posted on the perfect cup and my current fav is Peets, which packs more caffeine per sip. I started on Peets while in Beijing and brewed it up with Señor Muggy.
Pam enjoys her morning coffee with Bettie, a sport-utility bike. Watch more Bettie videos and here’s a version of Morning Coffee with Bettie you can download for your iPod (900K).
Unbreakable Bonds, Kryptonite’s blog, posted last week on the Top 10 Worst Cities for Bicycle Theft. NYC is number one and Seattle is 8th.
I’ve def had a few worried moments with Bettie, that’s a big investment for a crack head to ride off with and use a cable lock, plus disabling the motor. Bettie usually attracts a crowd so that’s a deterrent. And, as Mark V noted in his post, in Japan theft isn’t a problem and we learned that as well in Beijing. Thanks to Scott for the tip on the post.
Also see a short film on the bike locking ability of New Yorkers.
During the Methow Valley Tour Time Trial, Dave from the DTours bike shop rolled up on his Peugeot and chilled. When I snapped this photo, he told me that, “he was all over the blogosphere with the bike tourists that take his picture and put it on their blogs.”
Word. See more from the Methow Valley in the Bike Hugger Photostream.
We’re not sure how exactly Reynolds Composites are using Clip-n-Seals, but building carbon wheels is my favorite industrial use for Clip-n-Seals — well that and flying around in the Space Shuttle. We’ll post more about Reynolds wheels after a few more races on their Attack carbon clinchers — hopefully I’ll learn how our little invention figures in. Until then, we just started selling the Clip-n-Seal Mondo directly to consumers, small business, and hobbyists, and anyone else that has a mondo bag of chips to keep fresh! Purchasers of our love the hugga tees, have received a bonus Clip-n-Seal in their packages …
... Read more »Wherever Mark V is, during his Japan Tour, I hope he can make it into a Muji Store to check out the bikes, like the one shown in the photo, or any in their bike catalog (pdf).
Read more about Muji in BusinessWeek.
In the 70s, there’s nothing I wanted more than to be like Evel Knievel (profiled earlier this year by USAToday). I practiced daily on my bike, even jumping 7 neighborhood kids once for a neighborhood record and subsequent lifetime ban from the whole jumping kids thing (I nicked one).
In HBO’s new comedy series, Flight of the Conchords, Brett works Tuesday nights on his secret project: a hair helmet.
For trivia buffs, the original hair helmet was sported by Lily Tomlin during an appearance on Laugh In in the 70s, but that was her real hair.
... Read more »Like all the other Mac fans, I clicked through to see Wired Magazine’s leaked screenshots of Mac OS X Leopard and there was The Ride from this Wired blog post!
In yet another example of bike design in pop culture and ads and the serendipity of the blogopshere, millions of people are indirectly seeing Ellsworth’s urban cruiser bike. Why The Ride is crushing watermelons, don’t know, but cool just the same.
After last year’s How not to ride STP, I embarked on this season determined to get in some great rides and procure for myself the coveted one-day rider patch. By adding thirty miles to the century course at today’s Flying Wheels, I managed to take a simple local ride and turn it into a very well-supported training ride.
... Read more »Mark says: this dates from the 15th
yesterday the monsoon rains arrived. we woke up and mounted our bikes for a long slog in a constant drizzle. homeboy had grown weary of the truck traffic breathing down our necks, so he plotted a course on a parallel road. basically, there are three roads following the river north from Gifu: a highway that the government had shot through mountain tunnels and high bridges, a prefectural road 156 which much of the trucks use, and a series of often single lane roads hopping the riverbanks. the small roads took us through dozens of little neighborhoods…modest houses almost always with a rice paddy alongside.
... Read more »
Splash News Online | Angelina Jolie and the Hitcher
So James Ambler has been following Angelina Jolie around New York on a Trek mountain bike, taking her picture as she makes appearances to promote her new movie A Mighty Heart. He's become such a fixture that Jolie and her kids have nicknamed him “Lance.”
