There’s a camaraderie in the race caravan. It’s collegiate and a certain flow to the fast chaos, like sharing water with Motos. Pam shot this and Frank commented that the photo looks like a Mentos commercial or one for water.
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That’s Sweet Rob and a mountain biker we nicknamed Mr. Hematoma. Ouch. He got that in a local race.
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The Messenger Mirror is the most compact safety device you can get. For under $6.00 you can get a handmade mirror that’ll fit on your glasses or frame. The mirror itself is teeny—smaller than a dime—and it could save your life.
We’re not sure that a lot of actual messengers will pick it up as I’ve noticed that most messengers opt for style over safety, but it’s certainly a good deal for the commuter.
Are you headed to Interbike to show off your wares? We’ll be live at the Dirt Demo and on the show floor for reportage, so hit us up at david [at] bikehugger.com if you’d like to schedule something. We’re also scheduling our Live Chat from the show, and all exhibitors are welcome to participate.
Found this reading our friend Rich Kelly’s Interbike Blog:
iPhone Bike Fitting App!
I’m not even and iPhone user, but this seems pretty darn cool. Who knows how accurate it is on that small screen and picking the points with your finger, but I like the idea anyway.
From the Examiner: “Study claims cyclists at fault in only 10 percent of crashes”
Interesting little article on the actual at-fault rates for bicycle/vehicle collisions. It seems that cyclists are, generally not at fault in these collisions. It doesn’t make them less painful, but it was somewhat reassuring to see that the cyclists whipping through traffic aren’t the ones getting into accidents.
Bike Hugger spent the weekend at the USPro race in Greenville, South Carolina and were on hand when George Hincapie brought home his third championship win. The crowds were ecstatic at George’s win and it was a great day for US cycling in general.
We spent a good amount of time with the Mavic neutral service team and with the enthusiastic crowds and have lots of shots up on the BikeHugger Flickr site, and running commentary on Twitter stream.
And as a special note, look forward to some ‘Cross interaction between Hincapie and BikeHugger. More details soon.
Feed Zone Guy is armed and at the ready with feed bags — if it weren’t for great volunteers like him, it wouldn’t be possible to have domestic road races.
Danish company Larry vs Harry is producing the Bullitt, a “Long John”-style cargo bike. What sets this bike apart from many other long-wheelbase cargo bikes is the use of aluminium in large diameter tubes as opposed to steel. Much as I like the ride of a good steel bike, a cargo bike is a great opportunity to allow aluminium to shine, especially when a manufacturer can really engineer the shapes and diameters of tubing. A lot of cargo bikes are begging for some extra rigidity. The Bullitt comes in 13 versions, with disc brakes and choice of internally geared rear hubs or derailleurs. The lightest version weighs 48lbs. As far as I can tell, there might be only one frame size, but I so want one. Larry Vs Harry bill the Bullitt as a performance cargo bike, and I’d be really keen to test that out.
Unfortunately, I can’t find any indication that there is some sort of normalized North American distribution.
... Read more »
Trying to get more cyclists to ride with helmets in an urban environment seems like a losing battle—after all, how can you claim to be a hipster with a head covered in awkward polystyrene?
In an effort to increase the use of lids, NYC has teamed up with design folks Fuseproject to create a new helmet that could be integrated with a free bike program in the city. A two-piece design, the helmet is made of a standard shell with a customizable fabric outer layer. The vents, unfortunately are BMX-sized so they’ll not be terribly breathable but it’s a nice concept. We’re looking forward to seeing shell designs on Etsy.com really soon.
There’s no official pricing on the helmets, but the city is giving them out at “community events” around the city.
We’re behind the scenes with Mavic at the USPro race in Greenville SC, live blogging in the caravan, and hanging out. Attempted to trade a Bike Hugger jersey for this belt buckle. No go.
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Just a little more than 3 weeks till Interbike 2009. BikeHugger will be there bumping it bigger than ever with an urban ride and as well as this year’s edition of the celebrated Interbike Mobile Social. If you’ll be in Vegas for Interbike, keep checking our site for updates on the events. And for readers who won’t be making the pilgrimage to biggest event in the cycling industry, we’ll take you with us on our adventure of bike gadgets, personalities, riding, and parties.
Greenville SC is working hard at becoming a bike town, including new bike paths named after George Hincapie.
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I got a disgruntled text from Byron yesterday about Delta Airline popping him for $175 to send his bike to South Carolina…one way. Normally, he flies with the Modal bike from Davidson Handbuilt Bicycles, but he wanted to have his lightest bike with DA 7900. And unlike the Modal, that bike doesn’t have S&S couplings so he had to fly with a full Scion soft case.
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, but there a few extra things you can do to make life easier.
... Read more »
I’ve been playing around with pedal ideas, and then I got some inspiration from the Seattle fixie scene. A number of the riders are using large platform pedals with toe clips and double straps. I thought that might be a cool idea for my Goblin bike, as I prefer my feet to be well connected to the pedals for sprints and any ride longer than a mile or so. As I have been a Speedplay user for years, it isn’t terribly surprising that I have their “Drillium” big platform pedal, though the fact that Speedplay makes such a pedal may be surprising in itself. The Drillium pedal has a ton of surface area with some very aggressive replaceable pins. I bought the pedals a couple years ago when I first started playing around with BMX bikes, but they’ve been in a box since. If I could somehow mount a robust plastic toe clip to the Drilliums, I figured that they would be perfect compliment to the extremely travel-ready Goblin bike. Those pedals would be superb with thin-sole casual shoes and the clip & straps would be so secure that I wouldn’t miss my usual binding system.
Just playing around on my day off. Brand new Bianchi Valle with reflective sidewall Vittoria Randonneur tires.
Stevil Kinevil, a Minister of Misinformation, and oddball blogger behind Guys Who Cut Their Own Hair and How To Avoid The Bummer Life has left the Swobo building and is now in another building (or cardboard box) publishing All Hail the Blackmarket.
What does that mean? Has Swobo dicked the blogosphere? Returned to their way old ways of ship whenever or backorder and sucked the life out a good blog? Has the man shut Stevil down?
Don’t know, just hadn’t said
SWOBO: ship whenever or backorder
in an long time. Cause see, back before Swobo was urban and street, they didn’t do so good on the fulfillment part of retail. Now they’re into protesting water bottles and, as shown here, do have goods in bike shops. Pam likes packing sandwiches in her Swobo jersey.
We’ve invited Stevil to MC the Mobile Social Interbike — seems fitting and let’s see if he’ll do it. We also invited Style Man because he dissed Bicycling in an article and they ran it, which was awesome (they didn’t know they ran it), but then they replaced Style Man with Bike Snob, an anon blogger who “skewers” the industry. We don’t need to get into that yin and yang — let the bike universe balance itself.
Stevil we love you because you do it for the chicks and gave us Fat Guy Spandex, who becomes even more internet famous by the minute.
BTW, later today, we’ll hang out with Jennifer from Hincapie Sportswear who shot that photo.
From Jonathan Winstone's Lubitel 166 set on Flickr, Freddy & Magdar with their bikes.
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The Bright tradeshow has established itself to a constant venue for streetwear, sneaker, fashion and boardsport in Europe and includes fixed.
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Lance Armstrong’s ride in Dublin continues to make news
I think the essence is very simple. You have a man, a bicycle, a public park and an open road. I would go and do that anyway. Cycling is a sport of the people, and as you’ve probably watched the tour, sometimes a little too close to the people.
he told the Irish Independent. 1200 people showed up to ride with him after he posted an invitation on Twitter.
Photo: AP
(fingers crossed he makes a Mobile Social) one day).
