NorCal endar!

Ten years ago, a dozen Californian builders put together a NSFW calendar showcasing their...abilities.  Check out Jan-March below and stay tuned for the rest throughout the year!

These and many more gems can be found at Stevil Kinevil's Flickr here!

Giro Sundowner

Giro read my mind with this one for the Fall/Winter 2014 New Road collection.  A vibram sole and not too overbuilt for warm winter days.  It's a fairly obvious nod to the universally acclaimed Vasque Sundowner hiking boot.  Spotted at Capsule by Cork Grips. 

A legendary bike!

This now resides in England at Rockets and Rascals bicycle shop.

And this C-26 rebuilt with the help of Chris Herting, founder of Yeti.

More on this one here. 

Unfortunately the C-26 site that Mike Wilk registered to document this build and other C-26s still alive has gone down.

Didi Keeps Cycling Fans Weird!

EL DIABLO / short film from feature length documentary "L'ULTIMO CHILOMETRO" from Stuffilm on Vimeo.

Ride Like An Egyptian

We Be Fat Cogs

Thru-Axle Cross Bikes!

and dirt drops are a match made by smart bike designers.  A more solid connection to the road or trail starts with the front end, and specifically the hub/fork connection.  Check out this rad new All City Macho Man Limited.  It'll probably be sold out as soon as they're available, but being stuck with the regular Macho Man Disc and its Whiskey No. 7 full-carbon tapered steerer fork is fine too!

And earlier this month, Focus announced its own lightweight solution for more predictable handling with its RAT (Rapid Axle Technology).  In addition to the front thru-axle, they've really jumped ahead and also included a 142x12 rear thru-axle, a standard very common on mountain bikes, from XC race hard-tails to DH.

Focus' technology looks very much like a quick release from afar, but uses a T-shaped pin to toggle the axle into place when you engage and turn the lever side.  What results is a lever as easy to use as a QR and allows you to instantly center a wheel and rotor correctly, the first attempt.

I'm hardly a tech geek.  I freak out more when I see a vintage photo of someone ripping downhill on a klunker than when new dampers are announced at Sea Otter or predicted frame weights go down 80g from last season.  It's tough to ignore a technology when it is developed and adapted from hardier bikes to improve ride quality and soundness of a bike's engineering.  It helps that it happens to look totally badass.

Firefly Adventure Team

From Boston to the nation's adventure races, Firefly Bicycles is sending these incredible purpose built bikes and the six ladies chosen to ride them all over the US starting this spring!

Stay tuned to this page for more information.  I hope I get a chance to see these bikes at Almanzo in May!

Can't Win Em All!

Drool-worthy completed eBay auction items that I missed out on!  All photos are links.

Frank the Welder

Frank the Welder might not be a household name, but his influence is spread across three decades of bicycle development.  From the first hardtails and trials bikes to the most modern downhill and dirt jumping rigs, he's seen it all and even still shreds.  He started in his father's garage, worked for Yeti at its genesis and has also built for Sinister (below) and continues to build incredibly innovative frames for Spooky Bikes.

I think my greatest contribution to the sport is always reminding people to have fun.  I have worked on some awesome bikes with great athletes and designed neat, innovative components but FUN is always where it's at.  I've promoted some races for St. Jude's Hospital and some nuns came to watch us race.  They really enjoyed the races and fresh air.  They commented that they had never seen so many people having fun and enjoying life.

My biggest accomplishments in the cycling industry include:

-Input in development of Easton frame tubes
-Made Zapata's (of Mountain Bike Action fame) top 100 list some years ago
-Fabricated the first set of two-fingered Shimano brake levers
-Welded the first set of two-sided clipless pedals for Don Myrah
-Designed the first threadless A-Tac stem for Answer products
-Designed new bar ends for Onza
-Co-designed all Yeti frames until 1993
-Pioneered soft-tail design popular on XC bikes for years
-Built frames for John Tomac, Julie Furtado, Lisa Muhic, Tinker Juarez, Brian Lopes, Miles Rockwell, Missy Giove, Sarah Ballentine, Don Myrah, Daren & Kurt Stockton, Davis Phinney, Greg Orovits, Leigh Donovan, Jimmy Deaton, Russ Worley, and others who escape my memory 

For a detailed account of his daily projects, musings about living in VT, and the people who have inspired him, check out his blog here.

 Frank's Tumblr. And Flickr.

Check out Spooky Bikes' Flickr also.

CX Worlds Hangover

While most of America idolizes or skewers their favored athletes in the four majors, us cyclists love to delve deeper into the disciplines of our already microscopic sport.  Alien to most of our co-workers (unless you work in a bike shop, and even then I got lots of quizzical look when I walked in shouting "STYYYBARRR"), it's hard to imagine a more exhilarating, spectator friendly discipline than cyclocross.  Especially if you can follow along via a zipline camera.

As exciting as it is to watch, being an optimistic American fan tends to wane as the calendar approaches the world championships.  Maybe the American squad needs to reexamine some of the things it does to prepare for such a late season training peak.  Yeah, Sven comes over and races Crossvegas in mid September, but doesn't do much until the start of World Cup season.  Stybar can come off the bench after doing a handful of UCI races and win, so why couldn't some Americans lay off the throttle for awhile and selectively race depending on training goals?  They're ridiculously fit athletes compared to me so I'll leave my armchair coaching at that.

A select few photos from last year's worlds here.

Merckx Mondays

Photo from here.

STTB

Save the Trekking Bike from BENEDICT.  He makes it look too good...none of us can compare to the luscious bearded wonder and who knows where he will strike next.

Pic from here.