October 2009 Archives

I like fire. I like setting fires. In high school, I used to steal chemicals from the lab so I could colour the family home’s fireplace. LIthium in enough quantities would create this red/fuschia flame, while cupric chloride would make green flames. Luckily no one at the shop has taught me to use the brazing torches, otherwise I would have slagged frames left and right and burned Davidson Bicycles to the ground by now.

That’s why Will Meyers is brazing my new frame, not me. Here he’s doing a fillet braze around the head tube. Notice the glowing red spot visible from inside the head tube; that’s the steel where he’s laying down brass. I didn’t have my camcorder otherwise I could have shown you how he carefully flicked the torch to keep a steady temperature without over cooking the tubes. The flame is a lot less than when he brazes lugs.

Freeriding in India is when your bro on a scooter pushes you along to the market.

(Byron and Val meeting up on the road)

Aaron’s Bicycle Repair and Redline Bicycles are raffling off a Redline 9-2-5 to benefit one of Seattle’s best bicycle men. Val Kleitz is currently battling cancer and all raffle proceeds the will go towards helping him cover his medical bills.

Val and I worked together at a shop when I was in High School and College. He then went on to open The Bikesmith in Wallingford. He’s worked at a number of shops around Seattle since then, most recently as the Rock Shox Warranty and Service Manager for Seattle Bike Supply and the Sunday mechanic at Aaron’s Bicycle Repair. He’s helped out with a number of Bike Hugger projects and is just an all around great guy.

UPDATE: Aaron has setup a PayPal account for donations as well.

Raffle tickets are available at Aaron’s Bicycle Repair in West Seattle (through Mid-December).

A still from riding in Delhi video shot yesterday. We’ll publish the video and other huggacasts from the Mobile Social Worldwide once we’re back in the States.

Riding in Delhi was safer than it looked because of a curiousity bubble around me. A folding bike and helmeted rider was a spectacle with cars, scooters, buses, carts following to get a closer look. Wasn’t my intent to create a scene, but then felt I’d added something to India. Bikes aren’t status symbols in India or something a business person would ride to work.

That’s an opportunity for change here and the businessmen I talked to in the hotel lobby were very curious about the bike.

Like riding in China, I just rode right into the flow. Wish I had a huge horn though. That’s what they do in India: honkity honk, honk.

Let’s say you are one of the most revered Italian saddle makers. Your products have been ubiquitous amongst professional and recreational riders alike. Each of the last 3 decades can almost be defined by a saddle of your design: the Turbo(matic), Flite, and the SLR. You recently made a complete redesign of the Flite while still offering a Flite “Classic”. But the Turbomatic, which has an almost cult-like following, has been out of production for about a decade, so it’s not so easily returned to the market. What should you do: go all-out on nostaglia by simply duplicating the tooling for the original saddle, or do you keep the contours of the original while using your most up-to-date construction techniques?

For Selle Italia, they pride themselves at having a forward-looking attitude. The new Turbomatic’s shape is familiar enough, but the shell and rails bear little resemblance to the 350gr+ boat anchor of old.

pix from Interbike after the jump.

Loyal readers will remember that a few months back I announced a super-tacular program Specialized was running, inviting people to compete for the one-year use of a Specialized Stumpjumper as part of their Trail Crew program. You might also remember that I shamelessly plugged for myself to be a recipient of said awesome-ass bike.

Well, I did. I’m now officially part of the Stumpjumper Trail Crew and this, my good readers is a photo of my new love Stumpy, just built up after finally getting it away from the idiots at Fedex Ground.

This means three things. First, I’m going to be doing a lot more mountain bike riding again (whoooo hoooooo). Second, I’ll be blogging about it on our new Specialized-hosted blogs (when they’re done being built, ahem,) and third, I’ll be putting a disclaimer in all of my posts about Specialized bikes and mention that I’m a Trail Crew guy. It’s only fair.

I’ll be shooting on and off this bike a lot and inviting people to come on group rides. In fact, my first group ride is planned for Wednesday the 11th of November at Stewart Air Force Base in NY. If you’re interested please send me a tweet @davidjschloss and I’ll get you the info.

Now, it’s time to ride.

When the rack of bikes is covered in cycling laundry, it’s a good sign. It means that I’m riding consistently.

Sure there are a lot of embrocation products on the market, but for years my favourite product is good ol’ Tiger Balm. It’s cheap, I can get it at better grocery stores, and unlike a disconcerting number of cycling-specific embrocations, it doesn’t cause my skin to FREAKIN’ BLISTER. On cold days I’ll smear it across my knees mainly, and it protects against tendonitis. Actually, my left knee had been bothering me for about a week, and yesterday I rode with Tiger Balm on that knee for 3-1/2hrs in bitchin’ cold rain. I don’t know what my reasoning at the time was, but I didn’t use it on my right knee. And behold! The left knee feels great while the untreated right knee is just a little tender. Sure, I prefer pricey Assos Chamois Creme, but I’m rather keen on Tiger Balm when it’s not my bum. It’s a bit greasy, but I actually think that attribute may help reduce heat loss from cold rain and spray. Also, my old teammates used to smear Vaseline on their knees during rainy criteriums with the idea that they would reduce road rash in the event of sliding out in a corner, so theoretically Tiger Balm should have similar properties.

I’m using Tiger Balm “White”, but I’ve also used “Red” and the less greasy “Soft”. I don’t have a preference between the first two, but the “Soft” variety is less greasy and hence seems to wash off sooner.

Denskies chose Kramer for the head tube badge of his Roll.

Uploaded by denskies | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

Daily Transport

Note this is another in a series of posts from the Mobile Social Worldwide.

Building materials are delivered by bike in India — brick, pipes, steel girders anything you can imagine.

