March 8th, 2010
Commuter Dreams
Fun stuff from pdxweatherman on YouTube. H/T to Mike.
February 21st, 2010
Pizza & Tweed
We had a fun time today at the B. Spoke Tailor event at Hot Italian in Sacramento. Nan Eastep from B. Spoke made the trip over from the Bay Area to show off her work and take orders for the upcoming Sac Tweed Ride in March. We enjoyed seeing her beautiful sartorial creations while catching up with our downtown friends and eating some super-tasty pizza.
Nan Eastep of B. Spoke Tailor and John Boyer of Edible Pedal
Exquisite tailoring and nearly endless options
The samples were available for purchase
Every piece is specifically tailored for bike riding
Gorgeous fabrics
Lots of wool, inside and out
Edible Pedal had one of their delivery bikes on display (a Civia Loring)
The Bicycle Business generously donated two bikes for a raffle to benefit the California Bicycle Coalition. Tickets went on sale today and the bikes will be raffled at the upcoming Tweed ride (visit Sac Tweed for more information and to purchase tickets).
The first raffle bike is a Fuji Cambridge; it’s a great looking bike
A very cool Breezer Citizen 3, the other raffle bike
The wild bike racks out in front of the Hot Italian
Many thanks to Sacramento Tweed, Sac Cycle Chic, and Hot Italian for hosting the event. We’re looking forward to the tweed ride on March 28th!
B. Spoke Tailor →
Sacramento Tweed →
Sac Cycle Chic →
Hot Italian →
Edible Pedal →
The Bicycle Business →
February 20th, 2010
B. Spoke Tailor Pre-Tweed Ride Event
From Sac Tweed:
For those hoping to improve their “tweed-ness”, Nan Eastep from B. Spoke Tailor is coming to town from Oakland tomorrow to show us her wares, take measurements, and offer sartorial advice! Also, she makes great tweed top tube covers! Come check it out!
Date: Sunday, February 21
Hours: 12-4pm
Location: Hot Italian, Corner of 16th and P Streets, Midtown Sacramento
February 4th, 2010
Pre-Tweed with B. Spoke Tailor
Our good friends over at Sacramento Tweed are hosting a pre-Tweed Ride event featuring Nan Eastep of B. Spoke Tailor and Lorena Beightler of Sac Cycle Chic. From Sacramento Tweed:
Still wondering what to wear to the next ride? Need to bounce some ideas off some tweed-y oriented fashionistas? Then we’ve got something for you!
Nan Eastep of B. Spoke Tailor is coming to town! Along with Lorena Beightler of SacCycleChic, Nan will be at Hot Italian on Sunday, the 21st of February from 12 noon to 4pm to show you her clothing line, take measurements, and discuss how to make your Tweed Ride wardrobe better than ever!
So come on in, grab a beer and/or a pizza, look at some great clothing, and get inspired for the next ride on… March 28th!
Hot Italian
1627 16th Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
Sacramento Tweed →
Sac Cycle Chic →
B. Spoke Tailor →
Hot Italian →
January 13th, 2010
Tweed Ride, Circa 1955
January 5th, 2010
New Year’s Day Tweed Ride
Photo © Lezlie Sterling/Sac Bee
Our local Tweedsters partook in a New Year’s Day ride this year. We missed the ride, but from all reports it was a fun time (though they did get a little wet). This was the second in what we hope will be a long series of these jovial excursions. The next ride is on the schedule for March 28th.
November 8th, 2009
Sacramento Tweed Ride
We Counted Somewhere Around 80 Riders
Sac Tweed Storms the Capitol
Dressed to a Tee
The Lone High Wheeler
A Bicycle Built for Three
Ready, set… Wait! It’s not a race!
And Yummy Breakfast Too
Best-Dressed Snappy Lasses
Best-Dressed Dapper Chaps
Our Fearless Leader and His Faithful Assistant
Mrs. Sac Tweed (Erin, on left)
Bikes, friends, and refreshments: a great way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon in November
Sacramento’s inaugural tweed ride was a smashing success. We estimate over 80 people showed up, easily twice as many as expected. It appears there was a real desire for this kind of event in the Capitol City. The weather was perfect, the traffic was light, and the mood all around was one of good cheer. It was truly a pleasure to meet some of our online friends in person and we hope this ride was just the first in a series. Many thanks to ride organizers Rick and Erin and all the sponsors and venues that made possible such a wonderful event.
November 5th, 2009
Philly Tweed
A friend in Philly informed me that their tweed ride is happening this Saturday, November 7th, one day before our ride here in Sac. All the best to our fellow tweedsters in PA – have a fun day everyone!
October 15th, 2009
Sac Tweed
Mark you calendars! Join your hosts Erin and Rick on Sunday, November 8th for Sacramento’s first ever Tweed Ride! From the Sacremento Tweed website:
Not long ago, on a weekend jaunt from Sacramento to Davis, my co-conspirator and I happened upon a lycra-clad lass looking lost atop her carbon-fiber racer. She was stopped by the chainlink fence just on the West Sacramento side of the I Street bridge. You see, she wasn’t sure if it was the right or the left fork in this road that would take her, eventually, to the bike path.