On Thursday, Ambler hit a nail and flatted. Rather than leave him behind, Jolie gave the punctured papparazzo a lift to their next destination in her SUV.
I know some of you are saying he should have turned it down, rather than riding in a gas-guzzling SUV, but Ambler happily accepted a hitch from one of the world's most beautiful women, and spent about 30 minutes in her company. Ambler said Jolie was “really down to earth, really lovely.” Splash News has photos and video of Ambler describing the encounter.
Pam and I are at the Methow Valley Tour and blogging about it on Team Bike Hugger. Late summer last year Pam and I rode Mazama and the valley on a relaxed tour where we saw lots of yellow trucks and smoke.
Floyd Landis book, Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France, is on sale and he’s embarking on a book tour to promote it. The book and tour are making some news and the blogs are posting — no word if the WADA will test him during this tour.
Mark backdates this entry from the 14th
after waking up from the spooky inn, we packed our stuff and made way to the kombini (convenience store). angelo wasn’t doing too well with the japanese food, but i like to pack it down before riding. especially since it’s still flat, and thus unlikely that i’ll redline my engine too soon and throw up. it would be a long day in the saddle. i don’t remember too much about that ride…it wasn’t terribly scenic…in fact it could have been anywhere florida, germany (the boring parts), what have you.
... Read more »in his continuing travels in japan mark says: i finally have a computer that i’m not paying for by the minute and I’ve got the japanese keyboard sussed out for the most part…this goes back a few days to the 13th…
so we left kyoto yesterday afternoon around 3:30. just to let you know, that is awfully late to be leaving town by bicycle. we rode along a road with a lot of truck traffic, though once we got to the biwa-ko lake, there was a decent bike lane. most of the towns have bike lanes, but they are really just sidewalks puncutred by driveways every 10m. anyways, it starts getting dark (japan does not have daylight savings)…and then it’s pitch. we are on a one lane road with no light whatsoever and we are not going to make it to hikone. we find a hotel on the map, but they’ve no vacancies because of a high school trip. so we continue in darkness for another 30-40 minutes until we happen unto a youth hostel swathed in the darkness.
... Read more »YouTube user shankbone wrote a song to accompany this security camera footage of a guy ripping off his bike's wheels while his frame is locked to a fence in Brooklyn.
Found on Metafilter, where one commenter also noted Bruce McCullough's Open Letter to the Guy Who Stole His Bike Wheel and Bruce McCullough's Open Letter to the People Who Watched the Guy Steal His Bike Wheel.
Boing Boing, a directory of wonderful things, posted on an updated Urban Mobility Bike from Puma. We posted earlier on the original UM, in regards to travel and being urban. The bike is a design collaboration to benefit an earthquake charity and another example, like the Biomega at DWR, of bikes as designer items and pop culture.
She was downtown, at the corner of Stark and 6th in Portland, checking out the shops, purse at the ready … on her city cruiser bike. Argyle socks and the Portland Northwest urban look are a definite contrast to a stylish New Yorker.
Bike Hugger picked up a comment this week that is near and dear to my biking-heart. As I’ve posted (twice), I’m a fan on disc brakes for the rainy season.
... Read more »(note: the keyboard also pissed me off with some really strange, apparently haunted font that wasn’t rendering. I retyped Mark’s post — Byron)
In Gifu now. The keyboard is really pissing me off. Anyway, heavy truck traffic along all the roads. No real mountains yet. Stayed at this surefly hauted inn Outside Hikone. Woke up with a centipede crawling over me and weird mumbling voices in the dark. Homeboy is a wuss in traffic, just because the trucks rub your packs as they pass. Eating out of Kombini, which is japanese for conveience store. Not too tired —- more posts hopefully later.
Over at the Sartorialist today, he posts on “New York Bikes with Style.” He gives no details on her very stylish bike, but somehow, I don’t think that’s what he was focused on.
