The Mechanic

Getting around town has never been easier: the Swobo Dixon

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:53:11 -0800

Getting around town has never been easier: the Swobo Dixon

2010 Tour Down Under: The beginning of an amazing year for racing

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:03:20 -0800

2010 Tour Down Under: The beginning of an amazing year for racing:

Even though it seems like eons until we see spring here in the Northwest, elite road bike racing is just about to roll into its season throughout the world. This weekend the ProTour will kick off in…

LA driver given assault sentence for road rage involving cyclists.

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:20:51 -0800

LA driver given assault sentence for road rage involving cyclists.:

In an trial followed by several cycling news sites a California doctor has been given a five year assault sentence for a July 4, 2008 road rage incident. The incident severely injured one of the…

Fighting a global pandemic from your saddle is easire than you think

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:27:43 -0800

Fighting a global pandemic from your saddle is easire than you think:

Today is World AIDS Day. Not many people are thinking about it and most of us are blissfully coasting through our daily routines. Whether or not we knew today was an important date for the fight…

Brake review: KORE Cantilever

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:20:00 -0800

Brake review: KORE Cantilever

This is worth seeing

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:04:55 -0800

This is worth seeing:

Ryan from Go Means Go announced a showing of the documentary London to Paris from All or Nothing…

Fenders!

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:27:28 -0800

Fenders!

SSCXWC 2010 is coming to Seattle!

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:35:57 -0800

SSCXWC 2010 is coming to Seattle!:

This is big…Really BIG. Seattle has a long standing fued with our Northwest brethren over which city boasts the best Cyclocross scene and now we have a chance to prove who knows what. For those of…

Dreaming about the big ride.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:12:13 -0800

Dreaming about the big ride.:

After a dismal week here in the Pacific Northwest I find myself wondering how easy it would be to just check out and go for the Big Ride. Lots of cyclists are entering into the brave world of…

Examiner

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:41:25 -0700

Just found out that I am going to become the commuting “Examiner” for Seattle. It’s a pretty sweet gig and maybe I’ll be able to bring some focus onto issues that aren’t getting talked about. Sweet!

Beautiful.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:52:17 -0700

Beautiful.

Only in Belgium would this happen. Prolly and Zlog have...

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:59:01 -0700

Only in Belgium would this happen. Prolly and Zlog have previews of the shoot but this poster says it all. maybe we should encourage scantily clad jalopy racing here in the PNW.

Seeing movies like this makes regular days harder and harder....

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:05:19 -0700

Seeing movies like this makes regular days harder and harder. why didn’t I think to ride that and shoot a movie? Oh well, I’ll just have to find another adventure. BFF is the devil for giving me huge ideas!

Interbike and Embrocation

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:14:42 -0700

I’ve been reading a lot of glossies this week. I keep coming back to Embrocation Cycling Journal for their coverage of all things glorious in cycling. Jeremy Dunn from P-Town had the best article explaining how Interbike treats all of us. Scotty and I had plans to cover the show in some amazing manner but for the most part we failed miserably. My little camera never gave me great shots, the wireless is mediocre at best, and its hard to concentrate long enough when you are either going to meetings or searching for beer. There were a few highlights that made the mad rush to find information a little more entertaining: Mr. King’s new road hub and his sleek Cielo 29er, the Courage Ultegra 6700 bash gaurd, Knolly Bikes, Edge Composites, real track bikes from Focus and Teschner, the BMC SLR 01, Dt Swiss pushing the wheel envelope, Pivot raising the bar with lunch box upgrade kits(it’s really cool), The Taste Makers Union, Cav’s sprint machines, Nick at Fox and lots and lots of good beer. The flow of goods into the bike industry is looking a little anemic this year but I can’t blame everyone for playing their cards close to their chest. Road bikes are apparently still leading the way (not in our shop) as the major bike market but that’s only if you count imports. Scotty and I both realized that we really don’t sell brands that make it into the import category so the numbers mean a little less to us. We’re looking at some great potential in the next year and the show gave us a little boost in how we believe in our brand. Now, back to reality and what will hopefully be a busy fall!

What a difference a mind makes

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:59:00 -0700

Jay Townley might be a genius but Scotty thought about most of this already. He just described uBRDO to perfection.

UCI worlds live at interbike!

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:51:46 -0700

Body

Deep in the heart of hell! Scott is trying his best to cheer me...

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:49:39 -0700

Deep in the heart of hell! Scott is trying his best to cheer me up.

What's Goin' On

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:52:26 -0700

I just posted this for Osprey. It’s all true and going to be a long couple of weeks.

Long weeks and even longer weekends; that’s how it’s going to be for the near future as I race and travel. Last week was the start of a super crazy month that had me all over Seattle and down to Oregon for work/fun/suffering. My bike sponsor, Baron Bicycles, was invited to participate in the Rapha Gentleman’s Race from the Pacific to Portland and Geoff picked me to be on the team. I can only say that it was miraculous that we all made it to Portland after 138 miles and a lot of pain. If you want to read more about that you can check out a great post about the race on Bike Hugger or read the Rapha report when it comes out. Oh yeah, go to the coast in Oregon for a good long ride because it’s beautiful and the dirt road riding will blow your mind.

Driving down and back in 48 hours with a long ride in the middle doesn’t make for great legs the next day but I still made it out the start of the MFG Cyclocross series in Kirkland to set up the course and race. I ended up 11^th in the B’s which isn’t bad considering I bonked so hard the day before that I couldn’t feel my face (no really I couldn’t and I was going downhill so slow my team thought they had lost me). We had a great day supporting the new series and our team had some great showings as well. Next week brings the big tim racers to Seattle for the Starcrossed race. The purse is big enough that there have been several appearances by Euro-pro riders chasing UCI points. The next day we race in Tacoma on a course that features a run up that everyone hates but still races because we love the venue. These two races always get me stoked to ride because of the level of competition. We get domestic racers in the B’s from as far away as Montana because they can race two hard races in one weekend.

As soon as I am home on Sunday night I get to start packing for Interbike. For those of you in the know you will not envy me the trip to Las Vegas except for the fact that I get to hang out with some pretty interesting characters: that means you guys Osprey Brand Team. Starting Tuesday I get to be in meetings all day followed by “evening activities” (my boss’s term for drinking too much) followed by more meetings, a cross race, a late night party, another day of meetings, and an Alley Cat Thursday night before a 6 am flight home to open the shop by noon! Through out the week we have to make some important decisions about how our shop is going to position itself in the crowded sea of outdoor and bicycle retail so that we can grow. Not much fun combined with too much fun! I just have to remember to watch myself so that I don’t end up on some website as a casualty of Interbike.

After I get home its off to the races again. We have enough races in the Northwest this year that most of us are counting on racing at least fifteen Cyclocross races as well as the National Championships in Bend, OR. That means I have my life planned out through the second week in December; no wait then there is Randonee season, which means until next April, but the 24-hour race is Memorial Day so….

RGR on Bike Hugger

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:08:51 -0700

RGR on Bike Hugger

RGR

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:35:55 -0700

Results are up for the Rapha Gentleman’s Race and the Baron Bicycles Team ended up in 18th. We started fifth from last and finished there. Congrats to the guys that won the race because we know that they suffered mightily to stay in front. The fastest team HPC came by like a freight train at mile twenty and I doubt they were going much slower at mile 130. We tagged along with them until flats caused us to lose a lot of our momentum. In fact if we hadn’t had four flats and two mechanicals we would have done much better. Not bad but still not as good of a day as we could have had! Lots of fun riding with Rapha Continental, Veloforma and everyone else out there. Next year we might take a beer feed a little earlier!