Note this is another in a series of posts from the Mobile Social Worldwide.

While Prague and the Czech people comprise a culture of resistance, it’s not to the car. Cyclist there ride mountain bikes for the cobbles, hilly terrain, and to make quick escapes onto trails when the hostile drivers turn violent. As a symbol of westernization, the car dominates. They proudly make Skodas.

I like the glistening, semi-moist feeling of a good chamois butter but I don’t like the perception that I’ve just applied some sort of salve found most often in the medicine cases of the geriatric. (And only occasionally do I like this palpitate to be emboldened by the burning qualities of menthol or camphor.)

Nubutte (get it?) is a nice-smelling nice-feeling chamois cream that does its job without being cloying, chilling or burning. It comes in both a tub and a stick and the recently-redesigned packaging is meant to project the company’s use of shea butter and other high-end ingredients. The smell is more herbal than medicinal and the feel isn’t cold or tacky. A thicker product than many creams it takes a bit more to work it in—it’s like an actual butter that’s just come from the fridge, solid at first and then it warms up and spreads.

Ten-percent of the $20 price tag goes to “junior cycling” programs, and the company—based in Boulder—sells the tubs right from their site. The stick version doesn’t seem to be available on the site yet yet. But I liked our review stick and the way it easily glides onto body parts in the fashion of deodorant and doesn’t clump up.

It’s a nice, friendly product and it does what it’s supposed to do—prevent one’s naughty bits from becoming uncomfortable bits.

Uploaded by davidjschloss | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

For years I’ve lusted after a bike brand that few people know about but many rely upon. Workmans Cycles produces bikes and tricycles for industrial and commercial uses, though many of their models (this beauty not among them) are perfect for the suburbanite looking for a great way to hit the grocery store.

Based out of New York City, the company had seen steady growth during the hey-day of Manhattan street-vending and even another boost as the dot com boom propelled their fleet into the warehouses of e-commerce fulfillment houses for the big shippers like Amazon and others, thanks to the stellar reputation for quality.

During the peak (well, trough I guess) of the economy’s meltdown word started to trickle out in the media that the company was seeing a hit due to the decrease in consumer spending. Fewer people spending, fewer orders moving around a warehouse.

But the bikes and the company are still going strong. Maybe it’s time for me to help out the economy by picking up a nice trike to complement my Xtracycle.

In this world, there are hoodies, and then there are hoodies and this, my friends is a hoodie*. Sure it looks like something from Banana but it’s Outlier’s new Merino Wool hoodie. That means that you can wear it in the mixed fall weather and unlike cotton it’s not going to get you cold when the weather turns damp. Unlike fibers from bushes or chemicals, wool insulates when it’s cold and wet.

At $225 it costs about as much as a high-falootin technical fabric garment, but doesn’t make you look like a Christmas Tree lightbulb when you walk into a coffee shop.

The first stop on our Mobile Social Worldwide was London and we connected with local cyclists, the fixie scene, and a traffic engineer. We rode haphazardly on city streets, a hot lap in Richmond, and calmed roads with cycle tracks.

Typical Commute

Riding in London is aggressive and not for the timid. The photo sequence below demonstrates a commuter crossing a congested road into Hyde Park.

Stop

Wait

Cross

While Byron globetrots, the rest of us are here in Seattle are in what we call the “rainy season(s)”. Late September through more or less May is WET. It’s worth bringing back Byron’s post on Riding in the Rain.

In Prague, multiuse paths include men in hats who escort girls with bows and bikes that are separated.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

It’s a Miele with pedals — spotted this in a Meile Boutique across the street from our hotel in Prague.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

While at WorkCycles to pick up bikes for the Amsterdam stop of the Mobile Social Worldwide, @amsterdamized showed us his photos. This collection was recently included in a NYT feature, the NY 400 celebration, and he was hanging them on the wall for a party.

Mark will sell these soon.

Recently I’ve been thinking about dynamo (generator) hubs as an alternative to light systems with rechargeable batteries. Though Shimano makes several popular dyno hubs, the acknowledged gold standard is Schmidt Original Nabendynamo (SON). Schmidt makes the lightest hubs with the least amount of drag, but they are premium priced. You can buy the SON hubs direct through the US importer Peter White Cycles, though your LBS may already have a relationship with him.

Recently I did a tune-up on a bike with this particular wheel with SON hub and a Supernova E3 light. What I thought was particularly sweet was the fact that the light attached to a special nut on the quick release skewer. Thus the light came off with the wheel and would not need to be disconnected from the hub at all. Awesome! Easy to move the wheel from one bike to another, and powerful lighting without ever having to charge a battery.

If it were me, I would have built the wheel on a Mavic Open Pro Ceramic rim for better braking in the rain and vastly improved longevity in the grimy, wet NW winters.

You see whole families on bikes in Amsterdam, including babies like this. We think she is happier than a car-seated child in a minivan with a DVD player.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

It’s odd when bicycles are classified on the city’s infrastructure as play toys so that automobiles can conveniently be driven irresponsibly. That’s what I was thinking when I saw this bicycle sign posting a limit of “6mph”. Are you kidding me? Meanwhile are cars are whipping down SW Marginal Way well over the speed limit. Coincidentally, the sign had been run over by a car.

As a fan of bicycles, you’d have to be completely oblivious to not know that there’s a renaissance of sorts for steel bicycles, particularly at the low volume, artisan end of the market. Many individuals are leaping into the trade with wonderfully ornate bicycles, but sometimes I wonder about the design choices they make. People want to believe that they have an instinctive feel for what is sound design, the assertion that if it “looks right, it is right”. The basic skills of framebuilding do not differ that much from other trades such as jewelry making or other more mundane fabrication employment, but a bicycle is a lot more complex structure than a broach or a welded iron bed frame. Not a whole lot of engineering goes into traditional steel framebuilding, so experience building and repairing steel becomes the guiding hand in design.