She was riding in a group, she explained to us, a pack of her lycra-clad pals. Only she got left behind somehow. Everyone else had barreled on ahead, she reluctantly admitted, and she was unfamiliar with the route and feeling a bit uncertain.
‘This is a joy ride?’ I wondered. Such unchapliness! It’s unseemly.
Thank goodness, then, for Newton and his laws — the “equal and opposite reaction” bit. Which we will casually adapt to the social realm, particularly bicycles:
Here is to camaraderie, lugged steel, and plus fours. Here is to the (truly) social ride. Here is to tippling from hip flasks, maintaining a leisurely pace, and flaunting with style.
Here is to more cycling and less lycra.
As Erin and Rick would say, “Don your tweeds and mount your steeds” for a luxuriously slow ride around downtown Sac with stops along the route for breakfast and libations. Put on your best duds and compete for prizes in categories including Dapperest Chap, Snappiest Lass, and Most Enviable Moustache. We hope to see you there!
When: Sunday, Novemebr 8, 2009
Start Location: Sacramento Bicycle Kitchen (1915 I Street)
Time: Enjoy a spot of coffee at 9am. Ride sets out at 10-ish.
October 13th, 2009
Brompton World Championship
Former winner Alistair Kay described the Brompton World Championship as “a fantastically eccentric British day out.” I have to agree. Where else in the world can you watch grown men and women decked out in tweed and ties racing hell bent on folding bikes with tiny wheels, all for the sake of bragging rights and a good time? Loads of fun…
BWC 2009 →
October 10th, 2009
Head Badges
Bicycle head badges are becoming more scarce every year, slowly being replaced by decals as a cost saving measure. I love head badges and in my opinion any bike without one feels incomplete and cheapened due to its absence. Some are works of art, while others are downright kitschy, but they all speak volumes about the bike on which they’re mounted. Let’s hope they don’t completely disappear in the coming years.
View some head badges at the following links:
September 29th, 2009
Xtracycle Gallery
Photo © theglife
I just discovered Xtracycle Gallery (where have I been?). They claim, “Xtracycle Gallery is the most comprehensive list of Xtracycle cargo bikes on the planet.” I have to agree. There you’ll find photos and descriptions of over 400 (and counting) Xtracycle conversions, with a few Surly Big Dummies thrown in for good measure. Lots of cool bikes there…
September 23rd, 2009
A.N.T. Bike Party
The Annual A.N.T. Bike Party and Open House is coming up soon:
Annual ANT Bike Party (Bike Rides and Open House)
When: Saturday, October 17, 2009
Where: Holliston Mill Building, 24 Water Street, Holliston, MA
September 11th, 2009
Honjo Madness
If you’re a non-professional mechanic and you’ve installed Honjo fenders on a bike like a Rivendell Sam H. that has generous clearance, all the appropriate fender mounting points, and cantilever brakes, congratulations; you’ve been awarded a merit badge.
If you’re a non-professional mechanic and you’ve installed Honjo fenders on a bike like an IF Club Racer with not-quite-enough clearance, not-quite-right fender mounting points, and “long reach” dual-pivot brakes that are really mid-reach dual-pivot brakes, congratulations; you’ve been awarded the Home Mechanics Badge of Honor for surviving (hopefully with your sanity intact) one of the most frustrating, patience-testing, bike-wrenching tasks you’ll ever undertake.
And if you’re a non-professional mechanic and you’ve installed plastic fenders on any bike and you’re under the delusion that installing Honjo fenders and getting a nice fender line can’t be that much more difficult, wake up and smell the coffee; you’re in for a big surprise, bucko. ;-)
September 6th, 2009
Bright and Shiny
I have friends who wash their bikes once a year whether they need it or not. I, on the other hand, tend to be a little more compulsive about these kinds of things and wash my bikes on a fairly regular rotation about once every 3-4 weeks. It’s a chance to go over the bikes and check for any potential issues before they lead to being stranded on the side of the road. Plus, clean bikes are more enjoyable to repair than dirty bikes. Truth be told though, mostly I do it just because bright and shiny bikes make me happy.
This afternoon there was a little hint of fall in the air. We had blue skies and 80 degrees with a wonderful breeze out of the south coming up from the delta. It was an absolutely lovely afternoon to take the bikes out back and give them a good cleaning and going over. The only thing better would have been a bike ride, but we already did that earlier today in the cool of the morning.
September 2nd, 2009
Prune Haulin’
John sent me these photos of him and his co-pilot out for a spin on a beautiful morning in lovely southwest Oregon.
We went out picking prunes today. They grow wild along the road in a number of places around our area. We dry them and enjoy them over the winter months.
As a point of interest, the Roseburg area (Douglas County, Oregon) has been variously called the “Turkey Capitol of the nation”, “The Prune Capitol of the nation”, and “The Timber Capitol of the nation.” The big turkey sheds are mostly gone now. The big prune orchards are gone but we still have one local commercial prune dryer in operation. The prunes growing beside the rural roads are a residual remnant of our agricultural history. And, finally, timber production in this area is just a shadow of what it was in the booming 70’s and 80’s.
John in Roseburg
Picking prunes along the roadside seems like a perfectly wonderful use for a bicycle built for two.