My preferred pedal for urban riding is the Speedplay Frog, but like many pedal systems on the market, the Frogs offer very little support if you aren't clipped in. I've been searching for a pedal system that I could ride with either street shoes or cycling shoes, but I don't know if I'm ever going to find one that suits me. Since Speedplay does not offer a clipless pedal with a broad platform, I gave the Crank Brothers Mallet 2 pedal a try for a week.
Vegas isn't really known as a bike town. Well it is. We've ridden all over and it's tame compared to riding in Beijing or LA. Just like any other city, Vegas has bike shops, a scene, fixed, and Critical Mass too.
Just down the street from our hotel last year was Sexxpresso where we'd ride on up each morning last year during Mix 08.
I know this is just a strange camera angle, but man it looks like these folks are carrying around the world's biggest little dog head in their bag.
This is, for a pooch, an incredibly styling way to travel.
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This bike was just waiting on a corner to be restored and sold. Next to it was an equally rusty lawnmower. That's the second Sears bike we've spotted. The first was much like the bike I rode when Evel Knievel was my hero.
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FiberFix is a product that's been available for a number of years, but I hadn't actually seen it used till last week. It uses an aramid cord and a stub spoke (with what reminds me of the block and tackle from a sailboat) to tension the wheel after a spoke have broken.
This rider in particular gets extra point for making this device work on a Campagnolo Neutron Ultra, a wheel that has both flangeless hub and nipples hidden within the rim. 
A customer recently ordered a lugged steel Davidson to be completely chromed, something like a first for Davidsons. We wanted to use JP Weigle's Frame Saver, a rustproofing treatment, on the insides of all the tubes, but the seat stay vent holes are particularly small and difficult to get to. Ordinarily one sprays Frame Saver aerosol can through one of those slim straws, but that invariably requires some clean up. The decals had already been applied to the frame and we were worried what the Frame Saver might do to them. So Bill shows up with a hypodermic needle and syringe with which we mainlined those seat stays.
Back before the Weigle marketed his Frame Saver product, one would use something like linseed oil to coat the insides of a steel frame. I did that twice with my Bianchi EL/OS, and let me assure you that is one messy, smelly job. And linseed oil can take months to fully dry. Unsurprisingly, Weigle's Frame Saver is THE choice for protecting your fine steel frames nowadays.
... Read more »Later this week, we'll pull focus on the town of Greenville SC for the USPRO weekend. We'll live blog from the caravan, behind the scenes, at the meetup, and from the Hincapie Sportswear fashion show.
Check the photos from and posts from last year. Greenville is a bike town. We asked these cyclists and they told us so.
While in town we'll also ride with George Hincapie on the road race course, eat with the familila, feel fat next to Boyd and race with Nicole at the SC State Road Race.
A cycling-themed mural at Dupont and Dundas, in West Toronto by Art Starts.
Photo by Vic Gedris, 2009-08-17. Full story.
42 cyclists rode across the country to raise money and awareness for the Alliance for Biking and Walking. Their ride concluded this weekend at Orange 20 Bikes in LA. They raised 42K.
Uploaded by Ramen Drama.
This poster spotted by cyclelicious reminded us of the heart-warming Bike Lost Bike Found story. Also see Bike Thief Caught and Surly Mustache.
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KK+ photo of me talking about geeking out on bikes, Cargonistas, and more @Ignite Gnomedex 2009.
Posted slides from BIke Hugger's session this weekend.
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Yes! YoXo tweeted about a human-powered monorail fun ride ...
That looks like more fun than the Skycycle in Japan.
NYT profiles Hambone Designs. They make bicycle bags for keys, wallets, and cellphones. The owner Mrs Grillos started the business after her contract position at Willams-sonoma was not renewed.
In Seattle, Bike So Good recently opened as repair shop. The shops we're talking to have adjusted and doing ok. That's not great, like years past, but ok.
Included in our coverage of Interbike next month (the bike industry's big trade show), we want to focus on the small business. Tell us what you're doing. Did you get laid of from some big corp and are making something interesting our bikes must have?
See the $4.99 MessengerMirror as an example of what we want to blog about.
The fashion blogs lit up like blinky lights this Spring when Fendi featured the Abici Amante Donna bike in their Craft Punk event and later at a in-store cocktail party.
Like I was saying during my Bike Culture preso @gnomedex, that's a whole other thing: velocouture. The Fendi bike was featured in Vogue, Womens Wear Daily and again this week when they released more photos.
Where some would be quick to diss a 9K bike, we're all for it because bikes transcend sharrows, alley cats, parking lot crits, and are smack dab in the middle of pop culture. Chanel has offered a bike, DKNY, and earlier this year there was a FIT fashion contest.
From the Fail Blog
and more likely he's a student moving out or into an apartment and wearing a mesh garbage can on his head for convenience instead of protection. While we were in Madsion, I spotted a bike with fan attached.
Now fashioning a helmet into a cigarette with an ashtray bike, that's a win! Besides making a statement, there's a considerable crush zone.
Photo: Getty. Spotted in the Daylife stream.
These bars have been outside the REI in Chatsworth for ages. They are the most secure handlebars in America. The bike they were attached to? Location unknown.
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Bike Hugger's Guide to Bike Culture was presented during the Best of Ignite Seattle session @Gnomedex 09. Complied with Mark V, Frank Steele, Jason Swihart, and David Schloss. Thank you to Brady Forrest for inviting me to present it.
Note the guide isn't complete. The Ignite format is 20 slides, every 15 seconds, for a total of 5 minutes. The extended, remix version would include slides like
and so on. Also note to avoid sexism at male-dominated geek conferences, we left out slides featuring well-heeled, attractive European women riding around Denmark or Seattle or Austin.
The intent of the guide is humorous and we kept it tame for the fun of it. Wide-ranging, Cultural Snark is in Bike Snob's kitchen, and his seal of disapproval.
SXSW Panels you should pick because Bike Hugger is on them or will be on them, if enough of you pick them!
Turn Off, Tune Out, Drop Weight -- Twittering at the computer all day doesn't keep you in shape.
Brandemonium: How Google Made Your Brand Irrelevant -- Brand in the Google economy.
The Blog is Dead, Long Live the Blog! -- Blog staying power.
Bicycles in Film: From Silver Screen to iPhone -- From Edison to talkies to iPhones with video.
How Cycling Embraced Social Media and then Reinvented It -- The Lance Factor in Social Media.
On 8/31, another Bike Hugger-related panel is available on the Panel Picker.
We're already planning our Mobile Social 2010 @ SXSW and it's huggier than ever.
So Travis Brown ran the Leadville 100 on a dropbar-equipped Trek Top Fuel, a full-suspension mtb. It's unusual to see a dropbar on a top athlete's machine rather some crackpot bike blogger's bike, so I was really interested in Brown's parts pick. Some choices were obvious, some were initially mystifying, and some were really esoteric.
Bike photo: Zack Vestal
This very-amusing Craigslist post is from a bike shop, advising would-be customers on some etiquette. Here's just but one of the gems.
I really do need to see your bike to know what is wrong with it. You've already figured out that when you car makes a noise, the mechanic needs to see it. When your TV goes blank, a technician needs to see it. I can tell you, if there is one thing I've learned from you fucking squirrels, it's that "doesn't shift right" means your bike could need a slight cable adjustment, or you might just need to stop backing into it with the Subaru. Bring it in, I'll let you know for sure.
Toronto is a bike town too. We'll ride there soon enough and look for bikes like this with copper bells and rusty seats.
