April Fool's Race 2007

This year was the seventh annual iteration of our April Fool's event, and we're still just recovering from it. Part of that is due to the fact that we also expanded production to a new space during the same period that we were organizing the race...still, nothing could have really prepared us for the turnout we had. Every year, the race has been getting bigger and bigger. In 2006, we had 184 riders, which we though would be just about as much as we could ever expect...so this year, i made about 220 spoke cards, and ordered a little over 200 shirts. That way, i figured, we'd have enough for all the racers and also our checkpoint volunteers and sponsors. Well, we were blessed with one of the few nice saturdays in April, and as we began registration at 1:30, cyclists were appearing in droves. We had a line of people that went through our back yard, around the corner alleyway, and onto the street a few hundred feet away! And as the time passed and shirt/spoke card packets began to dwindle, i kept running out to see how long the line was at that point, only to find it was still out onto the street.



Well, needless to say there was a bit of a crisis, as we figured to be short roughly 80 or so tees and spoke cards. I just couldn't believe that so many people had come out! It was like a championship event...in fact, I think it was bigger than CMWC Sydney was (to be fair, though, it doesn't cost a lot of money to get to Philly!). In any case, I made the executive decision to appease the masses by making all of the beer free at the afterparty, and allowing anybody who didn't receive a race tee and spoke card to race for free. Luckily, since the race is really more of an overall event, everybody was in veryu good spirits. Also, most riders treat this as kind of a team race..for example, team Brutaltron (pcitured above) actually picked up some sponsors and prineted these ridiculously nice tees for the event. Their motto: "POINTS!" was as loud in the air around the start area and all trough the race as it was on their neon green tees.



We finally got finished up with the registration process, and for once, we were ready to actually start the race ON TIME !! Big thanks to Gerik, Abby, Mayu, and Carrie, who handled all the entrants, got them tees and spoke cards, and took their money so I could go buy a couple more kegs for the after party. Gerik flossing in this pic....



We learned our lesson early on in this race series (ie. after the very first race we ever threw) that if you give a bunch of messengers a manifest before the race, they'll take it and do as much stuff as possible before the race even starts. So we never hand out the manifests until the race has gotten underway. The scene on Green street near our store was out of hand...I'd have liked to have seen a car TRY to come down the street (except for a cop car; that could've been ugly). Take this pic, multiply it in area by about 15, and that's what the start looked like. Once again, team Brutaltron repping.



We take a lot of pride in our April Fool's event being completely accessible to ALL kinds of cyclists, on any kind of bicycle (or tricycle even). We try to be the polar opposite of a hardcore, speed-based race. Consequently, we get tons of riders, because really, it's just an overall great time, regardless of whether you're out to win or if you just want to go to Bob and Barbaras and watch people come in and drink specials. Anyway, I was really glad to see some recumbents and SEVERAL tandems in this year's race. Here's Philly's own Laura Goldberg and unidentified pilot taking off from the start.



Kevin "Squid" Bolger won last year, and this year he showed up rocking his bag. He was clearly in it to hang out and relax, which left the door open for a new champ. Whatever, Kevin's won enough prize bags over the past decade to fill an entire store...

For anybody who's not up to speed on the format of the April Fool's race, it goes as follows: Everybody gets a manifest that has a TON of possible checkpoints on it. I don't think we've ever had less than 50. The race was originally based on the legendary D.C. Mayhem series, which used to take place every year during Memorial Day weekend. Those races, which I began attending in '98, sent riders all over D.C. and even across to Virginia, in search of points. And they always had waaay more checkpoints than anybody could possibly hit within the time limit. The twist with our race - since it IS an April Fools theme - is that a lot of the checkpoints are actually false. I've always had much more fun doing races where the course was up to the rider...meaning you could do the checkpoints in any order you wanted. So we let people go their own way. Sure, if they're smart and they actually look over the manifest a bit and check the times that the unique checkpoints are open, they'll tend to flow in certain directions. But you can tailor your day to blast through certain neighborhoods, or just get your drink on at various bars.



