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Tired of the same ol’ same ol’ Tour coverage? Want to hear the straight dope perspective of cycling’s greatest race? Well, it’s time to tune into Floyd Landis and Dave Zabriskie’s coverage of the Tour! Open up “The Straight Dope” and mute your Tour video feed because Floyd and Dave are going to give you the inside-the-peloton perspective on events as they unfold, with 93% more humor and 100% more profanity than you’ll find on commercial video feeds.
The serendipity of road trips is the unexpected, except when routes take a bit longer than expected. I was planning on having content posted all day today but got held up on a relentless traverse in Northern Idaho en route to Bozeman that tacked on an extra day of driving. Whoops! I don’t want you to think I forgot about y’all.
I’m in Bozeman now, ready to ride, explore, and document the community here, so stay tuned. Tomorrow we’ll be looking a bit deeper into Portland as well, so turn in first thing in the morning.
xo
Look, we all get a bad case of Rubber Side Up from time to time, but Matt from Crust Bikes got it bad. Real bad. An $11,069 surgery bill bad. Bad enough to potentially lead to the end of Crust Bikes as we know it if we can’t help him out. I’m not asking for a handout here, more like support and support can come in the form of buying products, or a frame, or hell, even donating a few bucks to his Go Fund Me, but as Benedict points out in this heart-felt Instagram post:
“Matt is an Australian citizen with no health insurance in this country. His “Transitioning Alien” status doesn’t allow re-entry back in if he were to leave, sinking crust, and separating him from his beloved wife, Cheech.
He needs 2 costly surgeries and just got a huge bill for all these new #romanceur frames”
Yes, two surgeries and that ain’t cheap. Let’s pull together and do what communities do in these moments. xoxo
Intent. In my design school education, we were taught that design without intent was vapid, lifeless, disposable, “junk space.” Yet, in the same breath, we were taught that intent should be interpreted without excessive explanation. That the work itself should stand on its own and most importantly, have meaning. Now, that’s design school and this is the real world. I look at college as highly concentrated cold brew coffee. Sure, you can drink it, but it’s going to wreak havoc on your day, or you can water it down a bit and enjoy the soft, edgeless buzz of caffeine. Not that I’m implying intent should be watered down, I’m just saying this is the real world and in a digital era, I’ve come to terms with the fact that people just want to look at pretty photos. Mostly…
Deserted’s definition means a place void of people and that’s good and all, but in this age, that’s almost impossible to achieve and in fact, many people don’t like solitude, instead, they organize caravans of their friends or like-minded individuals to explore with them. Spend enough time in the desert and you’re sure to see trains of 4×4 vehicles slowly careening through the landscape, HAM radios buzzing in the still air. There’s a lot to be said about the inherent safety of such a weekend trip. If someone gets stuck, or something breaks, it’s nice to have other people around to help. But the tedium of slow-moving exploration isn’t for everyone. In fact, having an agenda greatly alters the Lovecraftian intent of exploration; the unknown, the unplanned, and the inevitable “oh shit” moment. The latter keeps us feeling alive, as it strikes a balance between the “what if,” the “what it could have been,” and the denial of either potential outcome. Go explore, but be prepared for the inevitable.
Dave Moulton wrote a piece on Eddy Merckx, comparing his legacy to that of Chris Froome’s with a critical edge:
“By opting out of the Tour de France in 1973, Eddy Merckx still goes down in history as the “Greatest Rider Ever,” by the sheer number of races the won over the years. He chose the honor people’s feelings over his own ego.
What a shame that Chris Froome is not taking a leaf from Eddy’s book and opting voluntarily out of this year’s Tour de France. Why would anyone want to participate in an event when no one wants you there?”
Keep reading this piece at Dave Moulton’s Blog!
The response to our call for entries, specifically from female contributors has been quite frankly, overwhelming. Over the next week or so I’ll be sorting through your emails over the next week and will hopefully get a reply out to everyone in that time. Thank you!
In an attempt to make your experience of this site better, we’re working on a re-design, with some new branding, and some new ideas, but I’d like to kindly ask to take a few minutes of your time to fill out a questionnaire we compiled in hopes of understanding how you, the readers, use this website. We’d also like to encourage you to write to our Contact email address with any concerns or critiques, again to make this a better place!
Also, the time has come to finally bring on some more authors, specifically women! So if you’re a female (femme) photographer and a writer, or perhaps a writer that can shoot photos too, please email our Contact email address with samples of your work and let’s chat!
You can find our anonymous survey at this Google Docs link!
Side note: check in below where I’ll address any points coming through the results…
… and how they changed cycling is an article at the Guardian I highly suggest you read!
Over the past few months, the Cub House has been host to a number of pop-up shops inside its San Marino space. There’s a 10’x10′ room which happens to make for a perfect space for brands to display their product. This round, Sean, Danny, and Carla reached out to Japan’s Sim Works to open a “convenie” – Japanese slang, shortened from convenience store – filled with Sim Works, their outdoor brand, RAL, as well as Japanese snacks and trinkets. In the Cub House fashion, the team decided to make a big deal about it, throwing a group ride, and pinging Mick from 100 Tacos to cater the event.