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Chris Clinton, Bontrager Hard Goods Brand Manager, shows us updated Bontrager wheels. New hubs, skewers, and aerodyanmics without twin-paired spokes. Like Hed's C2 platform, Bontrager has increased the width of the rim and no longer needs the twin-pair. Twin-pair was problematic for several reasons and this change will undoubtedly rekindle decades-old debates about Rolf Wheels, spoke patterns, and tension. We heard, but do not have it confirmed, that Shimano and Zip have also increased rim width in their new wheels.
Watch now on YouTube or download and sync to iTunes, your iPod, iPhone. Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.
iPhone users can download and watch now and access our Huggacasts via the iTunes Store on a Wi-Fi or cellular network.
...cause I certainly don't. Someone sent me this link for "nada bike". The entire site seems to consist of just some psuedo-individuality/anti-establishment slogans and some hyperlinks, half of which lead to desperate online resumes and the other half are dead links. Worst. Site. Ever.
"Now is the time for a whole movement that says no. No gas. No foreign oil. No cars. No bullshit. You want in?"
After the Hot Topic call to revolutionary glory, they urge you to join the cause by buying a fixed gear frame for $100 plus $49 shipping. I don't know what to make of this. Are they serious, or is this some joke by creative would-be professionals who, for lack of employment, have too much time on their hands?
WTF? Before you do that, you can join my club! Send me $100 and I'll send you something out of my closet. It'll be like eBay, only afterwards you'll be Mark V's BFF.
Ever had one of those days where you felt like you were riding around with an old diving bell on your head?
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Core77, a industrial design magazine and resource, launched their limited edition Dutch Master last month. The Worksman cruiser should start arriving in cyclists' garages about now.
Core77 deserves props, but we'd also like to see a bike of the future with a nod to the past. Rather than just another nod to the Dutch.
I've become a big fan of Rahsaan Bahati lately. I followed him on Twitter where he seems to be more about family and causes than ego and flash. Then Missing Saddle came out with this GREAT podcast interview and I had a whole new respect for the guy. Now he's come out with a new venue on USTREAM where he's going to go into more details on what it is to be a US Pro and the inter-workings of his controversial Rock Racing team. It's cool to see a pro that's getting into a cause and hoping to get more people on bikes. Check him out.
New date! Destination unknown!
We're hard at work on the latest Mobile Social Interbike. Like last year, we'll ride from the Sands, down the Strip, to a destination unknown.
Vegas is offering unheard of deals and we're working right now on the best one for us and fun for you. All you need to do is show up outside the Sands Convention Center (near the Bike Locking entrance) with your bike and we'll do the rest.
Photo: carltonreid
It's our hope that the MoSo Interbike turns out like this Scopitone video: kooky, big-hair dancing in merlino wool jerseys and bike shorts with high heels.
Stay tuned and please RSVP now so we can get a bike count.
From Suburban Assault's photostream.
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Eric Bjorling, Trek's Lifestyle Marketing Guy, shows us the new District Carbon. Prototypes of this bike had been seen at Sea Otter and in Lance's twitterstream. It's a belt-drive, all carbon, free/fixed urban bike. Eccentric dropouts accomodate the belt. MSRP $3,359.00.
Watch now on YouTube or download and sync to iTunes, your iPod, iPhone. Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.
iPhone users can download and watch now and access our Huggacasts via the iTunes Store on a Wi-Fi or cellular network.
Seen in the Bike Hugger Urban group on Flickr.
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Months ago, I was smack talking Brady Forrest of Ignite Seattle and now presenting on bike culture at the Best of Ignite session during Gnomedex Seattle this Friday.
So what's funny and geeky about cyclists? A lot! Like those of us into fixed, cargo, roadies, and so on. From the Surly Shop Monkey to Mr. Millimeter, who stops during rides to adjust their cleats every 10 miles.
Suggestions for the preso?
I hate bottled water with a passion. While our country has the cleanest tap water in the developed world we pay billions of bucks a year for an environmentally-damaging package of plastic, trucked all over the place, instead of walking to a sink. Without a doubt, drinking bottled water is one of the worst things you probably do daily.
Swobo hates bottled water too, and they've decided to combat the ubiquitous trend with a series of recycled bottles that have messages on them. The most interesting (though possibly not terribly effective) bottle in this Message in a Bottle program has printed on the side a letter to Nestle (who makes more bottled water than anyone in the US) explaining why they shold stop the practice of producing bottled water.
The flipside of the bottle has a printed address to Nestle, simply slap a stamp on there and it's good to go.
I don't think that a few bottles to a corporate giant will end their wasteful practices any more than I think that writing a letter to Big Oil will cause them to want to forget about drilling in Alaska, but I do think that the bottles can cause the people who read them to think about their behavior and possibly change their habits.
... Read more »Most people don't think of bikes from the innards of Trek's Madison mothership as being handmade, but this bike, an all-carbon single-speed called the District Carbon is made by hand, and pardon me if I'm a bit teary-eyed, it's effin gorgeous.
Too gorgeous for me perhaps, with the beautiful belt drive system and the FSA cranks, this bike screams--no, this bike whispers style. I, however, whisper heathen.
For just over $3000 you can pick up this Madone-based single-speed and ride it to your corner office at AIG, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Madoff Investments, Huron Consulting, Burger King.
One of the things that surprised me when looking through images from TrekWorld was this beautiful Mixte frame. (A mixte is a drop-tube bike with standover. They're often called "women's frames" but that's a sexist generalization that comes from the history of bicycles and doesn't related to modern riding.)
The Trek Belleville is a sophisticated looking bike, with a killer paint job and some smart touches. This is a bike that's part of an overall trend to make commuting and errand bikes actually useful. To wit: the pannier racks actually allow for easy-on-easy-off connection of panniers, something that seems to be a commonly difficult process on many power commuter bikes. This bike reminds me of the steel-framed Raleigh "woman's frame" bike I rode when I got into cycling.
Like that Raleigh, this bike is driven by a three speed Nexus hub (where my Raleigh was a Sturmey-Archer), which provides just enough gear range for your average flat cities. (Riders in San Francisco should probably look to other models, unless your entire commute is down Market.)
Trek is using the Belleville and other models to make a statement, they're trying to step away from being thought of as a mass-manufacturer of hybrids and road bikes and instead be seen as an innovator.
While I don't think it's a great design choice, the zip-tie assembled saddle is designed to allow the seat to be recycled after it's worn out. While it's a neat idea, I'm not sure I want a saddle that can be disassembled with a pair of scissors.
But I don't think the design is the point, so much as the fact that someone in industrial design thought up a more environmentally-friendly saddle and someone in accounting signed off on the idea. It's small touches like this that will someday lead to a greener world. And it's the way that Trek shows people that they're thinking more like Saturn than GM.
Thinking of the bike as a whole is a rather new idea in the industry, and Trek worked with Alchemy to design recycled rubber bags that mount to the pannier racks on the bike.
At $659 the bike won't break the bank, which is good because an economy in which we're running out of fuel and jobs at the same rate needs a solid price point for a commuting/errand bike like this.
You can meet Trek's Eric Bjorling as he introduces the bike in this Huggacast
Trek's Industrial Designers -- Hans Eckholm and David Bloom -- show us a Madone prototype and Fisher Cronos. MSRP is Cronus $2629.99, Cronus Pro $3569.99, Cronus Ultimate $6299.99.
Watch now on YouTube or download and sync to iTunes, your iPod, iPhone. Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.
iPhone users can download and watch now and access our Huggacasts via the iTunes Store on a Wi-Fi or cellular network.