This is a copy of the first page of the manifest. There were five pages in all, with a total of 69 stops. All told, 21 of them were fake. 16 of them involved silly antics with checkpoint volunteers/other racers, and the rest were more about finding locations and/or information. Some of the highlights:



1) The R.E.Load checkpoint, which was only open for one hour out of the three-hour race time limit, but saw a huge number of riders come through. Carrie and Erin Nicole were in charge of this stop, and at first people were supposed to go through a mini-obstacle course on our lil' tykes tricycle...until it broke, that is. Hmm, a plastic tricycle - made for preschoolers - breaking after a mere 20 or so drunk messengers climb on it and try to sprint around a driveway? Go figure....



...so then they switched to a huge game of hopscotch. Apparently, fun was had by all....



2) At Johnny Brenda's bar, Sue, Nate, Jami, Jake, and Clair had a new Macbook (with iSight camera) and a bunch of props. And they were taking pictures of all the racers as they came through. Most stuck around a little bit and had a drink. Brutaltron continuing to rep Points worldwide.



Smart riders chose to pose with the duck...



Although frenching the duck is NOT recommended.



There's about 40 more pics of random foolishness from this stop, which definitely wins the "most heavily-documented checkpoint" award.



3) Simon and Vicky had a checkpoint in south Philly, and they decided to give everybody makeovers. As in, "sit down and let us apply mascara, blush, and lipstick to your face in large quantities, then send you back out on your way around the city". This is what a "light application" looked like. Btw, peep the official race tee (designed by Emily Glaubinger, of course, and graciously printed by Outlaw Print Co.).

There were a bunch of other amazing checkpoints, like the "Abby and Abby" jailhouse stop at Tattoed Mom's, where racers had to sit for a period of time that was determined by what number they drew from a hat. While in "jail", they were forced to write "essays" detailing how amazing the Abby's were and how glad they were to be there with them. Then, at Leo's house, riders were greeted with a super-soaker. At Trophy Bikes, all racers had their rides weighed in in a separate contest to see who's bike was the lightest (the winning fixed-gear came in at roughly 16 lbs), and at Taryn's house, riders were forced to chug a full can of Monster energy drink. With a few more stops at bars, and a couple more outdoor - but still drinking-related - stops, everybody showed up at the finish/after party, shall we say...."feeling good".



Getting a place to throw an after party is always a problem...Philly is a city that's somewhat devoid of large spaces that allow you to serve alcohol, but bring in the alcohol yourself. So usually, it's a choice between having the party at a bar that serves Pabst, in which case we supply them with the beer that Pabst gives to us as sponsorship, and then they sell it at a discounted price (usually $1 a can), or paying a bunch of money for a spot (which destroys our budget, since we're already giving out 4-color tees, spoke cards, and throwing the race for only $5 per rider). This year, we actually got lucky and found a venue that was sympathetic to our cause. They also just happened to be throwing a party of their own later that night, so they let us do our thing in their huge warehouse beforehand. Anyway, we had six kegs of PBR, DJ's Weez and Lexx on the wheels, and plenty of space for everybody to hang out while we added up the points and figured out the prizes.



Amazingly enough although we've always used a complicated points system in our race, we've never actually used a computer to figure out the results...this year would be different. Thanks to a high-tech and incredibly involved database I made up the night before (aka Appleworks), we conducted registration and results with previously unheard of speed and precision. All told, i think we had the results in about an hour or so...as opposed to the two and a half hours we had been known to take in the past. Additionally, we went with a formula that would allow us to weed out those who had no chance at all of getting a prize fairly easily. Basically, there were two sets of points. Primary points were calculated first, and came from all of the manned checkpoints. If you didn't do well on these, then you had absolutely no shot at the crown. After that, secondary points from the unmanned checkpoints were added to those riders who qualified in the top tier of primary points. In the picture above, Sharky, who usually greets me with a hearty "I hate you, Roland!" after our April Fool's events, comes up to collect his prize.



Philly's own Jeff O'Neill won yet another race! He took top prize in the Hour of Power a few months back too, so right now he's pretty much the rider to beat. For his efforts, among other things, he won a R.E.Load custom Deluxe (designed and made by Gerik) and a Fuji Pro track frame and fork. Not too bad for three hours "work". Jeff scored a whopping 2180 points! The average was about 1000.



Since he was also first fixed gear rider, Jeff was absolutely DRIPPING with prizes. He also won a pair of Level track hubs, a Fabric Horse utility belt, a custom-printed Gerikmade hat, a free wheelbuild from Bicycle Revolutions, a New York Fuhgettaboutit chain lock from Kryptonite, a shirt from Cadence Clothing, a handmade wallet from Randl, and a sweet hoodie from Depot in Japan.