Met with Bill Davidson last week, went over a few more details, fine tuned the angles, measurements, and tube diameters on the Bike Hugger Modal. The Modal is a travel bike that switches between geared and fixed. It’s a concept from Mark V and once it goes into Bill’s frame factory, we’ll post all about it with photos and videos.
Then later this year, we’ve got rides planned in the Puget Sound and in Europe, possibly back to China.
I doubt he’s even seen this yet, but fellow Bike Hugger author Frank Steele’s blog - tdfblog.com was noted in the July 2007 issue of Men’s Journal Magazine. Nice work Frank!
Slipstreamz are cycling earwear for iPods to “fine tune your ride.” The product attaches to your helmet strap, covers your ears, blocks wind noise and you slip the iPod earbuds in for a ride. Most of the people I ride with listen to music when training and in a noisy city I can see the advantage. Slipstreamz also markets a spoiler that just blocks the wind.
When I ride, I like to listen to the world, the wind, and what’s going on around me so this isn’t for me, but Andrew is going to test the Slip during his commute.
To increase awareness in the US market, Slipstream just announced they’re sponsoring the Inferno Racing Cycling Team. The team is using them for training and racing with team radios.
so i’m writing from an inn in kyoto after taking the bullet train from tokyo. we’re a day behind already on the planned ride back to tokyo thru the mountains of central japan. just me and an old roommate are gonna ride thru the nastiest passes on honshu, the main island in the japanese archipelago. i’m beginning to think that this may have been the dumbest idea i’ve ever had. the profiles for the climbs later in the trip are just vicious.
goodbye to cushy stays at the u.s. embassy residences, hello to paying thru the nose for hotels and probably sleeping on the ground without camping gear once we get to the mountains proper.
we’re debating whether to jump on the bikes tomorrow and hammer out 90 miles to gifu, just to get us out of the hole. we haven’t been riding all that much since we got to japan, so that would be pretty harsh. i guess we’ll decide tomorrow.
Saw these guys while walking in Shibuya. Shibuya feels like Disney World meets Manhattan’s 5th Ave. These guys were just kicking back in a sea of people. Uichi (left) is rocking a yellow Nagasawa keirin bike. Eiske (right) happened to be wearing a Cadence shirt handcrafted just 3minutes from my apartment in Capitol Hill, Seattle. It’s a small world after all….
Doubtful anyone rode naked here in Seattle (if they did, we didn’t see ‘em, but they will later this year) on World Naked Bike Ride day, but they did around the world. While Seattle was wet and cool, elsewhere
“the protest stretched beyond Europe, with protests also planned over the weekend in Mexico City, eight locations in Canada, and a multitude of cities in the US. Southern hemisphere nude riders could strut their stuff in March of this year”
The AP reports on the nude event in the U.K with this quote, “Bikes and naked bodies harm nobody. Car fumes and accidents kill tens of thousands every year in the UK alone and are driving us all to climate chaos.”
The square v. compact frame geometry debate is back (if it ever left) and we’re being asked, “what size Madone?” Damn good question and we’ll have to see if you’ve either got a stubby stem of one that “reaches for the sky.” When Pam first stepped over her new Specialized Tarmac SL, it was like “what? am I on a mtn bike,” and it’s definitely unnerving to not see a top tub near your knees. I should probably write a “in defense of square frames” post sometime, but you can’t fight progress, so we’ve got the last square bike hold out, pushing out a new technology-driven, sloping top-tube bike with a seat mast and the “seat, feet, hands” approach. (I’m sure there were lots of groans from Masters racers about that)
In the bike shop, you’re going to have to try it, as you definitely can’t tell from the brochure. And to their credit, Trek answers the question here, in a lengthy and informative post.
So I found these Shimano R540 SPD-SL pedals in a bike shop called Narushima Friends (なるしまフレンス) in a neighborhood of Tokyo.
