Team Lope Tyre Clubbe

DUDE.

my birthday’s this friday, but this very morning, over eggs, bacon, and coffee with one very wrong robot, i was given an early present — pedalmafia’s pedal ID 1/9 scale "build up kit." in other words, a little bike…

now, it’s actually not as little as one might think. each of the wheels is about 2.75" in diameter, and the thing stands about 4.5" tall from desk to top of the seat. so it’s actually kinda big.

this is a pretty rare toy in the US, because it’s made and sold in japan, but there is one retailer in milwaukee who sells it, and i thank the big bossman for tracking THAT shit down.

the bike works like fingerBoards and fingerBikes, which is to say it comes with a small wrench that allows you to take it mostly apart…

and there’s accessory kits sold which allow you to swap parts out, too. note the bonus gift i got, which was the handlebar accessory kit…

you can get new frames, new chains, new seats, forks, wheels, bars, stems, whatever you like. and the level of detail is ASTOUNDING. you can even swap the fucking CHAINWHEEL. it’s got PEDAL CLIPS. the chain drives the wheel either way (fixed, bitch!), the seat is adjustable, the tyres come off the rims — it’s INSANE.

anyway, it’s proudly on my desk at work for today at least, but this is WAY too fucking cool to leave here — it’s gonna have to make it back to the house before long…

WR FTW!!!

recently, cinelli teamed up with OG SF bombers MASHSF to make a frame that addressed all of the crew’s needs — street-ready, road-ready, and fixed. MASHSF rode these frames on the tour de california this year, and the limited run of 1000 frames is out now, though imaginably sold out right about … now.

anyway, HERE’S the site for the collaboration, and i just wanna pay note to the sick design, where instead of a background image, they have a background video — in this instance, video of the crew on the TdC.

"constructed in milan to fully engage the full tradition and spirit of cinelli with a new tradition of riding, still emerging from san francisco’s three-dimensional maze of inclines, blind alleys and fast-moving variables in high traffic."

also, "…fast-moving variables in high traffic" is my new favorite anything.

THIS is a GREAT idea. just view existing posts or create your own to turn up a riding buddy when you’re new in town. anywhere.

awesome.

I haven’t had a bike project since the Villain wrapped up in advance of my daughter being born. I don’t have a lot of time, and certainly have to keep costs down. But this time, the name of the game is slow and easy. There’s no race to finish like the last time, so i can experiment and see how it goes. The concept this time is to build an old timey bike. For awhile I thought about an overhaul of Fix-e, but the fact that Fix-e’s frame is a little small for me, and I’ve already overhauled that bike at least once, it was more about working with what I had rather than an optimal build frame. I didn’t, however, want to dive into a new frame and spend the cash on the outset until I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. In addition, I’ve been jonesing to build an S&S Coupler frame, but that’s an even dicier prospect: it’s expensive, so you’d better be working on the perfect bike from the get-go. This wasn’t going to be that project anyway. Old Timey doesn’t necessarily equate with the simplicity and general leanness of a good coupler bike as I envision it. So, two project concepts, no clear starter component (every project starts with a signature part… around which you can wrap your build) and so I’ve been plotting and scheming, but that’s about it. Plus, with a newborn, plotting and scheming time is plentiful, but doing time is scarce.

Then I noted a Tweet from an e-pal of mine in the East Bay. We met through Flickr, noting the similarities in each other’s bikes, and a generally similar taste in bikery. he had been attempting to build an XtraCycle out of an old Fuji step-through frame. Eventually, he decided to build off a new frame, as the flex he was experiencing in that build was sub-optimal for heavy loads. So last week, there was that Tweet: selling the Fuli frame for a song. I shot him a note, and he gave it to me! So I went down to Oakland this morning around 8am and picked it up, and had coffee with my e-pal for the first time, and met his wife and daughter. It was awesome, and now, my Old Timey project has begun.

I had always been interested in these step-throughs, almost buying one from Don Stolas a few years ago, but frankly, i never found one that was perfect, and it’s quite a risk when you try a geometry that’s substantially different than what you’re used to. But I tell you what, it’s hard to argue with a whole lot of FREE. There will be challenges: the seat post is not just seized, it’s super-seized. A bike shop has already gone at it with flame and tool. I will need to get crafty. But I’ve got some time to sort things out, and it’s great to have a project in the garage to tinker with when I can.

Plus, pie plate!

I’ll update this post as I go…