Bike Hugger 

The talk with @livestrongCEO Doug Ulman @sxsw was a highlight of the past week. I was on the road talking Twitter, bike culture, changing the world with bikes, and web design at 4 different events.

Doug told us how Livestrong started as a bike ride — the Ride for the Roses.

After some rest over the weekend and bike rides, it’s back to work on a new event with Webvisions in Portland. It’ll have big ideas, thinking, and bikes.

Doug Ulman and Byron photo uploaded by Mathowie.

Spotted a game of bike polo being played on the i-90 lid today.

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

A refurb project, to be Jessica’s ‘Leeds bike’, for bombing around the city on. Very nice.

Uploaded by AngloMex | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

Spotted @mellowjohnnys, that’s a Singular built by Marty Larson at the Prairie Peddler in Wisconsin.

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

Saw these in Austin as well. That’s a taxi trailer for an ad-hoc pedicab and we could use these for our fans and party attendees that don’t ride so much. Could parade Zeldman et al around on one as maybe a ride MC.

Then we’d probably go to fast around a corner and bounce one of them out, but the fun we’d have!

Uploaded by davidjschloss | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

Delta is running an airport kiosk ad with a happy cyclist who rides through the country, arrives at home, and books a flight. He’s in a good mood and the well-produced ad exemplifies how easy it is too fly with Delta.

The ad doesn’t show the shock that cyclist will get when he checks that bike at the airport — his beeming smile will quickly dissolve to a pissed-off grimace. I know many good people at Delta (well the NWA peeps), and the marketing group that produced this ad is totally unaware of how mad cyclists are at airlines.

During the talk with Livestrong CEO Doug Ulman at SXSW, I was asked about traveling with bikes and many in the room had stories of airlines ripping them off. Doug tweeted a request to Southwest, Lance Armstrong retweeted it, and lots more tweeting ocurred.

Following up with Doug today, he told me in email:

SWA says they do ship bikes for free but the problem is that their size limits don’t fit most bikes. If the bike is too big they charge 50.00. I think they could change their policy with enough pressure.

Oversize is a reason I travel with folders or coupled bikes. I agree with Doug. We should put the pressure on. Event to the point of reasonable fees. $175.00 one way is inexusable.

Hey Delta, us cyclists want to ride happy and book flights like your kiosk ad. Fix your fees and keep us happy.

Introduced at the Taipei Bike Show, SRAM’s new X7 mtb group is “aimed at mid-level XC to entry-level downhillers and freeriders.” No pricing announced yet, though. The group has many of the features of the vaunted XX group, SRAM’s pricey pro-level XC group. Both groups use a double chainring crank coupled with wide-ratio 10sp cassettes, including choices with 36tooth cogs.

Much like with the XX group, most of the components are branded SRAM instead of the cranks being labeled Truvativ. The hydraulic brakes still bear the Avid logo, but all the components are stylistically integrated with a dark, matte finish. Also interesting is the matching hubset, since SRAM hasn’t in the past marketed hubs.

I work in a shop that is more than a quarter century old, housed within a building that is more than a century old. The nooks and crannies are teeming with mice and forgotten things. I lost a Rock Shox SID fork for about 7 months, and my favourite crankpuller went MIA last year and has yet to be heard from again.

Then I found this tool: I have no idea what it is. Readers? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

(Oh, I just know I’m gonna get a lot of off-colour hypotheses.)

I presented Design the Ordinary, Like this Fixie with @ktamura @mixevent today.

A fixie is used as a prop in the talk because it represents a simple, ordinary bike that serves a specific function. Fixies were made from parts bin by cyclists and I asked what if websites were like that? What if we made them as simple as possible to just deliver content like a messenger with packages.

Specialized provided us Globe Rolls for the talk. I’m riding one of them around Vegas later today.