Take for instance the right rear dropout. It is one of the most highly stressed areas of the frame. It may not be the best place to get really fancy with one’s file. And even when you might think that a design may be quite conservative, you still have to worry about the metallurgy of the dropout itself. Is it forged or cast, how consistent is the product supplied by the manufacturer?

In the photo above is a broken dropout from a company supposedly run by elves (who happen to be enamored of the French). I’ve seen at least 7 or more of these bikes come into Davidson Cycles for the same repair; we’re almost like an official repair contractor for the other bike company. Yes, it’s steel and can be repaired, but it isn’t cheap or convenient.

photos of the repair after the jump

On our way to the Tate Modern, spotted this Pashley Pizza bike in London.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

For those cyclists that ride in the rain, they take it very seriously, like with this Hufnagel.

Uploaded by Hufnagel Cycles | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

Oregon’s Statesman Journal is reporting about a program in a Willamette middle school that’s providing ten hours of instruction on bicycle safety to students.

By comparison, that’s 10 hours more training that drivers are required to take on cycling. This program should be everywhere.

I wish I was back in Taiwan. I loved the weather there, warm and humid. Instead I’m here in Seattle, dank and chill. Still, since Taiwan I’ve been more consistent on riding, and I intend to keep going. I finally had to give up and acknowledge the death of summer by putting the fender on my Sycip “modal concept” bike.

I’m using last year’s SKS Race Blade XL fender, but I’ve improved it by securing it to the empty brake bridge with a bolt and wingnut in order to reduce rattling. The fender has enough space at the back that I can remove the wheel from the rear-facing dropouts without moving the fender.

I kept the 60mm deep Hed rim on the front despite yesterday’s blustery conditions. I call it practice, a way of expanding the conditions in which I can effectively use deep aero wheels. If there’s any trick to riding aero wheels in windy conditions, I’d say that you should ride a low and long position on the bike. It puts more weight on the front wheel so it’ll jump less in a sidewind, and the hand position give you more leverage on the steering axis.

My cousin-in-law-in-law and friend Jessica pointed out to me the rather poor job that the New York Magazine art department did in illustrating its article on bicycle safety. The very first tip reads

First, the obvious Helmet? Yes, always. Lose the iPod and the Bluetooth. Wear bright clothing. Signal your turns. Ding your bell.

And mere millimeters away runs this photo.

Fail.

Chris Guillebeau, an AC360° Contributor, blogged his 28 things I wish I’d known before I started traveling. I’ve annotated it below for traveling with bikes.

Health Care

1. You can legally buy safe medicine, including prescription drugs, for very little money overseas. When in Africa or Asia, I stock up on anti-malarials that cost $5 a day in Seattle. On location, it’s more like $1 for a 10-day supply.

Too much of a boyscout to have meds on-the-fly and stock up at home. Our trips are no more than 2 weeks and we’re absolutely freaks about keeping clean, what we eat, and drink.

2. The best health care is not in the U.S., Canada, or the U.K. The best healthcare is in places like Thailand and Costa Rica; that’s why the practice of medical tourism will continue to surge as both travel and overseas healthcare become more accessible.

We haven’t traveling into South America or Thailand, but don’t doubt this and think the state of our health care is ridiculous, as is the political discourse about it. The State should provide health care yes. We travel with a road rash kit and the full compliment of inoculations.

Rollapaluza are dedicated to reviving the sport of roller-racing. Two cyclists battle it out on a pair of custom rollers connected to a huge dial over a simulated 500m distance at speeds in excess of 50mph!

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

She commuted with a Brompton. Noted that is wasn’t easy, but still good, and better than driving.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

After all the flying on Wednesday, hung out at the BBC with @fasonista. Jason Fields directs the User Experience team at BBC Vision, enjoys the bike, and we’ve known each other for years. He blogs at oyayubizoku and launched iPlayer, amongst other notable digitial achievements.

Dalek Encounter

Having fun with this (BBC/Dr Who evil icon) prop, Jason offered BBC schwag to the best caption

For all the European-branded carbon fibre on display at Interbike, a visit to Euro Asia Imports’ modest booth is an absolute must for me. Why? Because the La Crescenta CA distributor has consistently been a source of the best Japan-sourced track cycling goods. Before the current fashions within cycling made the “NJS” stamp as fetishist’s obsession, EAI was a place where a bike shop could order the real deal Japanese keirin equipment. They carry well-known brands like Nitto and Sugino, as well as Kashimax, MKS, Hatta, and others.

This is the second excerpt from the Bicycle Diaries, David Byrne’s bike book and is about riding in New York. We’re traveling now on the Mobile Social Worldwide arriving in London on Wednesday.

Tanya Mohn writes about business travelers who bring their bikes with them for the NYT. Tanya and I weren’t able to connect for an interview, but she got some good quotes from other cyclists that travel.

The Globe team spent a day in Copenhagen riding around with the camera rolling.

Following the Seattle stop of David Byrne’s Book Tour, Viking Press provided us with two excerpts from the Bicycle Diaries to share with you. Today we’re posting the introduction and tomorrow the New York chapter (after the jump).

Photo: David Schloss

Besides providing the soundtrack for much of what we do here at Bike Hugger, David Byrne shares our romance with the bike and travel. We’re taking a hardcover copy of his bike book with us during the Mobile Social Worldwide that starts this week.

We’re riding and blogging in London, Amsterdam, Prague, and India. Follow along on our new Travel site. For now, the excerpt …

Jill Morris sent us this video she wrote and produced for the Upright Citizens Brigade. It’s footage from the hospital room where a family’s first child is born.