I was clicking around Hed Cycling’s site, checking on ceramic upgrades, what teams they’re outfitting for the tour, that sort of thing, and noticed the “it’s not you, it’s me” letter to the Hed Alps
“You don’t know how hard it is for me to say this, but I think it is time for us to break up. We had some great times – I’ll never be able to forget your light weight and durability, and you are still super fast. You were an awesome ride but things have gotten stale. It’s not you, it’s me. “
The Hed Alps have been replaced by the Jets (were the Alps like a starter wife?), an excellent wheelset that I’ve been racing on this year and have reviewed on Bike Hugger a few times. In most every race I’m in, I see a set of Alps, usually with the decals worn off, and looking a bit worse for wear, but still rolling and racing. My first Hed wheelset was the Alps and I sold them on Craigslist earlier this year. The dude that bought them was thrilled, happy, and amazed that he found a pair on Craigslist. Here’s to you Alps … goodbye.
I posted last winter about “ What’s best” - some blather about passing cars while commuting to work. I was wrong. It’s been a full week and I’m still on a mini-high about what’s REALLY the best: winning my first Cat Pro/1/2 race. 5 years as a Cat2 with sparse results, but never a win. It’s been season after season of training - mostly by riding the 20 miles to and from work. Finally!
Too bad I didn’t zip the jersey. Thanks to Amara at wheelsinfocus for capturing the moment.
note: Gina directs the Wines of Washington women’s team, organizes them into Bike Hugger- sponsored composites for the big National Calendar races, and has been racing in the Northwest for as long as anyone can remember. We asked Gina to report on the team’s progress and what’s next on the calendar — Byron
Whew — Mt Hood Cycling Classic is done. What a relief which is sort of hysterical when you realize I was sitting in my office every day while the rest of the Bike Hugger gals were out there baking their brains. Sitting in ones office knowing everyone else is racing is actually harder than you think it should be. Fortunately for me cell phone coverage was decent & I got semi regular road race updates from Eric when he wasn’t too busy coaxing the gals to work, catch on, to sit in & everything else that goes on in the team vehicle.
... Read more »On Tuesday June 26th from 5:30 - 7:30 PM, join The CBC Action Fund (an affiliate of the Cascade Bicycle Club) Senate Transportation Chair Ed Murray (invited), Council Transportation Chair Jan Drago, and Councilmember Richard Conlin for a happy hour and fundraiser at the Pike Brewery and Pub.
This is a”mini velo” type bike I saw in the Roppongi neighborhood of Tokyo. In Japan, Mini velo bikes include anything with small wheels, including Moultons, Bike Fridays, and a whole host of Japan only bikes, but not exclusively folding bikes.
Just a few more days till my homeboy and me jump a bullet train for Kyoto and attempt to ride back through the mountains of central Japan. Currently enjoying not working in a bike shop.
So my group was walking the streets of Tokyo after finding the Tsukumo Cycle Sports bike shop, home of Kalavinka Cycles. Kalavinka bikes are known as top notch keirin bikes.
Anyways, we were walking along when I saw a Bianchi Mini Velo 9. The Japanese have this thing for bikes with really tiny wheels, but there is a subgenre of bikes that look like regular road racing bikes but have 20-inch wheels.
... Read more »Wanna get a bike shop mechanic to do a spit take, say, “hey the new Trek Madone has got precision fit socket technology!” Some may just spit their coffee right out their nose, laugh uproariously, shake their head, or remind you of that year the Madones used Klein’s bottom cup design on their forks and how that didn’t work.
... Read more »
Taking another tact on the utility bike is the Yuba Mundo. I hadn’t seen it before and was tipped by Ben Sarrazin who, according to his bio on Yuba’s site, worked for several years with Xtracycle. Props to the straightforward design, and for building a bike to, “to carry things, to ride anywhere.”
Filed under Stupid is the back-to-back recumbent seen below. Contrast that with this “amazing” video of motorpacing at 110 mph and then back to stupid, we have the sideways bike. Then there’s the Cobra in Malorca, which is def amazing.
Cascade Bicycle Club counted more than 19,000 cyclists on Starbucks Bike to Work Day setting a new record for Seattle. The Group Health Commute Challenge also shattered expectations with more than 7,500 riders commuted an astonishing 997,830 miles. According to Cascade, that’s nearly a million pounds of CO2 saved. Not only that, but think of all the stress relief of not sitting in traffic.