All in all, it was a great day of bikes and beer in the city of brotherly love! I'd like to thank all of our wonderful sponsors: Pabst, Level, Fuji, Outlaw Print Co., Fabric Horse, Kryptonite, Gerikmade, Jetsetter, Randl, Deller, Cadence, Depot, Giant Dwarf, Jake Kilburg, Bicycle Revolution, and Trophy Bikes. I'd also like to thank all of the volunteers, most of all: Carrie, Gerik, Mayu, Sue, Abby, Jake, Jami, Erin Nicole, Pat Gaffney (aka Playboy Pat), Taryn, Leo, Clair, Nate, Marco, Steve Ferrell, Santana, Lex, Esher, Chris Broughton, Simon, Vicky, Abby Dub, Abby Snakes, Krisada, Mike from Trophy, Brims, Jamie Dillon, and of course Steven Squires, who hung with me all day and ran around with me getting all the extra beer, cups, setting up the party space, and generally helping out wherever possible. This event is tons of fun for the participants, but a ton of work and stress for everybody involved, so I really really appreciate all the hard work that all of these people put in towards making this all possible. None of it could happen without dedicated friends like these. Anybody who I forgot, I'm sorry!

Also a big thanks to DJ's Lexx and Weez, and to Lee for letting us invade the space. And thanks to Erin Nicole, who let us use a lot of her pics. Here's the results (below). Sorry for the haphazard layout, but transferring the Appleworks file to Illustrator to Photoshop to Acrobat was about the only way i could figure out to display it even this well. And this is as good as I could get it. The basic columns go, from left to right: Rider name, rider #, home town, type of bike ridden, primary points, secondary points (if calculated) and total points. If you don't see your name or rider #, it's most likely because you forgot to put them on your manifest (an overwhelmingly large amount of people STILL don't know to do this first and foremost before riding away!), or there's a small chance we messed up. A very small chance. Or you just never handed in your manifest, or it was mangled beyond comprehension. Whatever. In any case, if you 'aint there, trust me, you didn't score enough points to get upset about it anyway. Thanks to everybody who came out!!! Next year will feature preregistration, hopefully a really big sponsor who will pay to rent a huge space, and lots more prizes!

BTW, there's a youtube clip of the bike parking situation at the afterparty i found when googling. I'm assuming that's ok to share, seeing as how it's on youtube and all.

James Brown Tribute Bag

The Godfather of Soul. The Hardest Working Man in Show Business. Soul Brother Number One. A few weeks after the passing of music legend James Brown, I decided that I needed to do a tribute bag to the man responsible for changing the course of music in general, as well as inspiring a future generation of hip hop artists across the globe. Due to my regular duties and commitments, the project was spread across a few months' time. Finally, I got back to it and, determined to finish despite other looming projects, I completed the custom graphics late last week. This is the bag as it came out in the end.

The project made me think of all the musicians who we have lost - as well those still making incredible music -that I felt compelled to create a heartfelt, artistic bag for. J Dilla. Herbie Hancock. Madlib. MF Doom. Bob Marley. Miles Davis. The list goes on and on. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much I wanted to do a series of bags. So...I'm hereby declaring that I will be making a series of "Musical Tribute" bags. The James Brown one is the first, and is will be available for sale on our website. J Dilla will follow, but will be for my own personal use, as he was my favorite producer ever. The timeframe for these bags to be made is wide open, so I can't really say how frequently I'll be able to release new ones, but my goal is to do roughly 5-6 per year. We'll see how it goes...



A closeup of the bag. I've been really into doing photorealistic artwork using applique technique.



And this is a closeup closeup. Right next to the flap, the stitching and texture are quite evident...but a few feet away, everything blends together really nicely and the graphic looks like a screenprint or photo.

Slow Sunday at the ICA !

Black Floor Gallery and the PBMA are hosting track events at the Institute of Contemporary Art on Sunday March 18.
"Slow Sunday" a spin off the Cadence Fast Friday out in Seattle will be from 2-5pm.