We spotted this Puma among a collection of oddly-painted siblings at the Puma booth at Interbike while gliding between appointments. We had really expected there to be shoes or soft-goods and so the brightly-colored bikes sort of threw us.

Turns out that Puma has partnered with Biomega to create bikes that combine “Smart European design and commuter technology with urban American style.”

Personally I dislike the multi-hued bikes, they don’t fit my sense of style at all, but of course I’m a suburban hipster, not an urban one. But I’m sure there are people who dig the split-fluorescent paint jobs as much as they revere their Puma Baskets.

The bigger issues here have to do with build quality and distribution. Puma’s not aiming at the independent bicycle dealer, which we think is great. These bikes are more likely to end up at Urban Outfitters than at Gotham Bikes, and we’re okay with that. Many people feel intimidated by the IBD and so would prefer to buy their bikes where they buy their clothes, furniture and artwork.

But that brings up the second point, which is the build-quality. We’ve ridden some Biomega bikes and really were dismayed at some part and construction choices. Ball-bearing headsets, low-cost parts choices—if you’re going to make a bike that’s sold without a support system in place, make it durable enough to not need service. My Felt Curbside fixie has ridden two seasons in every condition and it’s never needed a repair because it’s the bomb. I’m pretty sure I could destroy one of these Pumas faster than I could wear out a pair of sneakers.

Writing for the Guardian’s green-living blog, Peter Walkers looks back at 20 years of clipless pedals.

It’s 20 years since Shimano took cleats, or clip-in technology, from the world of road racing to the everyday commute. Next time you’re in the office and a newly arrived cycling colleague walks past making a faint click-clack noise as they go, they’ve either mistakenly put on their tap shoes or - a better bet - they are among the many devotees of the cleat, or clip-in pedal.

In the years I’ve been riding, fewer people ask me about my shoes; unless, I’m wearing booties and then they want to know what’s going on with the elf boots.

This bucket of pedals I snapped at TrekWorld earlier this year, contained many of the pedals in Speedplay’s timeline.

Myself I’m a Time guy — what pedals do you use and have used?

The New York Times has a travel-section piece devoted to bike touring in Vermont to view the fall foliage. It’s peak season now, so if you haven’t booked an organized tour-like the one in this article—you’ll likely have to make up your own route, but that’s not too hard in Vermont as there are pretty and scenic roads in every direction.

Don’t drive very often, mostly ride my bike, but rented a 24 footer for a move and damn that was intense for the first drive. The rental center is at Spokane and 1st. That’s 2 rights and you’re on the W. Seattle Freeway — a busy Seattle thoroughfare with skinny lanes and jersey barriers. No commercial license needed to drive it. Just go for it and the bike-racing instincts kicked in — focused, stayed in my lane, and drove that big ass truck home.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

So people get pretty steamed at the idea of Google Streetview the mobile mapping project that is slowly creating a street-level 360 panorama of just about every spot around. I think it’s dandy—I’m a photographer so I’m already used to taking pictures of things wherever I go. I don’t really mind if someone wants to tool around in a car and take cooler kinds of pictures.

Until now there’s been no real way for the Google team to go out and record places like parks, trails and pedestrian malls—the camera and GPS system was originally car-based. Thanks though to a genius idea from one of the product team members while riding a his mountain bike, Google has unleashed the Street View Trike, a cool three-wheeler that’s hitting the road, and the paths, and the sidewalks.

You can even nominate places for the Trike to ride, like the super-cool tour of Legoland in our photo.

Thursday night was Halloween-themed at bike polo. Games were played under the I5 overpass at Ravenna. One of my best friends is really into bike polo now, usually playing twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday. I helped her build up a polo bike; apparently this group plays on singlespeed bikes not fixies. Despite the large turnout, most everyone got to play at least one game. Usually Thursday night is for more advanced players.

more photos after jump

Not sure when Honda got into the bicycle simulator business, but the car/motorcycle/lawnmower maker will be releasing a bike simulator in Japan in 2010 to help drivers, pedestrians and cyclists learn how to better avoid obstacles and become better riders.

It’s actually a pretty clever idea, and I’d love to see this in driving schools in the United States—while cycling is on the rise in this country most motor vehicle departments still fail to provide any training to drivers about the place of bikes on the road. It would be great to let a non-cyclist see what it’s like to ride our city streets.

Kona’s philanthropic Africa Bike program is taking another big step as Kona announces that they’re expanding to provide bikes for ethnic minority students in Vietnam by partnering with Roadmonkey, an organization started by former New York Times reporter Paul von Zielbauer. Roadmonkey leads “adventure philanthropic” trips.

The ten-person Roadmonkey group will ride along what used to be the Ho Chi Mihn Trail more than 300 miles en route to the Kon Ray school, where they’ll build bikes for the students and, get this, build an organic farm complete with 250 trees that will help the school raise money to bring on more students.

Kona’s Africa Bike program was started with Bicycling Magazine but is clearly growing into other regions of the world.

Update

The travel site was a test and we’ve pushed it into production on Bike Hugger and renamed it Community. Please join it and add your contributions.

Just in time for the Mobile Social Worldwide, our friends at Six Apart and Strangecode got a new site running for us based on TypePad Motion. This is an exciting project for us, the result of years of thought and discussion about the direction of social media and an effort to build a bigger community of Bike Huggers.

I wrote about Motion on Textura Design (publisher of Bike Hugger) last week, referencing the early Mellow Clutter™ concept, and summarized it as

“Frameworks, codebase, cloud buzzwords aside, TypePad Motion is like a freakin’ magical unicorn that fills your blog with sunshine. Connect the pieces all together, dress the unicorn up as you please, and publish content.”

