Back in May of 2009, 3 riders set off to travel around the world by bike, which they ended in February of 2010 after pedaling some 13,500 miles. The trip was sponsored by Nokia and intended to bring awareness to solar power while gathering donations for the group Solar Aid, whose mission is to bring clean, renewable energy to the poorest people in the world.
One of the riders, Susie Wheeldon, just released a book detailing the trip last week and again all the proceeds from the sales of the book go back to Solar Aid. Early reviews promise stories of bicycle adventure peppered with a good dose of humor and excitement. Still gathering steam after the ride has ended, Quicksilver clothing picked up Wheeldon’s efforts and are giving assistance to the Solar Aid project as well. Wheeldon released the book at Look Mum No Hands! on Valentine’s day.
You can purchase a copy (or two) here. A video of Wheeldon talking about the book is here.
Even if it’s not the aesthetic style that most of my bikes abide by, there is something about a lugged and brazed quill stem that can give it a jewelry like look. This custom stem by Vincent Dominguez Cycles is in the hands of the customer by now, and features a relatively long extension, lugged bar clamp, and integrated shifter and bell mounts. The quill has an old school Cinelli-style expansion plug design—perhaps not the best for thin walled steerer tubes, but off the bike more pleasing to the eye than the more common wedge design. Even the hidden parts count.
Erik Noren of Peacock Groove isn’t one to ever be considered understated, and neither are his bikes. While perfectly capable of building most any style steel bike around, left to his own devices Erik’s vision is rarely a classic less-is-more beauty. Up the volume, Erik likes it loud. I stopped in the shop and had a chance to see an upcoming show bike prior to paint, what will eventually become and Evil Dead 2 themed track bike. Slashed logos, pierced headtube, spikes—completely impractical but eye catching to say the least. Think having to saw off your own possessed hand to save yourself and perhaps you’ll understand, or at least have some idea where the various points and slashes in the bike will go once paint is applied. Over the top, as I’d expect from Peacock Groove.
Always one of my favorites, I’m looking forward to seeing this bike come the first weekend of March in Sacramento at NAHBS 2012.
Don’t call these Frankenbikes, steampunk-style, “mutants” or anything of the sort. It’s hard to even call them works of art due to their extreme functionality and purposeful intent. Call ‘em crazy fun! Porter goes beyond piecing together bikes to fabricating amazing machines that take either great skill or just a great sense of humor to ride. The well produced video showcases his rides and gets a few words from Thomas about his perspective, along with some humorous sidekick commentary. This guy can build some amazing bikes and has serious talent to ride them too!
Being a third generation Pittsburgher it’s in my blood to hate on Cleveland, at least tongue in cheek and especially when it comes to football and burning rivers. In reality the people of Cleveland that I’ve met through cycling are some of my favorites to hang with at events, with a number of them involved in a growing bike based economy in their hometown. Fresh Water Cleveland recently had a short feature pointing out all of the bike businesses popping up in town—Blazing Saddles Cycle, Yehuda Moon Comics, Forest City Portage, Ray’s MTB Park, Bringheli frame tools, and framebuilders Cicli Polito and Rustbelt Welding. It’s an impressive list for one of the smaller big cities in the country, and not exactly one people think of as a cycling hotbed. Only being a couple of hours away via highway it’s nice to see some of these folks regularly throughout the year, and give them a hard time about the Browns.
Let’s handle the case of the Monday’s with a bit of inspiration. Like when life hands you klunkers, you make trials videos!
I don’t know what’s cooler about this, the tricks on the barely held together pieces of metal or the rider’s ability to keep it going without total collapse all the way to the ridiculous finale. Either way… I hope this makes your Monday just a bit more tolerable. And maybe makes you rethink the value of your bike in the process.
There’s no shortage of people repurposing and recycling bicycle parts. And that’s a good thing. Not only does it bode well for our environment, it says something positive about cyclists—that there’s a lot of good, creative people in our community. One of those people is Tom Hellmann of Tallahassee, FL. Tom is a firefighter and an avid cyclist, and one day he made himself a belt out of a used tire. He made a few more and now he’s set up an online shop.
The belts are made from a variety of tires—road, cross, commuter, mountain—and come in widths ranging from 1 to 1.5″. He makes all of his belts “one size fits all” at 50″ in length with holes punched punched for 31″ to 36″ waists. Customers can trim the belt down to size and punch additional holes as needed.