Nationwide Iowa reports records, as well as San Francisco, Marin County.
Jet-lag has me waking up hella early and collapsing at 9:30 at night.
Today Angelo, Katherine, her Japanese bf, myself, and maybe our friend Min will go to this festival at one of the temples just south of the Imperial Palace. The big hook is that this the one time when the yakuza walk about with all their tattoos displayed. Other than that i have no idea what it’s about. Hopefully after that we can visit a bike shop with a bunch of keirin stuff.
Talking about tattoos and yakuza reminds me that i might have a problem on the bike tour…I was hoping to visit an onsen (hot springs) on the way, or at least try a public bath house (by the way, it’s a VERY different cultural role here compared to the united states). However, I have several tattoos, and tattoos are associated with the yakuza in japan. And yakuza are frequently barred from public baths. Still, the fact that i am an incurable gai-jin (slang for “foreigner”) might quell the idea that I am a Japanese gangster, but we’ll see.
This photo works as the photo of the day on several levels:
- it’s an antler bike, in Paris
- the cyclist is wearing a beret with matching uniform that matches the spoke reflectors
- the cyclist strikes a saucy pose
- it says I’m French and fun!
Thanks to Pally for the tip and finding the Paris Antler Bike on the Paris Deconstructed blog.
In Akasaka neighborhood of Tokyo.
I am kinda clueless to what this logo signifies on this bike stem. It’s a reasonably nice stem, like a Ritchey but polished. If I spoke better Japanese, I would have asked for an “It’s Techno” stem, or maybe an “It’s Indie Rock” stem.
Wait a minute….there’s profit to made in these ideas.
Pro cyclist Jennifer Reither wrote to say
Bike hugger Tees are still on the road, now in Montreal. Team Bike Hugger sponsored us an the Redlands Classic in March. My teammate and I Jennifer Wilson decided to jump into the World Cup and Grand Tour in Montreal. We take our bike hugger shirts to every race. Fans love em
Love the hugga! Read more about Jennifer racing at Redlands on the Team Bike Hugger blog. And see shirt photos in our Flickr photostream.
Ok, the oft-asked, much debated, and a bit confusing question on brake pads came up for me this weekend at a hilly race when a set of Kool Stop carbons squealed like Lindsay Lohan at a Hollywood coke party.
I had run just regular Dura Ace pads on my Hed Stinger 50s with no problem, but understand with the heat and descents they’ll melt with disastrous results. So I switched to the Kool Stop and they were fine for the first hour, then the horrible squeal started.
So what do you do? Live with the squeal, use a different pad, what?
Trek launches the 2008 Madones with a brochure site and lots of new technology, including a oversized 90mm wide bottom bracket shell, no headsets, seatmast, new carbon designations, and a fuselage approach. Responding to their competitors, like Specialized, Trek is coming out firing with a “we invented carbon bikes” approach and a frame that’s a half-pound lighter
By de-emphasizing specific materials and instead focusing the discussion on our OCLV Carbon process – a process we invented 16 years ago and have been refining ever since - Trek can leverage our manufacturing, engineering, and design expertise to underscore the unique nature of our carbon fiber frames: a difference we’re confident makes for the best carbon fiber frames on the planet.... Read more »
A NYTimes.com media feature on the fixed-gear phenomena, includes the King Kog shop, the Kissena Track, scenes from the streets, and how to make $500 a week riding your bike.
Team Bike Hugger is hot and I mean “hot,” literally hot at the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic.
One of my favorite pastimes is finding a use for old bikes. If I can keep them out of the landfill and help them to ride again - I feel like I’m contributing a little to the common good. The funny thing is I develop a deep affinity for my pieced-together bikes: Short trips to the store, bike polo in the park, taking a spin in the snow, and taking it off some sweet jumps. I think my total out of pocket cost for this singlespeed cross bike was somewhere around $100.
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