Will Meyers of Davidson Bicycles has been working to modify my BMX fork to accept a disc brake. The fork is a Drive Lite Fork from Drive BMX, which is pretty light among 20" forks, yet is designed for street (as in trick riding) rather than racing. Will started off fabricating a post mount for the Shimano cable-actuated caliper, and then he improvised some "lawyer tabs" for the dropouts, reducing the chance that the axle could be dislodged by the counterforce of the disc.
For the next Mobile Social, a Camper Bike! Inside are one hundred folding bikes at the ready. Snacks and drinks too . . .
Built by Kevin Cyr, the Camper Bike is a functioning sculptural piece and the subject of a series of paintings.
Eric Bjorling, Trek's Lifestyle Marketing Guy, introduces the Belleville and Trek's new Eco Design line.
Eco Design features low-impact steel frames and components; recycled rubber tires, and generator lights. MSRP is $659.00.
Watch now on YouTube or download and sync to iTunes, your iPod, iPhone. Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.
iPhone users can download and watch now and access our Huggacasts via the iTunes Store on a Wi-Fi or cellular network.
Last week Specialized rolled out a program to give away a (unspecified) number of their 2010 Stumpjumper FSRs to people willing to blog about their experiences. I'm looking forward to riding with my fellow Trail Crew folks after my entry wins.
Now I think it would be almost unfair for me to enter Specialized's newest contest, a chance to win a Globe bike in exchange for blogging about your experiences with one of their bikes. We loved the Globe bikes when we covered the launch of the product lines, and now is your chance to ride them, and become a "Glober." (I'd have gone with GlobeTrotter myself.)
For this contest Specialized has a page detailing the terms, but basically you have to tell them why you'd be a great blogger, why you'd have fun with the bike, the add your entry to their Facebook fan page. Easy as pie, right?
It would be hard to not have fun with a free Globe bike, so this should be a pretty spirited contest.
Reader schrammalama tipped us to this bike he spotted. It was decaled Donkey Show and if you squint at the wheels, you can see the spokes are twisted. Looks like an urban cruiser, like the Merlin Newsboy updated with disc brakes, internal gearing, and lights.
Now I'm not going to Google Donkey Show and share the results. I recommend you don't either; especially if you're at work.
Here's another handlebar set-up, combining a shallow rise, moderate-sweep bar with extensions mounted inboard of the the levers to provide an almost aerobar position. Of course, there are no elbow rests, so one couldn't lean down on them. I didn't have a chance to ride the bike, a Breezer Finesse. Aside from speculation, has anyone actually ridden this set-up?
CW&T wrote to tell us about their Blockhead stem. It's a big, chunky CNC, stem of boldness that'd take a chunk right out of your knee.
Most interesting is it's open source. They've licensed the design under Creative Commons for personal use. That means you can mill it yourself, make a version of it to mount an iPhone or espresso, but not sell it. We didn't think about open-sourcing the big block of aluminum we milled for the Stokemonkey but hey!
If mill-your-own stem becomes popular, expect an aftemarket on Etsy for padded stem cozies that'll protect you from those sharp edges.
What is cool is that the got this too market (sold two so far). Every few weeks, a cad drawing from an industrial design student makes the rounds of the design blogs, and is usually never seen again.
Open Sourcing a design isn't a first in the bike industry. QBP did it with Xtracycle. Of course that meant, you'd have to deal with QBP and that's a bit of a challenge for their competitors who make their own proprietary longtails or eventually will.
Eric Bjorling, Trek's Lifestyle Marketing Guy shows us the Valencia +, an ebike, and introduces the term, "sweat-free commuting."
MSRP for the Valencia is $2500 with Trek's version of Bionx and 350 watts of power. See our Electric Innovation post for more on Trek's eBikes and the Trek Electric Huggacast.
Watch now on YouTube or download and sync to iTunes, your iPod, iPhone. Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.
iPhone users can download and watch now and access our Huggacasts via the iTunes Store on a Wi-Fi or cellular network.
This one had me laughing. It's roadie rap!
Jenna and others rode naked during Hempfest this weekend in Seattle
Why were there naked cyclists at Hempfest? As we posted earlier, those naked riders ride naked whenever!
Photo: Joshua Trujillo/seattlepi.com
I remember years ago when I lived in Florida I saw a magazine article about Curtlo bicycles. I remember the bike in question was a bright green and small. To be honest, I forgot where they were made, and I haven't seen many of them. But Doug Curtiss makes them in right here in Washington state (Winthrop), and I saw this one outside my local grocery store. It's a steel cyclocross bike with a Reynolds carbon 'cross fork. 
Rode around downtown Madison and commuted to Trek HQ in Waterloo during TrekWorld. Jessica Braun is seen in the video with us on the bike path.
Watch now on YouTube or download and sync to iTunes, your iPod, iPhone. Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.
iPhone users can download and watch now and access our Huggacasts via the iTunes Store on a Wi-Fi or cellular network.
Hey everybody tell Trek,"make these shoes with SPDs!" We'll wear them.
Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.
Matt McGaughey photos from the 2nd most important bike race in the world.
But wait there's more:
Mark V was particulary interested in Travis Brown's drop-bar MTB, as seen on Velonews. He's written at length about that topic.
Bike photo: Zack Vestal; race photo uploaded by mpmcgaughey | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.
Byron's wife Pam just bought a pair of Sidi Dominator 5 for touring and cyclocross. She has a long way to catch up to me. Here I have the five Sidis that I currently use (2 for the summer, and three for the other nine months of Seattle wet dreariness) and the two pair that I have worn out. I have another pair of all Lorica Sidi Dominators sitting pristine in a box.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post challenging the industry to innovate with electric bikes. Not just power a comfort bike, but develop a performance bike. Well, Trek did that and also powered a comfort/fitness bike.
The day before the demos, Jessica Braun hinted we'd see something electric and cool. We saw three bikes actually: Phase, Bishop, and Valencia+. The Bishop is a steampunky concept while the Phase looks like a modern-art Madone with a battery pack and integrated electronics.
Taking on all Commuter Challengers, with electric power.
Ridden best with Tweed and leather -- so badass comes with its own shoes.
Neither of those concepts will ship, but the thinking and creativity is there. If Trek's Ride+ (electric line) does well, expect something more like the Phase, a powered Madone.
... Read more »At TrekWorld 2010 we experienced the Trek Electric.
Watch now on YouTube or download and sync to iTunes, your iPod, iPhone. Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.
iPhone users can download and watch now and access our Huggacasts via the iTunes Store on a Wi-Fi or cellular network.
With over thirty thousands items in their catalog, there's much product to see at TrekWorld and we saw a lot of it. In this post, I'll highlight what we thought was the best in show and relevant to our readers. We'll continue our coverage in follow-on posts, including video for our Huggacasts. As we've previously discussed in the comments, TrekWorld is a preview of the 2010 line and all of the details with pricing were not made available to us at the time.
20 years ago, Trek decided to forego other tradeshows and do their own thing. The event is mainly for Trek's dealers with media being invited to meet with product managers, the CEO, get a factory tour, ride bikes, and so on.
Joining us in Madison, Wisconsin were the traditional media, including Zap from Road Bike Action. As that hostage-style photo indicates, we attempted to coerce Zap into blogging and he wasn't having any of it, holding up the NYTimes to say, "old Media rules!" (or if I don't come back, here's the date and where I was last seen with Hugga).
At times during the event, I was whisked away by Jessica Braun to meet with Trek's Industrial Designers and talk about social media. Madison's Edge/3G network has some issues, our connection was spotty, but uploaded and live blogged as much as possible.
I also spent time riding Madison's bike paths, including commuting to Waterloo where Trek's HQ is located.
