this weekend was great

saturday:
fix without dix had a fabulous vegan bake sale at montano velo!
they're raising money for a portland FW/OD summit.
i stayed there for hours nom-noming on goodies!
they even provided the soymilk, music, and good vibes!
i ended up picking up a new cycling cap too,
from local clothing designer and darling victoria jarvis! sweet!
(who will actually be moving to portland this week! lucky northwest.)
later on bbqing it up at my friend jason's house was chill too.

sunday:
lazy wake up, roll over to bike church at manifesto! so easy..
congregate for a minute over coffee and generously provided breakfast;
this morning was donuts, apple cobbler, and even waffles!!
oakland folks are some special kind of rad, that's definite.
and then cruise out to the city for the bike swap!
it was huge! there will be pictures up later i'm sure.
such a great event with a super fun, friendly turn-out.
i won a reload messenger mini bag off $2 worth of raffle tickets!
then back to the oaklandish radio regatta at lake merritt.
a beer with the fellas and filles and it transitions to a good evening.

here's a snap from outside the bakesale. a crop from a maribeth image.



being on my bike everyday really makes my life extra enjoyable.

up in the sky

from my doorstep.
thursday afternoon.
were these clouds.



i wonder what clouds you saw where you were.

art-talk: kathleen lolley

kathleen lolley's work is about to go out at giant robot sf.
it's really nice stuff.
view/buy some here.

martial-talk: live blades

in other news i'm also stoked that i waited until now to pick up real swords. while it had been a long time coming, having trained with them in the past, the blades i recently purchased arrived at such an opportune time.

i'd been in sparse touch with my guro back in new york,
and having been also too caught up with work and bike riding,
i'd slacked a bit with my martial arts training.
i mean i always pick up my sticks,
and run through drills here and there,
but when you don't have to fight someone else's energy
you have to be careful that your own energy doesn't stagnate.
solo training is good training, but it requires much diligence.

so when my espada y daga set arrived this weekend,
it was a wonderful jump-start to revitalized training.
i'm very excited to be able to switch, at will,
between rattan and sharpened steel.
my edge awareness will improve considerably,
as will my live hand awareness.
your body knows it does not want to be cut!

anyways keep tapping!

bicycle-talk: fbm sword

man i'm glad i waited out on picking up an fbm sword.
new updates: much nicer dropouts and a seat-binder in the seat-stays!!





okay so they're just pieces of metal to some people.
to bike people these are beautiful, usable works of art.

and it may be a while until these both hit production,
but i have no doubt it will be worth the wait.

(in case you didn't know, fbm is one of the most respected bmx companies in the business. the sword is their foray into the fixed gear field, and it's certainly a good one.)

bicycle-talk: bashguards

i never realized how much i paid attention to the bicycle industry until i began to see trends crossing over. i can probably attribute this to the fact that i ride so many different kinds of bikes. from bmx, to mountain, to cyclocross, to fixed gear. (road is a whole different story.) when you ride bikes to shred on them, there are certain things you need to consider. strong wheels (36h!!), a solid cockpit (1 1/8"!!), etcetera. anyways i'm likely to go on a tangent if i don't focus so here's what i was thinking about recently.

if you ride a fix in any sort of freestyle manner, and check up on the progress of the such crews as mash, maca, bootleg, peel sesh, and rat cult ripping it up across the country, you may have seen this guard pop up in the east.


this is the milwaukee "crusher". the first of a few iterations to come from milwaukee bicycle co/ben's cycle.

now here's a rather new (in the past few years) concept: let's throw a bashguard on track cranks so we can grind on the chainring. without the guard you're likely to trash your chain and/or fuck your chainring. and good god why would you grind on an $85 track chainring that would get mutilated on the third attempt? let's protect that with a $120 bashguard that you can't even rotate once the side you grind on is worn down to the chain. ok. sorry.

i don't even work in the bike industry but i can tell you bmx (kink, fbm, standard, s&m, macneil, tree, etcetera) and mtb (blackspire, mrp, e. thirteen) have been working on bashguards for years and years. my favorites of recent are:


animal's for bmx. simple, small, inexpensive, durable.


and e. thirteen's for mtb. light, inexpensive, and close to indestructable. (tom lamarche runs one of these. smart fellow.)

so yeah, other companies have made similar and successful products already. what's your point? my point is: they've pioneered and then evolved the concept over much trial and error; the footwork has already been done! why not look to the experienced? do-it-yourself ethics are great, but don't waste money or resources. the bike-shredding precursors have shredded the way. bmxers ran those 3/16" chains for a while, mtbers smashed through many a paper-thin bashguard before figuring what was the best way to protect your drivetrain from ledges and rails, rocks and tree trunks (respectively).

milwaukee's newer stout guard and polo guard are decent second and third introductions to the fix-freestyle market. so check those out if you really want to smash up your track drivetrain.

times goes by

and i've been kept busy.

with what?
so much has gone on,
it gets to be hard to say.

besides the work,
and all the monthly, weekly, daily, hourly,
little things that make up ones life
and yet are so unnoticeably minute,
it takes some effort to pick out
those extraordinary moments.

i will report soon.