HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?

Cross Race Tomorrow

from thy neighbor

Lifestyle Sunday

Emi and Jason from Matt Lingo on Vimeo.

Massan from Matt Lingo on Vimeo.

Stages Futura from Adam Bryce on Vimeo.

From Prolls.

from Massan.

I really don't like re-posting stuff, but these videos are too good not to put out there.

Texas Handbuilt Bike Show

Went by the Convention Center with Annie on Friday. Total Weinerville. The bikes were all pushed over to one wall and the entire rest of the hall was filled with vitamin drink tents and investment banking agents. There was a jackass emcee jabbering on about how nothing was taboo at a Livestrong event, interviewing people who's uncle had cancer and then saying how great it was that something so tragic could bring us all together to fight it.

Don't get me wrong, I have more than a few family or friends that have survived or succumbed to cancer, and I think that Livestrong and Lance Armstrong are doing an incredible service to mankind, but I was there to look at bikes. And drink beer.

Well, there was no beer (10 points from Gryffindor!), but there were bikes aplenty.

Bilenky. Favorite Cargo Bike Ever.

Jeremy from Gallus brought these two bikes from his personal collection. A 49cm track bike and a bi-partable 650-b fixed gear commuter. We talked a bunch about building racks and the generator hub he has on the commuter. He said "If someone orders a performance bike from me, they will be dissapointed."

I dug his aesthetic and his 'build it to ride it' mentality that he said all of his work comes out of.

Alchemy fixed gear. Like the paint jobs but Ti builders freak me out.

Wierd/cool blue sparkle with hand painted details on this Daltex.

Faux patina all over this True Fabrication. Kind of wierd,airbrushed spots all over the frame to look like rust, but the ties on this 29r's downtube logo look rad.

Motherfucking Ti Jafar staff at the Willits booth!

Eli of Lemolo

Lemolo bags is a small two man operation fronted by Eli, the nicest guy I met in Portland, but everyone there is super nice, weirdly enough. His shop is in a shared artist space that is a partitioned off old building. It is located in the warehouse area close to the water underneath the Morrison bridge. It's a really beautiful site that would make anyone happy about going in to sew for a few hours. The setup is really modest with two old industrial machines, a nice sized cutting table and a small but choice collection of fabrics in wonderful colors. Eli focuses on backpacks and panniers which have a great level of workmanship.


I cut out of my geology conference during lunch hour to chat with him a bit. We ended up talking about all sorts of fun things, bags, sewing, workmanship, custom bikes, old Japanese trucks. I caught myself staring at his beautiful sewing machine tattoo too much. His tattoo really shows how sewing gets into your blood. His mom taught him, like many of us who find sewing as a part of life, but he had a grandfather that used to work on machines, so it's really in his blood. He started out by making a bag for himself, then a friend, and word travels fast in bike-centric communities and he has been sewing up bags for three years or so now. He was a one man operation until recently an old Seagull Bags seamster moved to Portland and started working for him. He cuts all the bags himself so he has control over the colors. When you look at a Lemolo bag that is one of the first things that you notice is the wonderful color combinations or naturals and pastels.


What else is there to say? I gave in one of the wool hats made out of one of Andrew's favorite old wool shirts that made it into the dryer one too many times, and a bag of chocolates that look like rocks that I snagged from the geo conference. He gave me some great tips on fabric distributors that are competitive to Seattle Fabrics where Russell at Psychlist has been ordering from so far. It must be really nice to live in a place where you can ride your bike to a fabric store and roll out with bolts of cordura on your front rack, although Eli says the travel with that kind of cargo can be a little scary. It was a great visit and I am so grateful to Eli for being so nice enough to show me his shop. I am tempted to move up here and sew for him (it was offered, jokingly), but overall I'm really excited to meet like-sewingloving peeps who enjoy sewing as a way to be involved in the cycling community. So that's all I have to share, but meeting Eli was an unforgettable experience, and I hope we keep in touch.

Check out Lemolo's site here.

Team MOTORDOME

Imagine this:

You've been a messenger in Portland, OR for years now, and when you finally decide you can't stand shitty housemates and their shitty bands practicing in your shitty basement anymore, you buy a motor home. Also imagine that you enjoy cyclocross and you have a rag tag bunch of bad ass cyclist friends who love it too. Y'all decide you want to start driving out to races, and since you have the biggest car and a built in fridge, you decide to host the team out of your motor home.

It's great. Lots of beer, you get sponsored by a team mates bakery, get to watch wipeouts galore, heckle off season roadies, experience 'post wave supercharging', and generally get to have a rad time.

But wait, you need a name for your team.