Tom typically uses the printed portion of the sidewall (aka the hot patch) for the loop, which is a nice finishing touch. The tire bead gives the loop additional rigidity which makes it easy to get the belt on and off. The construction and craftsmanship seem spot on, and I can’t really imagine a better material for a belt. I mean, if you consider the abuse a bicycle tire is designed to withstand, it’s quite likely that this belt will last a lifetime.
Belts retail for $25 including free shipping in the US. Custom belts are also available. Check out www.bicyclebelts.com.
The Times has been running a campaign to promote the safety of cyclists in the UK. A major impetus was the unfortunate injury of Times journalist Mary Bowers while she was cycling to work.
According to The Times: As a point of comparison: since 2001, 576 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq; 1,275 cyclists died on British streets. The latest data shows there were 1,850 deaths or serious injuries in the first half of 2011, a 12 per cent rise on the year before. Britain leads the world in competitive cycling; it is time that we did the same for the cyclists on our streets.
Dos Ciclos aired at this past years Bicycle Film Festival, showing attendees some of the current riding culture in Mexico City. Lots of traffic and totally under the radar riding—not terribly different than parts of domestic bike culture. Read a short interview with the filmmakers over at The Atlantic.
Mr. Do makes some of the finest polo videos out there and this one is no exception, compiled from footage from the 2011 World Championships in Seattle this past September.
All-City has a number of steel frameset offerings, beginning with their original Big Block track frame up through a couple of generations of fixed freestyle frames, two geared road frames and the single speed cyclocross Nature Boy. I know I’m not the only one who has wished for a geared Nature Boy, and soon enough it will be available to the masses in the form of the pictured Macho Man. Oh yeah, rules were made to be broken. The bike features geometry and looks similar to its single speed Buddy Rogers rival, with a flat crown lugged fork and fender mounts front and rear to match. Cantilever brake mounts only, with a “standard” English threaded bottom bracket. Production frames will have flat, zip-tie style housing braze-ons on the seatstay to secure the rear housing from the top-tube stop down to the derailleur rather than the pass through style shown in the photos. The newly designed dropouts are a nice touch on this production frame, featuring a lugged chainstay and welded on seatstay similar in construction to the Space Horse dropout but for a multigeared setup only, no horizontal ends for the Macho Man. Style matters to some, and I’ve personally always liked the All-City frame aesthetic with bikes that in my opinion look as good as they ride. Available as a frameset or complete as shown, with an over the top Columbus Zona tubed version with internal top tube routing on the way.
I’m a sucker for these detailed and descriptive approaches to manufacturing. Robert Penn writes about his journey to source the bike of his life, one he will take to his grave, but also drags us around history, science and culture in the process.
It must be nice to have the privilege to seek out each part of your bike on such an intimate level, but let’s be honest, most of us would do the same if we had the chance. It’s nice to live vicariously through someone who took hold of the opportunity. You can do just that through Penn’s book.
Foreign Accents, contemporary rug designers, have taken the recycled bicycle part craft to a high-society level and created a rug made entirely of woven bicycle tubes. From what I can gather, this is the only bicycle part floor covering they make, but it certainly is a fascinating one.
Foreign Accents has a system of bicycle tube recovery in India and hires workers in a weaving mill to hand cut the tubes into long strips for weaving, creating a nice gradient pattern with “occasional yellow accents” (the yellow size printing on the tube). The rugs measure at 5 x 7 to 7 x 10 feet, the smaller rug comprised of at least 35 tubes. Not a bad use for bike tubes instead of sending them to the landfill.
The annual Descida Das Escadas de Santos in Brazil held its 10th anniversary event for 2012, with Pink Bike providing plenty of coverage and a great video of the action. A number of top US and European downhill racers make the trip as the event is held squarely in the middle of the North Hemisphere’s off season, and is an event it would be hard to envision happening in more litigious societies.
Click through to www.pinkbike.com for a full video of the event.
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Back in May of 2009, 3 riders set off to travel around the world by bike, which they ended in February of 2010 after pedaling some 13,500 miles. The trip was sponsored by Nokia and intended to bring awareness to solar power while gathering donations for the group Solar Aid, whose mission is to bring clean, renewable energy to the poorest people in the world. 
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