This is like the bad-parker stickers Lung was employing a few years back, but even better. More discreet, more directly focused on an easily correctable behavior, and easier to transport and apply with stealth. Brilliant. I love them 3,000 times.
Nothing like toling the local news about your plan to wire dummy bikes with GPS to catch would-be thieves on the streets of SF.
http://cbs5.com/crime/bike.theft.sting.2.1777846.html via Urbanvelo
why she’s not riding a track bike, i don’t know, but she’s still hot, and the commercial is soundly concepted and executed, so THERE ya go.
OK, then. snoop wants to borrow lance’s bike for "tricks," and his buddy wants a kit.
what’s NOT gangster? that.
Most of us know this. I go to great lengths to optimize my coffee CARRYING capability on the bike. But Pat, author of the Copa di Topo blog, takes it one brilliant step further. Taking cues from camping coffee, he proposes bringing your own kit and preparing some Blue Bottle out there.
Well, consider me IN.
our brothers to the south, TEAM HYPE dropped this one.
we’re all well aware of the chuck norris facts. well THESE and THESE are similarly world-devouring "facts" about JENS VOIGT — a german pro cyclist known for repeatedly attacking competitors until they just have nothing left.
my very favorite?
"Jens’ big ring is 56.
His rear cassettte is 11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-12."
so fucking awesome.
i’ve been sitting on this for a while, just not making the time for it, but i couldn’t let it go any longer.
let’s say you break or lose or strip a crank bolt, and you don’t have any around in your small parts bin (FOR SHAME!). or let’s say you strip the BB’s spindle (highly unlikely), and you don’t have another BB around. well, you’re probably gonna need to find some way to get yourself home in one piece because i doubt you carry a rear skewer around in your toolkit, but once you’re in your shop, THIS is how you hold the shit together long enough to get to the LBS.
i’m duly impressed.
(prolly’s INSPIRATION.)
Dig this: for our ride this weekend with wee Z into Sausalito, my sister-in-law brought her wheels from Alameda, to join us on the road. She hadn’t ridden in about a year, the tyres were flat, and she didn’t know the extent of the issues, so what does she do? Brings TWO bikes, a road hybrid and a mountain bike, in the trunk of her Jetta, so one way or another, I could get her rolling.
THAT is preparedness, and awesomeness.
Speaking of awesomeness, I heard wee Z mocking bikers as we rode by them, as if to taunt their efforts. She had a DRIVER, after all.
Something about his prose, the simplicity of the coverage yet the elegance of the emotion conveyed, and the way it encapsulates the entire experience in the way a stranger to it can sort of understand but a veteran can get lost in emotional memory, really touched me. Read on:
This is the Orbit, an innovative new drink holder from Carver. Lung spotted one in one of his LBSs in SF. I’ve been developing and redeveloping drink carry-systems for the office for what, two years now, settling on a scratch-built system involving two tumblers, plastic L-handles, duct tape, plastic packing tape, cardboard and bungies, which reasonably allows you, the rider, to apply your own dynamic balance control onto the carry system without having to, you know, carry the drink(s) in your hand as you ride, risking death. However, with the news of this new Orbit product, I had to try it. So I bought one this weekend at Valencia. The display model, no less!
So, it’s basically a gimbal. The holder mounts to your bars, and contains a ring, within which a smaller ring pivots on one axis, and within that a tertiary ring pivots on a perpendicular axis. The idea is that the drink remains level, even as the angle of the bars changes.
Out of the box, it’s a delightful fail. That is, if you find frothing, boiling coffee ejaculated onto your neck delightful. See, the Orbit has no shock absorption quality. So while the cup attempts to remain level, thanks to the mighty fist of gravity, the road vibration, especially over bigger bumps and chasms, slingshots fluid out of the escape hole of the cup at high velocity. Upwards. Now, sure, if one had a completely sealed container like a sealed tumbler or a water bottle, one wouldn’t worry. But then, one wouldn’t require an elaborate carry-system either.
However, I jiggered a modification, and on my afternoon coffee run, it proved successful. See, the tertiary ring of the gimbal was the one that experienced the most swing through road vibration. What I did was pivot the entire assembly down 90 degrees. Instead of shooting outward in front of you, it’s hanging the cup down alongside the head tube. The cup rests against the front brake caliper. This steadies that wild, swinging tertiary ring a good amount. There’s still road vibration, but it no longer has that swirl and launch thing going on. Much like my old hand-built system, it now sloshes upward int he cup on big bumps but doesn’t have velocity to push out of the escape hole plugged with a small gift.
Now, my home-brew system has the advantage of greater balance and shock absorption, as it relies on one hand holding it level, though it hangs over the bars. And it carries two drinks. But for the single-drink adventure or, like this afternoon, when your hand is occupied with yet ANOTHER object, this in it’s modified position, actually works pretty well! My neck is spared!
Your mileage may vary.
