Bike Hugger 

Chris Mahan, bike racer, Man about Town, and designer for Novara will screenprint this graphic to tees during the Hugga Holiday Sale @uBRDO this week.

Design Real is a gallery show at the Serpentine in London that celebrates useful objects. It’s curated by Konstantin Grcic and designed in collaboration with Alex Rich and Lehni.

The relevance a product has to our life lies not only in its use, but also in how far we identify with it. A good product becomes part of our culture.

Included in the show is the bicycle saddle with a review of the history, types, anatomy, and more. Interesting that Design Real just didn’t grab items from the shelf and turn them into a “show,” but studies how useful they are and why.

The curators include the toy LIKEaBIKE Racer as well. The Independent reviews the show giving it 4 of 5 stars.

Second only to our wheel fetish is the one for technical wear. I’ve got it down to a science, what I wear on the bike, and have been practicing it for more than 15 years. In the Northwest, you’re going to get wet, soaked actually. The challenge is staying warm but not too warm and sweaty. Enter eVent and it’s mixed up what I’m layering and how many layers. Where I’d wear 4 layers with Windtex it’s now 2 with eVent and the best choice for the base layer I’m still working on. Wool or synthetic or both.

A post about eVent needed some research and I’ve ridden with the George Signature eVent Shell a handful of times now in various conditions. I spent time with the Google reading up on eVent, watching videos on YouTube, and Snow Hugger reviewed the REI Shuksan Jacket last year. Also read about how rainwear works.

The eVent material isn’t new. It just hasn’t been focused on or marketed to performance cyclists. Descente has a Bobby Julich shell made with eVent but I’ve never seen one and it’s no longer available. What changed is GE bought eVent and they switched tactics to allow venders to purchase their membrane directly. I expect to see more eVent jackets in the coming seasons like this REI prototype.

Don’t know if anyone has ever studied what old bikes people still ride, but Raleigh has to top the list. See them everywhere.

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

Just posted video of the Cannondale Duchess in our Community and stopped short of dismissing this prototype as yet another design-school cad drawing that’ll never get made despite all the blog posts.

Bicycle Design posted at length on the Dutchess and you can find more in the links after the jump.

As we roll merrily into the holiday season, it’s time to put together the Bike Hugger Curated Gift List–our “best of” list for presents for the cyclist, generated by our readers and the Bike Hugger writers. We’ll take the best suggestions and put them all together for you and your loved ones to use for your holiday shopping list.

Give us your must have items, your dream choices and your oddities in our Community section. Simply write a post there with “Gift:” in the title and we’ll organize it all into one handy PDF file, tag a tweet with bikegift, or leave a comment here.

It’s no wonder I liked the Look Keo 2 Max pedals, after all they won the Tour de France. Okay, they had some help from a small Spanish guy that was pushing them quite hard, but really it’s quite clear after some time riding the Keo 2 Max that the success and glory of Le Tour falls squarely on the pedals. (Yes, I just made a joke about pedaling squares.)

When I first moved from SPD to a road-based cleat system I was quickly won over by the Keo pedals after a lot of time experimenting with other systems. I had my dalliances with SDR-R (comfy but I found the little yellow bumpers wore out over time) and Speedplay and before I found my beloved Crank Brothers Quatro I landed on the Keo Max.

The only thing that kept me from sticking with them is my role as a ride leader of a bike club in the ‘burbs. The pedals are made to stay engaged all day and I found the clipping-in and clipping-out at stoplights took a bit too much throw, even with the retention dialed down.

Colum McCann, who won the National Book Award last week for Let the Great World Spin, was inspired to write by a cross-country bike ride:

So he took off on a bicycle for a year-and-a-half odyssey across the United States, traveling through Florida, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and the Pacific Northwest, dipping into Mexico and finishing in San Francisco. Along the way people would confide intimate stories. “In a strange way they would become novelists,” he said.

The bike ride took place early on in his career, when he was “modeling himself” on Jack Kerouac. The stories he heard on that ride stayed with him ever since. The NYT has published an excerpt of his book. It’s based on the people of New York and 9/11.

We’ve been inspired by the bike as well in our travels, touring, and racing. So has David Byrne and wrote about the bike in his recent book.

Readers, how about you? Written a great American novel on your bike?

Matt Haughey post photos of his new Desalvo Cross bike on the Buy Local Cycling site.

The bike is built as local as possible:

1. Companies making parts locally in Oregon (DeSalvo frame, Chris King hubs & bottom bracket, Kool-Stop brake pads, Ruckus bashguard)
2. American companies making parts in the US (Thomson stem & seatpost, Paul brakes, Selle An-Atomica saddle, Woundup Components Fork, Stans NoTubes rims & sealant)
3. American companies making parts internationally (SRAM Force shifters & derailleurs, Salsa components, FSA crankset)

Bike Hugger is a sponsor of Buy Local and Matt is a periodic blogger for us and bro.

Launching at Art Basel Miami 2009, Swiss Institute presents the cutting-edge calendar Artists on Their Bicycles New York. The limited edition portrays twelve of today’s most famous artists on their bikes, including David Byrne and Cindy Sherman for December.

The calendar is available as a low-res free download and in limited edition prints.

Trek Bellville, Dahons, and Brompton we’re spotted in the pages. Schwinns and more.