The next progression of cool is bike polo, but we think it should look more like Mad Max and the Thunderdome than Ralph Lauren.

Uploaded by ettschioppa | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

Those of us that travel with bikes know it’s an arms race with the airlines — how much they charge came up earlier this year when Pam and I got popped $175.00 per-bike-one-way by Northwest Airlines. As Mark wrote in response to our trip

Ask about and everyone has a tale of how a friend of theirs flew a bike for $5 blah, blah, blah…. Let me tell you, there was a period of time where I logged 100,000 frequent flier miles over two years. I know about flying with a bike … nothing beats the S&S system for flying a 700C wheeled bike,

We know how to fly with bikes too and got charged on that trip because we flew with Scicon cases that say, “bicycle” and are in the shape of a bicycle. Normally we fly with S&S and also with Bromptons and Dahons. The advantage of all of those folders is that they either go into a case that squeaks under the airline surcharge for oversize baggage — pack it light to keep it under weight — or go right into the overhead.

Until recently that is.

In the news today, a bell law:

Tampa poised to repeal law that requires bells on bicycles — cited as an excuse to stop and arrest people, Tampa’s bell law is about to get voted off the books.

And the Saratoga School District revises bike policy in — apparently they haven’t heard of Safe Routes to School or possibly just getting to know Congressman Oberstar who’s working on a bike-friendly century. Why wouldn’t you ride a bike to school? Cause of all the cars.

Traffic Justice Summit

Help get justice for: Kevin Black, Jill Spanjer, Susanne Scaringi, Tatsuo Nakata, Autumn Sansom, Paul Douglas Ratliff, Jose Hernando, Gordon Patterson, Ilsa Govan, Stuart Thayer, Paul Jaholkowsky, Veronica Gonzalez, Michael Ann Boucher, Bryce Lewis, Marvin Gene Miller, Michael McClurkan tonight at the Traffic Justice Summt, an effort to make history by changing the law.

Wednesday, Oct. 14, 5:30 - 7:30, Seattle City Hall, Bertha Knight Landes Room.

While Grant Podelco told us there’s not a bike scene in Prague we are undeterred. Foreverdigital snapped this shot of a fixie at the John Lennon wall. We’ll bring the bike culture with us and I’m sure we’ll find like-minded cyclists next week.

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My photographer friend Matt spotted this teeny cyclist out for a ride in Hangzhou, China during a recent trip he took there. It struck me as utterly cute, and I’d have bought one in a heartbeat. There’s something endearing about a biker wearing kneepads and elbow pads tooling around the ground that makes me think sold.

Rent a Bike Now has developed a network of shops that rent bikes at various locations around the country. This makes sense - sort of odd for the “outter-booths” at Interbike. They vett the shops and make sure that the bikes they offer are up to snuff. With the rise in costs for travelling with a bike - rental is a really appealing option. In the past I’ve googled and chased shop reputations with local forums. This takes away that work and makes sure you get what you’re after. Perfect!

For more than a few years now I’ve seriously lusted after a CompuTrainer to hook up to my computer so I could race other people during the winter. Then I remembered that in the winter cycling is often the last thing I want to do, and I go back to the gym and eat egg whites.

But this has me interested, it’s a bike trainer designed to connect to the Wii. We’re in favor of anything that gets Junior up and exercising, like this Fisher Price bike I’ve dubbed My First Madone. And around Bike Hugger HQ, we get the bike-lust started early anyhow, so this will fit in nicely.

My first Cross bike was a Kona Jake the Snake. I loved it - it was Orange and awesome. The Jake has been in Kona’s lineup for years and is established as a mainstay in the cross scene. Byron sent me home with the 2010 Jake the Snake to put it to the test.

First impressions were pretty good. The blue paint jumps out at you which I like much better than the more “earthy” colors they’ve been pushing of late. I love the looks of the straight-blade carbon fork too. The Mavic Aksium wheelset are proven to be pretty sturdy, so a good choice for a bike you want to push into some tough terrain. The Continental tires looked alright, but I’d heard mixed reviews on them. Shimano 105, KORE Cross brakes, FSA Gossamer cranks. All good to go. I did swap out pedals and saddle because I just couldn’t run SPDs and a WTB saddle. Other than that - the bike was ready to ride.

Cycle U is opening a new location in West Seattle. Cycle U offers indoor training and coaching. In this location, the services include bikes and a shop with clinics and more.

Great news to see another bike shop opening in the Seattle area and also that it’s in a former car dealership. I posted on re-cycling GM dealerships earlier this year and, well, there ya go.

Also see

• A New Bicycle Utopia in Detroit
• At ex-Huling car showroom, Cycle University is ready to ride
• A business is finally going into one of the Huling Bros. locations

Colnago, carbon everything, Cat 5 racer. Didn’t get to connect with the owner, but would have appreciated the obsession and mentioned that he might want to tone it down a bit on race day, as he moved through the ranks.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

Ultremo DD for the winter bike. Go on easy, roll well, a bit bouncy, and puncture proof. Last year an Ultremo survived a big pothole hit — if these do get cut and split, you can superglue them back together.

Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

This cyclist fixed up an old Pacific Wanderer with a stabilizer bar attached to boxes front and back and an upright position with cruiser handlebars. The Puffy Vest completes the bike and look. Spotted this DIY Cargo bike in West Seattle.

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Blogger and inventor Alex Wetmore has a problem with his tandem. It’s the same problem I have, namely that the disc brakes tend to drag because they’re not designed to run on a long tandem frame. My solution is to complain about it. His was to re-machine a part for the Travel Agent brake adapter to fix the problem.

My solution certainly takes less efffort.