... Read more »For the past few months there has been a titanium frame floating around the bike shop. A guy walked in with an mtb frame built by McMahon Racing. He wanted to get a new BB and suspension fork, and maybe have a disc brake tabs welded on. The frame must have been old since it had a U-brake and a head tube for a 1" steerer, which sounds like late 1980s. I had to tell him how difficult it would be to put a disc tab on the rear triangle and how 1-1/8' steerers have been the standard for years now. But the deal killer was the BB. It was some sort of non-standard unit that fit the extra wide, small diameter shell; the aluminium cups stubbornly frozen in place with no means other than a pin spanner to remove (there's a reason Shimano uses a spline interface here).
One of the skills a good mechanic needs to acquire is the ability to quickly evaluate a problem that is maybe unfixable and/or unprofitable. Learn to avoid the tar baby bicycles. Wrenching bikes isn't the same as practicing medicine (if it was, I 'd pay doctors less, or you'd pay me more), there's no Hypocratic oath. Sometimes you give the same advice as Kenny Rogers: you gotta know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em.
Bike Hugger is still taking in the sights at TrekWorld, the annual gathering for the unveiling of the Trek lineup to dealers and to media insiders.
Byron's been on the ground there for days, and he's rounded up product managers and product and wanted to share some thoughts about the event. (Of course he's too darned busy shooting iPhone video to YouTube like this quick hello from product designers to write, but will be reporting back when he's recovered from the wild partying that Madison Wisconsin is known for).
Byron's noting that the city itself is great--small town Americana combined with the big business of Trek. And speaking of Americana, both Trek and SRAM seem to be the biggest players when it comes to bike advocacy--something near and dear to our hearts here. Trek's president John Burke has lead the charge for change with millions given to advocacy (that explains the lead-off photo of congressman James Oberstar and John Burke having a meeting) and SRAM has committed $10M, despite the seeming lack of enthusiasm from the rest of the industry.
The group of assembled journalists got to watch a Madone being built--the process is all done by hand (and machine obviously but no big ol' robots here) and it's an amazing job. We're suggesting they show off their bikes at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show.
Interestingly, LeMond's brand has been completely expunged from the Trek campus, it's like he never had a presence there. After this recent Bicycling article on him, we're not surprised by that. Here's a guy who never quite got the saying "you can catch more flies with honey than you can by pissing off everyone who is generating your revenue by selling your bikes."
Trek's been showing off the new Super Fly which is gorgeous and we'll be talking about that shortly.
I can't say I know a thing about Ruckus Components, but they sure have some cool stuff on their flickr photostream. This rack looks great and would certainly dress up any stealth cafe-bike. Maybe I need to add that to the wife's rig? From the website it seems they are still sorting out how they sell all this stuff, but cool stuff abounds. Carbon fenders, Carbon Cog Guard, Carbon 15mm wrench - yes!
Spotted at the demo tents -- we requested Time pedals, circa 2007. Wondered if you could stump the mechanic with an obscure pedal request like a Diadora. Or the non-mud clearing, didn't work well at all, 1st gen-SPDs for your shitty shoes.
Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.
Laurent Fignon and Alex Zulle are both cycling heroes of mine, and coincidentally all three of us are badly near-sighted. I don't know how Fignon could deal with those downhills in the Alps with those tiny glasses of his. My eyes water up instantly over 30mph with my own version of the professor's glasses. Alex Zulle wore prescription Oakleys later in his career, but they've never been quite as durable for me as I'd want. This time I'm going for Rudy Project.
I wish that the old Tayo model was still available, or rather I wish I could get prescription lenses made to fit the Tayo. I've got 4 pair of the Tayo, and I love them because of their coverage. They also make me feel like Bono. But since they went out of production years before Rudy offered in-frame Rx options, I had to search for a newer sunglass that worked for my face. I think it's going to be the Horus.
SRAM has issued a not-recall for their 10-speed chains.
Say What?
According to Bikebiz.com, SRAM has issued a voluntary product recall for 10-speed Powerlock chains that are date coded "M" or "N," but then the company stressed that the recall is not actually a recall, but you should still stop using it immediately.
We're actually always happy when a company pulls something from service when it might fail, and we know that a full recall has some very specific language and legal requirements. But still, when you're supposed to immediately stop riding something because it might cause injury or death, I think we can safely treat it as a recall.
Specialized has just announced a super-incredible program whereby a few lucky mountain bike aficionados will get hooked up with a 2010 Stumpjumper FSR and a full kit of gear in exchange for "tales of sweet singletrack..." as well as photos and videos from the members of said crew. Specialized will even invite these lucky bastards test riders together a few times a year "at some incredibly sweet riding location..." also on the dime of Big S.
Aside from being a sponsored pro racer, this is about as sweet of a deal as you can get, and all it takes to enter the contest is some sort of example of the super-awesome riding coverage you're thinking of doing to help promote your membership in the Trail Crew. When you've got your submission in order, just send a tweet to @iamspecialized with a link to a blog post or photo entry for the contest.
So, let me take a moment here to make this my official entry and let me tell you why I am such a perfect candidate for the Trail Crew.
... Read more »
Bike Hugger is on the scene at TrekWorld 2010, the company's big roll-out of new products for press and dealers, and it's been a great showcase of their products, like the District Carbon, a single-speed belt-driven carbon-fiber drop-bar bike (that's a lot of hyphenated words right there) that's a knockout.
And check this out, it's an ANT+ Sport transmitter integrated into a chainstay, perfect for the Garmin or Powertap user. Intelligent combinations of technology like this really get me worked up.
I'm not as big on electric assist bikes, but they are an important component of a more green transportation future, and Trek's Valencia is a nice mix of form and function.
Of course there are a ton of bikes in the Trekworld display (Trek even makes bikes for some racing teams, we hear, though we're not sure you've heard of them, they're from Kazakhstan) and we're featuring the best of them on our Flickr page, and on Twitter @bikehugger.
We're at Trek World 2010 blogging live from the demos and later meeting with the design team. The focus for us is on their Pavement line with attention to the new eco_design, Ride+ (electic assist), and concept bikes.
We're also talking with Trek about social media and sharing input from our readers.
What are your questions for their designers, engineers, and product managers? We're here and they're listening. They had lots of questions for us at dinner last night and we're excited to show camera phone photos of The Bishop steampunk bike. Also kept trying to scare us with The Vortex of Terror -- looks more the vortex of puketo us . . .
Recently I did an ergopower rebuild on a custom bike from Leonard Zinn. As a long time technical writer for Velonews and author of a series of books on bicycle maintenance, Zinn has offered custom bikes for riders, who like the man himself, fall on the tall side of the rider bell-curve.
This bike is manufactured from welded magnesium alloy, which makes it rather rare. Magnesium's low density, good strength-to-weight ratio, and vibration characterists make it attractive for building high performance bikes, but it doesn't lend itself easily to welding. And magnesium has poor corrosion resistance. Few builders dare to use it (Pinarello's original Dogma model is the highest profile example), but Zinn has building with it for a few years.
Yet the bike's geometry is even more unique than its frame material. The design is driven by the extraordinary crankset, also a Zinn creation.
... Read more »
From the Washington State Bicycle Racing mailing list, this weekend is a memorial ride for Jose Herndando. Jose was hit by a van on a very popular cycling route in Seattle a month ago. Come out and show your support if you can.