Oh, yeah: Motordome. Duh.

official kit

unnofficial kit

joel from blackbird on his dialed ira ryan

Big, huge thanks to the one and only Brian Davies for the heads up. Motordome's blog is all that is good about cycling and it gets me super pumped for the cross season, and cycling folk in general.

Death Pedal/TX Fixed

Kareem was filming down here all during the Bike Film Fest, and some of the riders down here are shooting for DP2 which should be out soon.

AJ sent me some stills last night.

On top of that, Kareem will be in Houston during the Thanksgiving holiday, primarily to film AJ and Puckett. I'll be there. It should be fun.

By the way, that's a fucking nose bump, and I giggle satanically to myself when I imagine what that footy of Jesse eating it looks like.

Perfect day!

Dan and I are going to drive up to Walnut Creek and hit the trails!

Gah!

Good Metal Pedal Photos

Will

Annie P

Will and Frye doing God knows what

From me and from James' flickr.

Hi, bye!

Well it's in the low 60's now.

Annie D is leaving for Portland tomorrow and she won't be back till Wednesday, so we scooped a copy of DUNE (dir. David Lynch!) compliments of the $20 Vulcan Video gift certificate I won at the Metal Pedal race, and a pint of the seasonal blackberry cobbler ice cream Blue Bell makes. She is there for a school thing but she gets to drink lots of coffee and hang out at Lemolo Bags with Eli. Expect a write up when she gets back.

Miss you, Annie!

Love you, Kyle.

EDIT:

I just watched the first half of the 'Made for TV' version before realizing we picked the wrong case! BAH!

An hour and a half I will NEVER GET BACK!

Metal Pedal Alleycat Re-cap

It's hard to believe it after these most recent 3 days of 85 and up degree temperatures, but Sunday's alleycat was the first cold weather alleycat of the season, and boy was the weather shitty.

After a few weeks of faux-fall, El Nino caught up with us and brought a weekend of cold rainy days just in time for Annie P's race. The weather forecast had said 'fair,' but when the weather turned I was honestly curious to see who would show up, and how many fair weather riders would stay indoors.

Pleasant surprise:

Nearly 40 people raced and in between the organizers, the people working at the venue and the beer tent, there were nearly 70 people involved by the end of the race. Not to mention all the Bird's employees were wearing big wigs and zebra print leggings.

So the le mans style start was rad, and I still have a bruise from sliding out in the alley and getting run over by Kate Moon! First stop was Fast Folks, where I was well behind the main pack. Down a green banana, collect a sticker, then up to Clown Dog Bikes. The routes were as follows:

East Side: no traffic, hills
Downtown, Red River to MLK: traffic, cops, hell of hills
or
Downtown, Red River to 15th to Campus: also involved hills and cops and pedestrians.

(The thing with Austin is this: if you choose the straight route, it tends to be the hilliest. I like fucking around with neighborhood routes. I grew up here, I won't get lost, but I sure as hell will shoot myself in the foot racing the routes I use to commute. But it's a nice city, so what the hay!)

I chose route three. Then to Clementine Coffee, which is a hill, no way around it. Then Peddler, more hills. Then Vulcan Video, which was a surprise stop but all downhill. Then back to Bird's on East 6th.

I placed 6th or 7th overall. I'm proud. The folks who beat me are my favorite people in the cycling community down here and getting my ass kicked (in order) by Will, Frye, John Keller, Mason, Paul, and Kate Moon is an honor, whether I was 6th or 60th place. Rob even came in a scant few minutes behind me on the tall bike!

14 miles, with Will and Frye finishing in around 45 minutes and me at around 50. Beers were had, smiles and interviews for the new bike zine went around. It was fun.

Thanks to James for all the good photos!

Hair Metal Pedal Alleycat!

See y'all at 5!

Behold!

I have been scouting for a pair of these ever since I started riding my first fixed gear. I was living in Portland at the time, and I spent a lot of time at the Stumptown on 3rd St., a popular messenger hang out, checking out bikes and trying to better define my sense of bike-style by watching the pros swap out or keep parts on their bikes depending on how practical they were.

One of the bikes that left a lasting impression was Sharky's 3Rensho:

Notice the cut and unwrapped Mavic bars, the Time pedals, the beat up paint, and the 1" threadless Wound Up fork. Pretty much my ideal set up, and a style I have pseudo-consciously ripped pieces from ever since I started riding fixed gears and track bikes.

Glad to finally have another piece of the puzzle.

We're Back

I couldn't handle wordpress anymore, and ATXFixed doesn't cover the whole scope of what I am going to post about.

Third Coast was a good idea, but in the end there was one post a week between the 16 people with access codes. Don't worry though, there is still plenty of stuff happening, and you can read it here first.