I used to collect bicycle catalogs. Then I had a Tyler Durden moment, and decided that the things I owned were not only owning me, but they were living in my apartment and not paying rent. So I threw them out. (Well, all except the Bianchi catalogs 1995 to the present). I mean, leave a bike catalog out, and normal people aren’t gonna look at it an compliment you on your taste.

But that may not be the case with Giant Bicycles’ “Liv” catalog. This catalog is a damned nice coffee table book, full of shots of women wearing fashionable clothing and occasionally with Giant bikes. I found this in a Giant-owned shop in Taipei. I tried and failed to buy their only copy.

The bakfiets with milk cans inside the Freia dairy factory. “This was a regular way of transporting the daily milk into the cooperative factory.”

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About the weirdest thing I saw at Interbike was this full carbon step-thru frame…with fender, rack and disc brake mounts. Of course it was at one of those dozen or more booths occupied by generically-named Asian factories. Coming to an eBay near you soon!

Taiwan and China are the sources for most carbon fiber frames and components. Sometimes a European or American company owns a factory there, sometimes they have an exclusive deal with the factory, and sometimes they just slap their logo on a part that the factory was shopping out to anyone with money.

Is this good or bad? For most companies, it’s just the way it’s done if you want to sell carbon fibre. The consumer market has spoken, and they want affordable carbon. For all the interest in steel, people buy carbon more than ever and don’t seem to care that much where it was made.

Oh, but not you though, huh? You only buy American? Well, I suppose your bike’s shifters are American-made, right? How about your computer monitor?

I’ve been to Taiwan three times now, but it wasn’t till this last trip that I really saw how many class bike shops Taipei had. We went to Rui Guang Road, where there were 3 bikes shops next door to each other in a fairly new commercial district. One was the Merida flagship store, the middle was the Orbea shop where I was compelled to buy a Catlike helmet, and the third was another of the ubiquitous Giant Bicycles stores. Each of the shops carried a full range of bikes from budget to premium.

Last year when I went about the smaller, older neighborhoods with my then girlfriend, I visited a bunch of hole-in-the-wall shops, some cool and some mundane. Together with these larger shops employing a bit more retail design, I’m really impressed with how much cycling culture seems to be growing in Taiwan.

It’s the beginning of flu season here in the Northeast and my wife has been battling off a barn-burner of a flu. I’ve already made a batch of homemade chicken soup (which we’ve eaten several times) but that’s really not doing enough.

If only there were a bicycle-based soup-delivery system that we could order from. Oh wait, there IS a bicycle-based soup-delivery system, only it’s 3000 miles away. It’s SoupCycle, and I want some.

If you’re in the range of this great environmentally friendly business you can get homemade organic soup delivered to your home or office by bicycle delivery service. Take advantage of it, and think of my coughing wife.

As we’ve been tweeting, this Fall we’re taking the Mobile Social Worldwide to London, Amsterdam, and Prague with a stop in India.

The Mobile Socials are usually timed to coincide with a major event in a host city. This year we were in Austin for SXSW and Portland for Webvision. For the Worldwide edition, we’re making the cities we visit and the cyclists we meet the event.

We’re putting the interwebs to work now thanks to our Rand McNally desk atlas and I-Ching sticks the details of the rides and meetups are emerging. We’ll post and tweet the locations and times as we land and ride in each city. Let’s all meet for tea and crumpets in London, beer in Amsterdam, Chai in India and… well we’re not sure what they meet over in Prague, but we hope to find out.

If you’re in one of these cities, stay tuned to our Twitter feed and the site for details of our our mobile social global hangouts.

Lemond Zurich and I kept a brisk commuter pace while discussing frame materials.

Wondered what all the construction was between the Stadia with Bianchi Flatbar and hoped the City would at least add a bike lane.

Raleigh Cross bike appreciated the “nice bike” comment as I passed and Kona Dew just nodded as I rode by.

Love helmets; especially futuristic ones that fold and look like they came from the movie Tron. This maybe the start of a helmet-modeling career. Regardless of that prospect, finally someone has designed a helmet for travel. The problem is that helmets take up a massive amount of space in a suitcase.

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The word is, Santa Monica, CA has a law on the books that makes unlicensed cycling punishable by up to a $1000 fine and/or six months in jail. From the Santa Monica Municipal Code:

(a) Any person desiring to operate or use a bicycle upon any of the streets of the City shall apply therefor to the City Clerk or bicycle retailer (authorized agent) who shall record the name and address of the owner thereof and a description of said bicycle. The City Clerk or authorized agent shall issue the license requested upon payment by the applicant of the fee herein required. Said license when issued shall entitle the licensee to operate said bicycle for which said license has been issued upon all the streets, exclusive of the sidewalks thereof or elsewhere prohibited in the City.

(b) Any person violating this Section shall be guilty of an infraction, which shall be punishable by a fine not exceeding two hundred fifty dollars, or a misdemeanor, which shall be punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars per violation, or by imprisonment in the County Jail for a period not exceeding six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment. (Prior code § 3401; amended by Ord. No. 1026CCS, adopted 2/24/76; Ord. No. 1813CCS § 1, adopted 9/12/95)

That seems excessive for a city where drug dealing and pan-handling have been legalized (I kid, I kid). So much for the inroads achieved by Pacific Blue.

I wonder if anyone has actually received the full brunt of this law. More coverage at Westside BikeSIDE and Gary Rides Bikes.

Pereira Cycles locking bicycle has been generating lots of discussion and interest since last week.

Features:

• Handmade Tail light
• Custom Rack and Stem
• Custom Lemolo bag
• Integrated U-lock

Embrocation Cycling Journal uploaded video that explains how the bike locks.