It has been nearly a month since our friend and teammate, Jose Hernando was hit on LWB on July 17th. This coming Sunday, August 16th, we would like to invite everyone to a no drop memorial ride around the south end of Lake Wa. We will meet in front of Perts Deli in Leschi at 2:00pm where we will pass around a collection bottle to help out his wife and children. We will role out at 2:30PM and ride south on LWB to the scene of the accident where we will lay some flowers and take a moment of silence before continuing on. Details are posted on our website as well at www.supersquadra.com
In part 1 of this series, I described how dropbar design had changed with the evolution of lever shape. In particular, I wanted to mount a newer integrated brake/shift lever with an older dropbar, yet mimic the flat ramp-to-lever transtion of newer handlebar designs. I've come up with a trick to do this. Basically I fashion a shim that fits on top of the lever clamp band, between the lever body and the bar. After experimenting with several different materials, I've settle on using scraps of 1-1/8" carbon fork steerers. The inner diameter is a close match to the handlebar, while the thickness is adequate to make a noticeable difference to the fit of the lever body. The carbon is pretty easy to hacksaw and file, though the carbon dust is pretty bad for you. Minimize skin contact and don't breathe it in.
First you cut a 1cm ring of carbon steerer. From that you'll need to fashion two shims that are both a little less half the circumference of your original cut. The shims should be just a little wider than the lever body. Then you should round the top corners so you don't feel them while riding on the hoods. Next you'll need to decide where to put your levers on the dropbar's curve.
Zannestar tipped us to the Buddha to Buddha Studio Raar fixie with leather, sterling silver, funky-chunky-monkey stem, and mirror-finished disc wheel. Will the future owner of this bike please ride it through downtown Pittsburgh to a bike polo championship. Then look up the Urban Velo guys and tell 'em we sent you.
We expect more fashion bikes once other retailers realize Urban Outfitters is selling a fixie to the city-dwelling masses. We've also had a butterfly bike and a leather bike with steampunk-style, bespoke craftsmanship.
Those convinced that fixed has jumped the shark, it's worldwide yes, we're all for the growth and popularity of cycling. Where minimalism and simplicity of a fixed gear gets turned into fashion bling, we'll leave that to the pop culture critics to decide if it's cool.
Just this week, Pam returned from vacation in Sitka with news that she spotted two fixies. Sitka is an Alaskan Archipelago with 13 miles of road.
My custom Davidson ti BMX bike is pretty much all tack-welded together, meaning that the tubes are all fixed in place with a small bead of weld so that the frame can be handled. The next step is for the finish welding, where the weld is run completely around the circumference of each joint. The frame cannot be finished on the jig because the welder needs to move the frame about to access the surfaces.
The sequence of joints to be welded has to be carefully planned, otherwise the alignment of the frame tubes will twist due to asymmetric shrinkage at the welds.
... Read more »
3rd Ward, a "member-based design center for creative professionals" in Brooklyn is working at turning its 20,000 foot space into the ultimate destination for artists in the NYC area. The idea is to provide all-inclusive photo, media, wood and metal shops to artists on an as-needed basis.
To help promote this, they're giving away free bikes to new members, both to encourage them to join and to help promote the "green" aspect of shared space collaborations.
In this Tinto Brass movie, Lola (Monella) tries to force her boyfriend to have sex with her by attracting other men. She does this by riding around the Italian countryside on a bike showing off her butt (when does that happen in the States?, we wondered).
A NSFW trailer is available on YouTube. For our fair and balanced blogging, see the man sexy bike episode of The Dimitr Show.
Quick purge that from your mind with Elastine Bicycle.
What do you get when you combine a metropolis that's known to be cycling-negative with a mayor who's a bicycling convert? You get Boston, a city that, according to this New York Times article, is working overtime to try and make Beantown more bike friendly by including feedback from cyclists, more bike lanes and the overhaul of a paved trail system.
Of course, Boston's only added four miles of bike lanes since 2007 with plans to add five to ten more by the end of the year. To put that in perspective, New York City put in around 200 more miles of bike lanes, putting Boston's recent growth at 1/14th the rate of NYC's, even if you stipulate that they'll put in ten more miles by the end of this year.
Still, change is change, and you've got to hand it to Boston for trying to improve the lives of cyclists. Now if only they could help out their baseball fans.
Fitting that this Spinaci sticker was spotted on a time clock at a bike shop -- representin' ya know, "the man" and "fight the power." A reader on our Flickr photostream asked us "what do they do" and we replied, "Spinacis are bar extenders that were banned by the UCI (bike racing's international governing body) -- that lead to a battle between Cinelli and the UCI and the popular belief that the UCI is political and ridiculous."
This was in the 90s, when Italian bike racer's hair looked like Cipos (and never moved!) and before anyone was popularizing "city bikes." We also only had 8 speeds, not eleven and a $450 dollar Shimano chain ring that lasts two thousand miles was unheard of. Would've been laughed out of the bike shop, actually.
A world away in local races, racers were being told they had to take their Spinacis off by uptight officials and the racer's response was that's ridiculous. The same argument with officials, without the public fight from the manufacturer, happened later with Spinergy Rev-X Wheels. A 4 spoke large carbon wheel that, according to urban legend, would julienne body parts in crashes. The bigger reason was that when they failed, they failed massively.
... Read more »Spotted this motorized bicycle with dog in West Seattle. Stopped, chatted for a while. 25CC motor, bored to 50 -- 100 miles on a 1/2 gal tank. 50 mph top speed.
Watch now on YouTube or download and sync to iTunes, your iPod, iPhone. Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.
iPhone users can download and watch now and access our Huggacasts via the iTunes Store on a Wi-Fi or cellular network.
Todd Herriott explains motorpacing.
Watch now on YouTube or download and sync to iTunes, your iPod, iPhone. Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.
iPhone users can download and watch now and access our Huggacasts via the iTunes Store on a Wi-Fi or cellular network.
Earlier this year, we visited the Microsoft Campus Bike Shop during Bike To Work Day.
Watch now on YouTube or download and sync to iTunes, your iPod, iPhone. Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.
iPhone users can download and watch now and access our Huggacasts via the iTunes Store on a Wi-Fi or cellular network.
Italian saddle manufacturer Fizik has always had a thing for odd coverings. Back in the 90s they had a furry cowhide saddle and more recently they offered the Nisene in a buffalo fur. I'm pretty sure that it's fake, but information as to the exact characteristics of the fuzzy seat is rather elusive. I've had mine for about two years now, first on a BMX bike and currently my dropbar mtb. It's still comfy, but wow has it been weathered.
I recently acquired another almost pristine buffalo Nisene; a friend decided it just wasn't the right shape for him and gave it to me since I like it. Holding the new next to the old, you can see that almost all the "fur" has been worn off. You can also that I added a Fizik Extra Grip cover to the balding Nisene. The Extra Grip cover ($13) has become popular among TdF time trialists, as it helps riders hold their position in a deep aero crouch.
Rode up on two chains in the road on Western Ave, near Pioneer Square, downtown Seattle. Is that a Dead Baby mechanical aftermath? Chain x 2 and busted? Who would leave chains behind, unless in a hurry or a litterer?
If indeed a chain break, where are the dude's balls; maybe the seagull got those?
BTW, that's not something you see everyday. Maybe a chain with the recalled SRAM Power Lock?
Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.
It's time for an update on my dropbar mtb. I've been running it for several months with the FSA 2x9 crankset and Jtek derailleur adapter, and it works like a charm. My complaint about the FSA crankset is that the design doesn't improve the chainline nor the q-factor that much over a standard three chainring mtb crank. The upcoming SRAM XX crank intrigues me, but my financial situation firmly puts that to rest. The Jtek Shiftmate adapter, which changes the cable pull of the 10sp STI to match the 9sp mtb cassette, has barely required any tuning. I'm quite pleased. I'm using a road triple STI to control the front derailluer, and it seems adequate. The left shifter is the most half-assed aspect of the bike, so I should thank my stars that it shifts as well as it does. But now both levers match, whereas before I had a right side STI and a standard brake lever with a bar end shifter on the left side. This lever symmetry allows the next evolution to my bike, this time at the handlebar.
