Up And Down, Round And Round, Super Mario!!!

This reminds me of when I used to play Katamari and I'd get urges to run over things so they would stick to my car... Hopefully, cyclists don't start throwing turtle shells at each other.

Side note: Talk about a non-news story! I mean it's really cool and all, but is there nothing else going on in Portland? I guess the local news is weird everywhere...

It's The Incredible

I haven't been reading any fixed gear blogs lately but I did stumble upon this one today. A backwards wheelie... I've been waiting for someone to learn how to do that.

Tokyo Drift

Seeing as how I love riding hills on my longboard and on my fixed gear, I would probably love this as well. It's like a more serious take on BYOBW. Someone should buy me one...

Morning Always Comes To Soon

Back in college, I had the IFC and Sundance channels. I used to be able to turn on the TV and watch great indie films (and mediocre ones too) that were for the most part, unknown to me. Now, I rarely watch indie movies and when I do, it's because I sought out a particular flick rather than stumbled upon it on TV. I miss watching indies. This isn't to say that mainstream movies are garbage but it's nice to get a change of pace every so often, a different perspective on things.

In the past week or so, I have seen a few trailers for movies that I want to see but probably never will. In particular, this movie, Medicine For Melancholy, looks good. Being that it is set in San Francisco and involves bikes, love, class and race, it'll probably be one of the ones I make a point to check out. And let's just hope the trailer song is an indication of the rest of the soundtrack. "Meet Me By The Water" is my favorite Saturday Looks Good To Me songs and it fits the trailer perfectly.

Blow

It's unfortunate how much time and money were probably wasted because of a misunderstanding. I know airport security has to be extra careful and thorough during inspections. Can you imagine how awful it would have been if that bike was a pipe bomb and it went off because it was thought to be just a rock band's sticker? As the saying goes, "better to be safe than sorry". The funny thing about this story, if there is anything funny about it at all, is that I assume someone who makes pipe bombs probably wouldn't label them as such, especially if that person was trying to get one of them on an airplane.

Maybe Sunshine, Maybe Rain

These guys do things that I wouldn't have thought were possible for people without the ability to see.

Go

I borrowed Robert's rollers and have been using them when I'm too lazy to go out for a real work out. Riding the rollers has made me realize four things: 1) I really need a pair of cycling shorts, 2) I sweat like crazy riding with no wind, 3) I'm not very fast and 4) it's pretty easy to ride off the rollers if I'm not paying attention. On the plus side, it's nice getting to watch DVDs while riding my bike and any ride is better than no ride at all.

Speaking of rollers, check out the top two finishers from a Rollapaluza race this summer. Yeah, it's old news but it's worth a watch.

Chris Hoy won 3 golds in Beijing but couldn't win here:


This guy didn't make the cut for the Great Britain Olympic team but he won the rollers race:

Cruisin' Down The Street

Here's the latest short by the Mash guys, which posted last week on their new website. It's a quick vid of their visit to Austin where they got to ride with Lance. It's pretty cool how their minor, "underground" celebrity status got them in a position to meet the face of american cycling. Check out the video (and other videos too) in better quality at MashSF.

Changing Lanes

I'm not one to get all riled up about cyclists' rights and cars are the devil and eff the system. Sure, I ride critical mass sometimes but I'm not trying to make a statement or ruffle anyone's feathers. I just like riding my bike. That being said, this video is interesting. The bottom line is that motorists do stupid, illegal things and so do cyclists. I'll leave it that.



Saw it here.

Roll Out

Jamie and I went on a decent ride through the city on Saturday. Our main destinations were the ocean and Stonestown, and we stopped at Haight on the way home too. Coming back from Stonestown, we rode through parts of West Portal. It was nothing too exciting but I had never been there before so that was cool I guess. I want to get into going for long rides through different parts of the city (especially neighborhoods I don't normally visit) and this ride was a good start.

Ride Wit Me

I rode in Critical Mass last Friday. Photo by TKCS.

Good Things

Everyone once and a while a story comes along that reminds me that message boards and forums are more than just a place for anonymous, arrogant, closed-minded shit talking. Read about how this guy got his stolen bike back.

Eyes On The Prize

In the past few weeks, I've seen this video posted on a number of blogs but I never actually watched it until now. Pretty good ad campaign, right?

May The Wind Take Your Troubles Away

Since I haven't posted anything with any substance in a while I figured I'd give you a quick rundown of my day.  I took the day off because I needed a break and I'm at the limit of how much PTO I can accrue. I used the free time to take care of some things and relax.