The memebers of Black Floor Gallery have constructed a 12'x24' mini black floor platform that sits on the first floor of the Art Museum. A part of the show entitled "Locally Localized Gravity" the platform has housed all the events Black Floor has scheduled between the opening of the show on Jan. 19 (where the famed band "Japanther" performed) and through the end on March 25. This will also be where all the bikers will be competing, if you fall off you lose!

The 6 co-founders of Black Floor quickly became part of the cycling culture upon moving to Philadelphia in 2003. Since the beginning of their ventures in starting the gallery, cyclists have always been a part of the community. The last day of Locally Localized Gravity at the ICA will mark the LAST DAY FOR THE EXISTENCE OF BLACK FLOOR AS WE KNOW IT! Because of this, the founders wanted to pack the schedule full with many events including things that are not necessarily considered "art." Giving back to the cycling/messenger community they are hosting track bike events including:

Track Stands
Backward Circles
and Foot Down

We want this to be a fun event and all those participating will be on stage inside a contemporary art museum! This will probably not happen many times in life so we are expecting to have a GREAT time! Depending on how many people show up, we may have to run the events in heats.

The PBMA is supporting and helping run the event. Prizes will be given to the all winners from Cadence, Fabric Horse, Reload Bags, Gerikmade, Jetsetter, and more.

Come out and help make this event one to be remembered!

Please contact carrie@fabrichorse.com with any questions.


Slow Sunday
@ ICA
36th and Sansom
Philadelphia, PA
2:00 - 5:00
The event is FREE if you have your bike and you want to compete. Otherwise its $3 for students, $6 for adults, Free with PENN card, (in other words, BRING YOUR BIKE! thats your ticket in!!!)
www.icaphila.org
www.blackfloorgallery.com

7th Annual R.E.Load April Fools Race Extravaganza !!!

Once again the time has come for another April Fools race! Last year we had a whopping 184 racers, continuing the tradition of growing in numbers with every passing year. In this, our 7th year of hosting this event, we plan to once again push the limits of our capabilities and present all registered riders with an unprecedented amount of fun and prizes.

The April Fools event was born out of a desire to stray away a bit from the serious and punishing alley cats that were going on in the late 90's. First and foremost, this event will always be about getting a mass of people together on their bikes for a couple of hours of fun and mayhem. All types of cyclists are welcome; whether you're a seasoned vet with tens of thousands of deliveries under your belt, or a casual three-speed rider, or a weekend warrior, we guarantee you'll have one of the best times you've ever had at a cycling event. The format is absolutely wide open. All riders will be given a whopping manifest with far more stops than any one individual could possibly do in the given time frame. It's basically scavenger hunt-style: All the stops have different amounts of points, you choose where you want to go, in whatever order you want to go in, and hopefully when you get to the stop, you can fulfill whatever duties are necessary to acquire the points for that checkpoint. Tasks can include anything from breakdancing battles, to simply writing down info that you find on a billboard. Sometimes you will be pitted directly against your fellow riders at a checkpoint. And sometimes, since the theme IS April Fools, you might ride to a checkpoint and find that there really is no checkpoint there at all. The person with the most points at the end wins. In this race, "fast" is good, but "lucky" is just as important. The stops will be taking you all around the majority of Philadelphia, so even if you get tired or just plain feel like giving up, you'll most likely be near a participating bar or establishment, and can hang out and watch the rest of the action unfold.

The race is also completely out-of-towner friendly...generally we have riders come out from up and down the east coast, as well as some international locations. You guys will be fine, trust us.

This year's sponsors:

R.E.Load
Pabst Blue Ribbon
Outlaw Print Co.
Level
Fuji
Kryptonite
Depot
Fabric Horse
Gerikmade
Cadence
Deller
Jetsetter
Randl
Giant Dwarf
4916
Bicycle Revolution
Bicycle Therapy

There's gonna be an insane amount of prizes here, folks. Bags, accessories...maybe a bike. Level is doing custom-dipped RED track hubs for the event...clothing, locks, beer, cd's, books...we're hoping to go about 50-deep in the awards presentation, so if you're in it, chances are you'll win something. If you don't, you're just an unlucky person...

Following the race there will be an afterparty with several local dj's, and beer provided by Pabst. Location TBA. And the day after the race, Lex will be hosting the first annual "Bike Bling Parade". Bring your flyest whip and take a cruise around the city! There's a bbq on Lemon Hill afterwards, with more dj's.