Not too long ago I got a box from Bumblebar. Their logo prominently features a bee, so I figured the plethora of energy bars inside had to have some kind of honey or pollen food commonality. This is not the case. Bumblebars are organic and vegan, socially and environmentally conscious, and produced in Spokane WA, but they apparently do not involve bees. But all the flavors are based on sesame and flax seed, and even if I've never sought out vegan products as an issue of principle, I do find sesame and flax tasty.
The bars are made with brown rice syrup or agave as sweeteners and are high in fibre and essential fatty acids. They are designed to provide sustained energy without sugar spikes or crashes. I find the texture satisfying without being overbearing, as the toasted seed base is a welcome break from the styrofoam quality of the hoards of energy bars with a crisped rice structure. However, Bumblebars are more suited to moderate riding, or post-ride. In a fast ride scenario, I want something like a gel block that I can scarf down fast without distracting me from the demands of the riding environment. Also, if you are already bonking, the calories won't become available fast enough.
I like the nut-flavoured Bumblebars more than the fruit, as the fruitier ones were hard to liberate from the wrapper when the summer's heat made them soft and sticky. I'd say my favourite was the Cashew.
You can buy them direct from Bumblebar on their site.
Earlier I had talked about my next bike acquisition, which I decided would be something totally off-the-wall. I double-dog-dare you to find another custom titanium BMX with S&S couplings and disc brakes and a rear derailleur. Not that I tired to come up with something unique. I just thought about what my current stable of bikes lacked, whether it be a particular style of bike or combination of features. This is what I came up with. It's being built by Davidson Bicycles, which is within Elliott Bay Bicycles. And I wrench there, as well as handle the buying.
I got a text message from the frame builder on my day off: "It was a good day in the frame shop for BMX bikes." So I had to go down and see the bike on the welding jig.
Championship bike polo is on now at Magnuson Park, 10 AM to 7PM, free -- more details.
Uploaded by amburn.everett | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.
Our Fall Project -- convert a road bike to single/fixed with Eric's Eccentric ENO hub from White Industries.
Posts to follow.
The first event of the Big Bike Weekend was last night at the Dead Baby Bike race.
Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.
I've been thinking about the passing of Susan Nelson all day, and about the countless other people who have died this year from cancer who weren't lucky enough to have someone sharing their message.
So I've got an idea, and I need your help. Let's declare Saturday Sunday August 23rd as Win For Susan day. (This happens to be the day of the Philly Livestrong Challenge.)
Wear your Fat Cyclist gear, LiveStrong bracelet or clothing, homemade signs, or other item to signify your personal fight against cancer and take a picture of yourself.
Next, upload the picture via twitter and post it on the 23rd with the tag #win4susan
While you're at it, go to the Livestrong foundation and make a donation in Susan's name. A dollar. Five bucks, ten, a hundred--whatever you can spare. Even if you've already donated for other people.
And then let's win the fight against cancer. Let's bring a voice to all of those who go unspoken. Let's make the governments of the world take action and fight to save the lives of their citizens.
And let's win for Susan.
Update: Fatty's blog lists this PayPal page as a collection site in lieu of flowers for the funeral- monies raised will pay for the college tuition fund for Elden and Susan's four children.
Raleigh's Brian Fornes stopped by the Bike Hugger HQ this week to show off a few of the new bikes set to hit the scene in 2010. We took the Alley Way and the Gridlock out for a spin on a nice Seattle afternoon and really like what we saw.
Raleigh was once the gloried king of U.K. cycling, with a reputation for crafting high-quality bikes that lasted for ages. (In my basement, in fact, I have a Raleigh woman's framed 3-speeder with a Strurmey Archer three-speed that's in perfect shape, despite having thirty or so years under its belt.)
After changing hands a few times, Raleigh bikes are still durable, though they're less in vogue than they were in the heyday of the British cycling revolution.
That's a shame because the bikes have always packed a great value for the dollar (or the pound, depending) and bikes like the Alley Way and the Gridlock show that the company is still knocking out some classy bikes at a great price point.
The Alley Way is a Reynolds 520 frame with an Alfine drivetrain and a belt drive that's coated in a Bianchi-evoking green and comes in at $1425.
The gridlock is a Reynolds 520 frame fixie/singlespeed with flip-flop hub and purdy blue rims, which costs a cool $820.
You can see our shots of the bike on our Flickr site.
I ran into Buddha on my way to the Thursday night race in Seattle. He caught my attention because Buddha is a Briard (same breed that I have) which popular in the south of France, but is sort of rare for the states. Buddha rides in the trailer to and from the office most every day with his owner, and while Briards look like a big pile of fur, they weight almost 100lbs. I didn't catch the owner's name, but he was riding a sweet Davidson with S&S couplers.
Quote from the owner, "His name is Buddha - he's all about happiness". Looked pretty happy to me!
James Bowthorpe is riding around the world for a cause. He's doing the whole thing interactively with his followers making use of blog/twitter/flickr. This is a great example of using different social media tools for different, yet coordinated purposes.
His goal is to make the shortest circumnavigation of the globe by bike while raising funds for Parkinson Disease Research.
As for the interesting bike bits - he's reported that he got 12,000 miles out of a pair of Schwalbe Marathon XR tires which he just replaced at Mike's Bikes in Sausalito, CA.
Reader Ryan filed a complaint:
I would like to post a formal complaint for the removal of the "mark V" tags. I would tune in regularly and read each and every last one of his posts. now my link to his posts does not work. miffed, i have not returned to the site since. here's one vote to revive mark v tags. or, if by chance you can send me a link to such posts, i would appreciate it. ryan.
That complaint reminded us we hadn't talked or posted much about our new site features that replaced Mark's personal tag. Ryan sent us the first complaint ever, so we didn't just delete it immediately (that excludes Cargonistas complaining that we didn't cover some obscure cargo bike setup).
Our blog now has
You can find and subscribe to all of those options by clicking on the Author Profile link on each post and see our authors on the People page.
If you've signed up and joined Bike Hugger via Movable Type as a user/commenter, you also have a profile page, like Champs, and can follow other Bike Hugger members.
These features are the easter eggs of our blog and we've been remiss in posting about them.
Thanks for the complaint, while we took away Mark V's tag, we replaced it with much richer Mark options. Subscribe and read him everyday. Then you won't miss his latest shoe choice or opinions on light setups.
You're an old time racer and you've got a stack of Tyvek race numbers to prove it. But your significant other doesn't consider them to be tasteful wall art. What are you gonna do? You could wear them.
I stumbled upon ElevenGear's Race Number Windbreaker. You send them 50 race numbers and 220 bucks, and they sew them into jacket. Brilliant! Those Tyvek numbers are brutally strong, of course they'd lend themselves to recycling!
You specify the size (XS-3XL), and if you don't have quite enough numbers ElevenGear can fill it out with generic numbers for another $10.
Kristina Halvorson's book is out in two weeks. I spoke with Kristina on the Try Making Yourself More Interesting Panel at SXSW earlier this year. As we talked about then, interestingness is key to web charm, to awesomeness online, and we recommend you Do Epic Shit.
Anything epic requires a strategy, lots of work, and Kristina will teach you how to create meaningful content in Content Strategy for the Web.