We could probably start a don’t steal bikes bro series with the most egregious bike thefts, like David Byrne’s from a few years ago, Lance, or a special Silver Eagle.

This week it’s Peter Sagal’s brand new, black and yellow Felt.

I came out today, my bike shoes clattering, and spent a strange thirty seconds staring at the space where it was, denying to myself that I couldn’t see it. Then I found the cable lock, sliced through, on the ground with my helmet.

The bike was brand new, black and yellow, as you see, with Time road pedals and an underseat bag with tubes and inflater. Anybody see anybody riding it on the streets of Chicago, hit them with a rock, but try not to scratch the paint.

The bike is likely at a pawn shop already and the money smoked through a meth pipe. Peter Sagal is the host of NPR’s Wait Wait … Don’t Tell me. A show and podcast we often listen to in our travels.

Spotted this Vision bike at UW yesterday. With a giant head tube, no seat tube, and reversed stem, I was confused. Reader gregraisman commented: “a discontinued semi-recumbent bike. Fore-runner to the Townie,” or flat-foot bikes. Possibly the RANS?

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Met these tourists outside of Costco. They were fueling up for a ride between Seattle and San Diego. Check their equipment and notice those handle bags.

Mark track stands on his S&S BMX — there’s much to like about a 20 inch travel bike; especially one that’s near bomb proof. We’re traveling with Dahons to Europe and India later this month — more on that trip in another post.

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Straight out of my Blade Runner fantasies, Murata Electronics in Japan has made robots that can ride bikes and unicycles. This is Murata-seiko-chan, who can actually ride that teeny unicycle thanks to a number of sensors embedded in the backpack there.

Now mind you that I can’t ride a Unicycle, despite trying to and I’m made out of flesh and blood, it blows my mind that there are robots already that can ride these.

Combine this with Avatar and in the future we’ll be controlling unicycle-riding robots with our minds!

Not sure why the woman giving the demonstration is wearing a fluorescent iguana on her neck though. Maybe that’s a style thing from the future.

4 chairs on a bike during a move? Sure. Why not? The table is on another bike, like this.

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The Telegraph reviews Kraftwerk’s Catalogue collection (iTunes) and observes

Where so much music back then (prog rock) and today (everything recorded with ProTools) can sound dense and cluttered, Kraftwerk’s was virtually empty, implying the wide open spaces of postwar central Europe, as experienced by rail, motorcycle, or bicycle - the band’s three preferred methods of transport.

You can hear that openness in their Tour de France soundtrack. Also the breathing, drivetrains, and rhythm of the peloton. To us, Kraftwerk not only influenced a generation (including hip-hop), but their music sounds like the bike.

It’s another example of music and bikes, a topic we’re covering more this Fall and into the Spring.

Boing Boom Tschak Ping — man machine.

Do you ever think about light? I don’t mean things that aren’t heavy, I mean the shining goodness that comes from lightbulbs. Really the only time I’m pondering the wonder that is our electrical grid and its effects is when it’s vanished. Give me a good blackout and I’ll think about sweet sweet luminosity all night.

Seems some other people have a more visionary approach to light. Over at Timbuk2 they’re combining their knowledge of bags with the mission to help bring lighting to third-world countries at the 2009 Pop!Tech conference.

Their idea is to take a messenger bag and integrate a solar panel into the top, allowing people in Africa to use the bag by day and to power low-voltage lights at night. By simply extending useable light a few hours a day a family can be vastly more productive.

Even Timbuk2 realizes that the idea might not work as well as expected, but every good idea has to start somewhere.

Sweet Pea Bicycle’s Litttle Black Dress bike on a coffee run. The Little Black Dress is in their LUST line of custom bikes for women.

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KORE Streamline Wheelset

KORE Components have been around for quite a while. When I worked at a shop in High School, KORE was the hot setup to have with the Mountain bikers. I guess I always just equated them with off-road kit.

Today, they still make some top-notch mountain bike parts, but I was surprised to see how much really nice looking stuff they had for the road and cross. Their wheels are really nice looking with sturdy looking hubsets and freehubs. Their price point makes them an good alternative to some of the more established players in the area.

KORE I-Beam Seatpost
I spoke with Wick who represents the brand a little about what’s new. I found that they are really excited about the I-Beam saddle system. I’m probably not the right guy to talk about bending rails since I’ve only done it once, but this system all but eliminates that problem.

FYI on Wick: For those of you who have ridden at South or North Seatac in Seattle in the Indie Series or at one of the Cyclocross events there - you probably have Wick to thank. He’s one of those guys who has made Seattle racing and events happen for years.

More on their offerings after the jump…

“I ride my bike almost every day here in New York. It’s getting safer to do so, but I do have to be fairly alert when riding on the streets as opposed to riding on the Hudson River bike path or similar protected lanes.”

The media and positive reviews of the Bicycle Diaries continue with a Weekend Edition Sunday story today on NPR. Earlier this week, we attended the Seattle stop of a tour for the bike book. Unlike the usual book tour, David focused the event on advocacy with a civic leader, an urban theorist, a bicycle advocate, and himself each giving 10 minute presentations.

I’m back in Seattle after 17hrs in airports and planes. My two checked bags were 110 lbs total weight, but I managed to sweet talk my way out paying any baggage fees at all on the domestic connection out of LAX. And the flights were in no way booked together!

Short thanks to Aberdeen Tours (US) with Edison Tours (TW) for such a great tour and logistics, and China Airlines (TW) for smooth flights, and the Taiwan Tourism Bureau for sponsoring the tour. I’ll bring the Huggas up to speed on the rest of the tour in the next couple of days. Gotta decompress right now.