A while back, I got into a fender bender on the way to work. To make a long story short, I switched lanes on 6th Street and hit a minivan. No one was hurt but there was body damage to both cars. This morning I drove out to Walnut Creek and took my car into the body shop. One week from now, it won't look like this anymore.

I took BART back into the city and met up with Wendy for lunch. When we couldn't find the place we wanted to go to, we settled for this pizza and kebob place called Cello. I got a chicken kebob and it wasn't bad. It was good catching up with Wendy.

Oh yeah, when I was waiting for Wendy, I saw this bike. I only took a picture of it because I thought it was Mash rider Jonathan's bike. It actually belongs to Jason from Macaframa. I could be wrong though.

After lunch, Wendy went back to work and I went shopping. I hit up BR and got a few things. It's crazy how expensive things are but at least I got hooked up with a discount gift card from LoudJeff. Thanks for the hook up homey.

I stopped off at Niketown real quick to use the bathroom and see what's new. I left there empty handed but that's probably good seeing as I recently got a ton of stuff at Swoosh online. 

I'd been wanting to check out the new Hundreds store at Post and Taylor so I headed over there after walking through Union Square. It's been written about a bunch, but the inside of the shop is daaaark. It's cave-themed, which is cool but you can barely make out the colors and details of the clothes. I picked up a black t-shirt and I was on my way.

Here's a shot of The Hundreds sign out front. I like the logo and it's cool how the sign grabs your eye without looking entirely out of place on the street. More than a few people looked at it when they were walking by but they could have just been wondering what I was photographing.

Before heading home I stopped by Huf. I saw a couple things by BBC and Supreme that I liked but I didn't get them. $250 for a long sleeved shirt? Yikes. It's pretty high-quality stuff, but I don't know why it has to be so expensive...

I hadn't walked around downtown in a while so it was cool playing "shopping tourist" for the day. And aside from the massive winds, it was a pretty good day for being outside. Since I got home, I've been cleaning my room, doing laundry and burning CDs. I'm getting pretty hungry so I should go get to cooking...

... 

P.S. You should check out The Hundreds website soon. Right now, the opening page image is a screen shot of the cable car blowing up from The Rock. In the movie, the cable car slid out of control down Jones St. and shot into the air right in front of the corner store up the street from my house. I'll post the clip sometime soon.

At Rising Tide

Today, I took the N Judah out to pick up my bike from the shop. They were cutting the fork down for me and swapping out the 16t cog with a 15t. (I had wanted to step the chainring up to 46t from 44t instead of switching cogs, but they wouldn't do it for free.) Now, the bike's pretty much complete. It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted but I really happy with it anyway. 

The weather in the city was great so I rode out to the ocean from the bike store. I wanted to post some pictures but they all came out looking pretty terrible.

It was a pretty good ride. I can tell I'm riding a bigger gear ratio now but it's not that much more difficult getting around. Once I get in better shape, I am thinking about stepping up to an even bigger ratio anyway. In general, I'm getting more comfortable with riding brakeless, and I think I'm getting stronger on the bike all-around. This bike definitely rides different from my Iro but that's a good thing. It fits me better but I get pretty bad toe-over when I make tight turns at low speeds. 

One thing I wanted to mention: I highly recommend double straps. After running single straps for the past couple years, I got Soma quad-gate clips with Soma double straps for my new bike. It's a pretty entry-level set up but they are much, much better than what I've used before. It's really easy to find the straps when I start riding and my feet stay firmly in place when I'm cranking away. There are a ton of upgrades on my new bike compared to my last one but the straps/clips are most noticeable at this point.

Peace.

Walking On Sunshine

The sun didn't quite come out yesterday but the rain let up long enough for us to ride around Mission Bay for a little while. Here's a photo of the new bike I bought a couple weekends ago. I picked it up last weekend and it wasn't built up exactly how I wanted so there are a few parts I need to get swapped out. Hopefully the bike shop is cool about it and if not, I'll just buy the replacements somewhere else.

Who'll Stop The Rain?

I picked up my new bike from the shop yesterday. Perfect timing...

When The Lights Go Down In The City

Thomas and I took a ride out to the ocean on Sunday. I haven't bothered pulling the pictures off my camera yet, so here are a few of Thomas':

Cliff House


Before the road turned into a muddy, gravely path that forced us to walk


We met up with Max and Evgeny who found a cool spot with a good view of the bridge

Touch The Sky Now And Then...

Holy crap.

Back, Back, Forth & Forth

Last month's Critical Mass ride took us down the most famous curvy street in the world as a part of the 15-20 mile bike tour of the city. If you look closely, you'll notice a few fixie riders walking down the street.