Travel Oregon recently published Ride Oregon Ride, a new site for cyclists that dream of riding in Oregon. We've ridden and raced all over Oregon ourselves -- beautiful country and good riding.
Our Austin peeps tipped us to Breaking Away with Mellow Johnnys
The event came about as a brainstorm between Rapha and Mellow Johnny's GM's Slate Olson and Craig Staley as their effort to pay tribute to the 1979 Academy Award winning film Breaking Away.
And The trials and tribulations of being a bike thief...
I'm retired and I don't have nothing else to do so I am going to find you, if you bought this bike, you best burn it, there are over 30 uncles, dads, cousins looking for your sick ass and her bike
Spotted posters in a bike shop yesterday. All for this weekend. Updated after the jump.
Saturday, August 8th, starts at 10:00 am, Gas Works Park -- more details
Saturday, August 8th, Magnuson Park, 10 AM to 7PM, free -- more details.
Saturday, August 8th, Seattle Musical Theatre, Building #47, Magnuson Park, 9 and 11pm, $7 includes live performance -- more details
Streets of Kirkland, starting at 5 PM -- more details.
... Read more »
The high summer seems like an odd time to test headlights, but that's what I've been doing for the past month with LIght & Motion's Stella 300 Dual system. Meant for commuting as well as trail riding, the Stella 300 was as much light as I've ever wanted, and I could almost ignore the 300gr weight penalty. And just to keep with the 300 theme, that's how much it costs, as in $US.
I never met Susan, nor did most of the thousands and thousands of people who were touched by her. Susan, wife of Elden Nelson, the blogger behind the incredible FatCyclist.com, passed away yesterday surrounded by friends and family.
Elden was kind enough, over these last years, to open up his life to strangers and to blog not just about cycling (as was his original mission) but about the struggles and trials faced by Susan and his family as they all battled an extremely aggressive form of cancer.
Susan, through Elden's brave words inspired thousands to take up the fight against cancer and as a result more than half-a-million dollars have been raised for the Livestrong foundation. That one person could inspire so much generosity is staggering, and it's a legacy that will live forever. She will touch the lives of thousands more who are engaged in the fight against cancer and those who support them.
On behalf of BikeHugger and the whole cycling community, we send our thoughts and love to Elden and his family. We're also urging readers of BikeHugger to visit FatCyclist.com and leave a comment for Elden.
Finally, a few days ago Elden announced a giveaway of an Orbea with Di2 for those who donate to his (or their own) Team Fatty team in the Livestrong challenge. Personally, if I win, I'm going to auction the bike and give the proceeds to LiveStrong in Susan's name, but it's a super-generous prize dedicated to a great cause. Information on donating and entering is here.
Please remember as you go out and ride over the next days, months and years that there are so many out there who have and who are fighting a battle just like Susan's, and how much they need our support. That will be the most lasting tribute to Susan I can think of.
Here at BikeHugger we like playing with bikes and bike gear as much as we like riding. I think there's something about bikes that's just plain sexy. Now that we've been publishing for three years and have a great collection of product reviews (and now that I'm onboard to manage products at BikeHugger) we've decided to build out a page as a go-to location for all of our product reviews.
Just click the Gear link on the navigation bar or point your browser at bikehugger.com/gear to find all of our product reviews. It'll take us a while to go back and tag everything so that it shows up in the listing, but all of our newer reviews are already there.
In this oddly soundtracked French interview with Alexander Vinokourov on Mecanix-tv.com, the doper racer is seen wearing new Astana kit with "Vino 4-ever!" on it.
Odd capitalization issues of the slogan aside, why exactly would anyone really want that written on a jersey? Perhaps he's trying out this bonne mot for a spate of yearbook autographs.
In any case, the video is in French and I'm just going to warn you right now that the music in the intro will make you want to punch yourself in the spleen. Hard.
While my French is a bit rusty, I believe that what the caption under the video says is
A scoop for Top Bike: An exclusive interview with a lying doper, Alexander Vinokourov. Mechanix-TV has followed around the Kazak as he trains on the Madone [the mountain not the bike] to skirt UCI anti-doping rules.
Accompanied by his mechanic and friend Andrei Medunitsa, he practices concealing his EPO use with a catheter supplied by Maxim magazine and Valentin Iglinskiy. Some other guy in this video was partying on Team Astana, while being bossed around by Johan Bruyneel.
I'm not entirely sure about the camera work on the lead-off to this video and the loving camera pans, but I'm pretty sure that Vino wants to go to prom with me.
A custom wall mount display for high-end track frames for No Brakes ATL.
Uploaded by People of Resource | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.
Note: cross-posted from TechFlash.
At a summer cocktail party last week, a developer of Windows Mobile applications asked me which apps I use on my iPhone. His company was considering getting into the iPhone business. Actually, not that many, I explained, because so many of them are just not that good. I work on my iPhone -- tweeting, blogging, emailing and organizing -- and don't have time for every new "there's an app for that."
The developer was a cyclist, as well, and eventually asked me which bikes apps I use. My phone is in my jersey pocket on rides and I've got other computers on board for my miles, speed, and power. They work very well. I had installed REI's recently released Bike Your Drive on my iPhone, even though I hadn't used it yet. The app lets cyclist track, view, and share their bicycling experiences. I pulled out my phone and demoed the app for the developer. Together we discovered it's also not that good.
The 3wrencho by PDW is a $20 piece of indestructible kit, able to tighten down 15mm bolts, pop tires off rims (probably pop rims off of rims) and, as they mention in their ad copy, spread peanut butter.
It's one of the smallest 15mm wrenches around and it makes a great gift for the fixie lover or Nexus rider in your life. My birthday is in February, so mark your calendar.
Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.
Seattle's World Naked Bike Ride was in the news again for a ride they did through Greenlake and the Waterfront, offending some parents. A week ago we heard about naked bike riders in Belltown and then they rode on July 10th.
We usually only heard about the nakedness during the Fremont Fair, it's as predictable a story as the Blue Angels flying overhead or bad weather. This year though, it's more nakedness than ever. In Portland this year, they set a naked record.
Spotted at Mellow Johnny's in Austin Texas. We heard they roll the Madsen out each night at closing, just like that. We'll see the Bucket Bike again next March @ SXSW 2010.
Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.
We've been kicking around something intelligent to say about Cash for Clunkers. We're suspect of the label "best stimulus ever." But getting old cars off the road is good right? Well it just doesn't sound right.
What do you think of Cash for Clunkers?
Other thoughts from the blogs:
The numbers just don't seem to add up.
The absolute insanity of this is just staggering.
Cash for Clunkers provides Americans with the chance to do the right thing: Reduce our dependence on oil and curb global warming.
LA Times reporter Susan Spano tours for 4 days in Denmark.
My 50-mile trip was hardly as long or as arduous as the Tour. I never tried to go fast because I wasn't competing for the yellow jersey. I went riding for the fine food and beautiful scenery, both of which I found on the island of Funen.
Photos: Susan Spano, Reporting from Copenhagen
She rode a self-guided bike tour route provided by the Funen Island tourist bureau website. More photos. We haven't toured Denmark yet, but it's on the list. Our next trip is to Prague.
Custom made for us by Ibex Wear, our Summer Wool T is lightweight Merino wool and screened with our logo. The Summer Wool T is best used for apres cycling, everyday wear, and layering. On sale for $59.00, the Ts are shipping directly from Hugga HQ. We have limited quanities. Pricing is good while supplies last.
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Order from our Summer Wool T page.
We're also restocked and shipping our Cotton and Bamboo in Mens and Womens sizing from Amazon.com
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