Until then here’s a shot that Cyclelicious took of me at the China Airlines check-in, Taipei. As you can see, I didn’t just stuff my prized Catlike helmet into check baggage, nor was I content to strap it to my carry-on. If you drop the big coin on a styrofoam brain bucket, your helmet is safest on your head.

Kryptonite lock core is built into steerer tube. Fits ubiquitous Portland “staple” bike rack perfectly. Handmade “pear” key fob. An entrant in the Oregon Manifest Constructor’s Design Challenge.

Also see the integrated light.

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After plucking serious cash for a Catlike helmet, I’m wearing it everywhere on the last day in Taiwan. I’m here at the Grand Hotel, Taipei. It’s been a crazy 8 days in Taiwan, I’ll tell you about it when I get back.

Forgot the lock for a quick store run, so just folded the bike up in a cart and shopped. No one seemed to notice. I was ready if they did to say, “found it on Aisle 3, dunno.”

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We stopped into the Merida Bicycles flagship store to look about. Though Merida has a high-profile in Taiwan, they are mainly know as the manufacturing partner for just about all of Specialized, as well as others. In the flagship store Merida had bikes that spanned the spectrum of affordable to premium, but what grabbed my attention was the shoes. The store prominently displayed a brand called Hasus, and I’ve never heard of them before. The shoes bear an overwhelming resemblance to a certain famous Italian cobbler (hint: sounds like “CD”), but when I turned the shoe over to see what kind of mounting system it had, HELLO! …..no mounting system at all. The sole is fairly stiff and not very grabby….I thought it was just hard plastic at first (I’m still not sure). VERY curious design. A high-tech shoe for toe clips?

Ted Ciamillo is the guy behind Zero G brakes, but apparently he is something of a nutty professor, designing some crazy ass stuff. Take these Lunocet carbon fibre swim fins…oops, I meant “Biomimetic Propulsion System”. For a mere $1150, you can clip some cycling shoes into a monofin and pretend to be The Man from Atlantis.

video clip after the jump

Jeremy sent me this pic of a Sycip Design’s show piece for Oregon Manifest. It’s a steel 650B touring bike with disc brakes and custom racks. I’m not a big fan of 650B, but the bike is pretty slick.

Having flown back from Taitung the six of media persons are back in Taipei, touring some local bike shops. Or rather, hunting for cool items that you can’t get in the states. Cyclelicious was in a bit of turmoil over his inner need for a mini velo. We had stopped at an Orbea shop, and he got to test ride a Bianchi Lepre, a dropbar mini velo. Among mini velos, what’s cool about the Bianchi is the retro styling.

I had my own temptations…

On the organized ride series of Let’s Bike Taiwan 2009, literally all the bikes except for one or two (mine being one) are provided by Giant Bicycles. I don’t know the exact number, but it’s somewhere between 100 and 200. How do they get all those bikes to the five rides (we did 2), each in a different area of Taiwan? By means of some of the most amazingly efficient packing I’ve ever seen.

It seems that they made a layer of bicycles in the van and then laid a double layer of cardboard directly on top of the bikes to create a second story. I couldn’t believe the pack density of bikes.

Reader Gianluca sent us photos of his drop-bar Cannondale.

Assembled this bike just to obtain a road bike with hydrauilc disc brakes cable-actuated by Campagnolo Ergopowers. The sprockets are Miche for Shimano cassette, but I corrected the thickness of spacers to fit a Campy 9s cassette. On the handlebars I placed CLB Tech One (they are like Problem Solver Travel Agent) to encrease the amount of pulled cable. Hydraulic levers are actuated by derailleurs cables, not brake cables to obtain a better fitting around the CLB internal pulley (slim cables are more flexible)

Very nice.

Emily and Tashon are riding all 5 boroughs to find the best Taco in NYC while celebrating Russell Crowe’s famous taco ride.

Back in 2007, there was the Tour de Taco Bell that also celebrated the taco and riding South of the Border.

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We were on our way to Taroko National Park in eastern Taiwan. Nothing but small little towns out here, and still the rain follows us. Here’s a motorcycle food cart we saw at pit stops. I liked the little windshield wiper.

Dahon’s folding, travel helmet.

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iPhone

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I spotted this electric-assist folding bike on the way to Taitung County. The bike was part of an organize ride along the Pacific coast; the riders had stopped at the same reststop/souvenir shop as our bus.

I couldn’t figure out if the bike was made by a company called “JCE” or “ICE”…either seemed plausible. But we liked the “smofo” logo on the top tube. Either way, the bike had a powered rear hub and housed the battery in the forward portion of the folding boom. The rear brake was a mechanical disc while the front used a linear-pull canti.

We’re just finished up the last official portion of the Let’s Bike Taiwan 2009 tour. We rode in Taitung County, a place of vast rice fields. After dinner, we found a structure at the hotel that looked vaguely like Beijing’s Birds’ Nest stadium and got creative. Saam Gabbay achieved this shot after many, many choreographed attempts. I’m dead center, background…doing my Baryshnikov impression.

This Fall we’re riding Flax Fixed, a crazy BMX frankenbike, and this Scott Addict SL. The Scott is our weight weenie bike, with the frame tipping the scales at 1.8 pounds*.

According to Scott, the Addict is the lightest production frameset and it’s noticeably light in your hands. Like wow light. Carbon racing frames in this class hover around 2 pounds plus a bag of chips. The Scott drops another 1/2 pound by removing carbon weave and all the frame bits are carbon: dropouts, cable guides.

The biggest difference is that Scott is using a high-modulus carbon, which means they can build the frame with less material.

Also build it stiff as f*ck. I rode a Scott R2 earlier this year in Greenville.

Oh and we’ve got a Jake the Snake in the queue, as well as a Single Speed Tricross.

*Weighed on a postage scale.