If you’re in the Los Angeles area, be sure to swing through the Cub House to see the Sim Works Convenie Store!
The Cub House
2510 Mission St
San Marino, CA 91108
Yesterday, four of us took to the Verdugo mountains for quick dirt jaunt before the warmer temperatures settled in. Enjoy and we’ll see you tomorrow at the Sim Works x Cub House pop up party!
… from custom frame makers Sklar, Stinner, Mosaic, and McGovern, component makers ENVE, Chris King, SRAM and WTB to benefit the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship!
We’ll see you at Lost & Found tomorrow!
Over the next two weekends, we’ll be hitting two events: the Chris King Swarm in Bend and the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship’s Lost & Found. Both events have a strong community tie-in for the type of riding we pursue over here, as well as a strong support from various brands and personalities. We hit the road tomorrow and from that point forward, you can expect coverage from Central Oregon and the Lost Sierra. See you on the road and if you’re going to these events, be sure to stop and say hello!
Following up on yesterday’s post, the team at WTF Bikexplorers posted an update to their scholarship fund, which has now been re-named to honor SJ Brooks, the cyclist who was fatally attacked by a mountain lion in Washington this weekend.
“We would also like to take this moment to honor and celebrate the life of SJ Brooks by renaming the scholarships in their name to the SJ Brooks Bikexplorers Scholarship. SJ was the founder of the Seattle chapter of Friends on Bikes, a cycling group that fosters a community for women, trans, femme and non-binary people of color who love riding bikes. SJ was scheduled to speak about FOB and be a part of the QPOC panel at the WTF Bikexplorers Summit. This past weekend, SJ was fatally attacked while biking outside of Seattle. SJ’s tragic death is a huge loss to the cycling community. They were a positive light who worked tirelessly to create change.”
Read more at WTF Bikexplorers.
This just in from the WTF Bikexplorers! Check out all the information you need to apply for their Summit Scholarship below.
“I’m hoping that you could help us spread the word about the Summit Scholarships that we’re accepting applications for through this Thursday! There are five scholarships available, all of which include a ticket to the Summit this August, a $500 travel stipend, a Sweetroll bag from Revelate Designs, a year premium subscription to Ride With GPS and awesome #shredthepatricharchy swag. Three recipients will also receive a bike, based on their needs, from either Bike Works or Specialized.”
Humbled by the Hook: a Collection of Tales from Team Stanridge at the Red Hook Crit Brooklyn
Photos by Luke Atkinson, words by Evan Hartig with quotes credited.
On Saturday, April 28th, tens of thousands of fans descended on a large asphalt parking lot on the western edge of Brooklyn. The occasion: Red Hook Criterium #11. Some were there for the crashes, some for the skinsuit clad superheroes (and supervillains), but all were there for the party surrounding the raucous spectacle of fixed gear criterium racing. By the end of the night, many an athlete had left pieces of themselves on the brutal tarmac, especially once the skies opened and rain pelted the already-technical course with 10 laps to go in the men’s final. A select few left with the glory of a successful race.
Gone is the stoicism and pseudo-ego of a road race. Why isn’t the field tenser? The course is dark, soon to be saturated with rain from the storm cell currently hovering over Manhattan. No brakes, no freewheel. Maybe the whole concept is so absurd one simply has to be relaxed. Delusion? Maybe.
We had a rippin’ TGSCIF ride today, which we’ll tell you all about tomorrow. For now, I hope this gets you amped up for the weekend!
Bike Jerks HQ: The Tale of the Ritchey Prototype Bi-Plane Fork Crown
Words and photos by Jeff Frane
Behold, perhaps the coolest thing that has crossed my path since I inadvertently started collecting vintage bicycle stuff. One of the rarest for certain. What you’re feasting your hungry eyes upon is one of the few examples of the legendary bi-plane fork crown that Tom Ritchey produced during the heady and formative year of 1983. Now, I have no actual idea how many exist, I should probably ask Tom, but I’ll leave the actual journalism to the professionals. Or the commenters.
It never saw production, as Tom instead decided to focus on the uni-crown, but was later famously copied by Grant Peterson for his legendary MB-1. How was this acquired? Well, my good friend Jeff Schmidt purchased it directly from Tom to potentially use to build a fork for a giant size Ritchey he had previously acquired. See below for their correspondence.
Our local species of yucca, aptly named Spanish Bayonet – Hesperoyucca whipplei – has decided to show the world its life work this month, blooming alongside the singletrack and mountainsides of the San Gabriel range here in Los Angeles. These plants will grow to maturity in around five years and shoot out a beautiful inflorescence, which grows extremely fast, reaching over 10 feet tall. These towers of white flowers attract pollinators from moths to bees and hummingbirds, as well as sending a sweet scent across the springtime air. Yesterday, on our 23-mile singletrack “descent” – which packed in over 4,000′ of elevation – I couldn’t help but stop every time one of these beautiful blooms shared our singletrack. More on that later…