Here's the details:

7th Annual R.E.Load April Fools Race
Saturday, April 14th
Registration opens at 2pm, race starts at 3pm.
* Registration is in the back of R.E.Load: Between 2nd and 3rd st, on Green.

Entry fee is $5, which gets you a free event tee shirt, spoke card, and entry to the afterparty. So, pretty much you're not really paying for anything. Even if you don't race, you're getting a three-color printed shirt and a laminated spoke card for only $5. You can't go wrong....

Ok, we hope to see all of you out here in about a month! If you have any questions, feel free to email ro

Interbike 2006...the fun part

Now that all the show stuff is out of the way, we can get to the good part of this whole trip...it should be noted that the show actually ran from wednesday through friday. I attended all day wednesday, a few hours on thursday, and was completely sick of it by friday. Anyway, there was actually an alleycat on the first day...thrown by Whitesnake (above right) and Dozr from NYC. Which is pretty crazy, because if ever there was a place to NOT ride a bike, it'd be Vegas. I think Jason Britton's bike almost got cut off of a railing....there's limos and cabs and traffic everywhere on the strip. Everything is designed to make it hard to even walk around...it's completely designed for automobiles. The start of the alleycat was right outside the main entrance doors to the show. There were actually about 30-40 people involved, i think....which is a pretty good amount given the venue.


Here's Kim from D.C. and Dozr. I'm not sure where all these cans of Bud came from, but they were pretty welcome. Inside the show, there were various beer giveaways at different booths every day. The show guide actually had a small section every day detailing said giveaways. This was the only real reason to pick up a guide, unless you were really into the business/financial side of the bike biz. Anyway, thanks to precise planning and the strength of our group (people tended to give us a good amount of space as we loudly approached booths), we managed to make the most of the festivities and avoid actually paying for beer.


Mike Dee (NYC) and Sheba (D.C.) waiting for the start. I was a little disappointed, because I'd recently purchased a Bilenky track frame with S+S couplers (chek the blog entry from a little while back), but hadn't had time to actually put it together and make the bag for it so I could bring it to Vegas without paying a plane fee. So Steve and I didn't ride in the alleycat. Turns out that that was a good choice, but still...would have been fun.


You'd figure in Vegas nobody would really care what was going on unless it reached such a level of absurdity about 25 times that of normalcy. Seriously, think about the stuff that must go on here on a daily basis. I don't think there is such thing as "too drunk"...matter of fact, when we first got to Vegas, I was checking in at the Luxor, and a guy was practically falling down checking out. This was at roughly noon. He was telling the receptionist he hadn't seen the friend he came with in two and a half days. Are some people sitting outside drinking beer really going to upset the delicate balance of this town? Still, the rent-a-cops outside the convention center seemed to be getting really nervous about all of us being right outside. We'd only been there for about 15 minutes when they came out to usher us across the road.


This is Jason from King Kog. The next time I'd see him would be from the window of our limo as we pulled up to the afterparty. Hey wait, isn't that a bit excessive....a limo?


Naw, not really...the thing is, taking a limo, given enough people, can actually be cheaper than an individual ride in a taxi. I had never thought about it before...but Reed and Scott (from Level Components) had been in Vegas for about five days already, and figured it out very early in the game. After the alleycat went off, everybody who wasn't racing walked up to their room to chill for a little bit. They were out of beer...but not out of hard alcohol. Hmmmm. Well, we hung out there and had a few drinks, and then went outside to grab a ride to the Palms (Kona was throwing a party there so Whitesnake figured he might as well make that the afterparty). Before we even got to the taxi line, Reed told us to hold up so he could hook up a limo. There's limo's for hire outside of any casino at almost any time, so it's pretty easy. Anyway, within two minutes we had our ride, we piled in and took off. That's Scott right there, probably talking about playing poker later.


Here's a horrible picture of the Mirage from the limo. Anyway, this small sequence of events (drinking in a patio of a suite in the Venetian, jumping in a limo, and arriving at the Palms and going out to the humongous pool/party space, where there was a stage complete with dancers, little streams of water with floating cushions for chairs, and general craziness) was probably the closest I've ever felt to being on MTV Cribs. That feeling died down pretty quickly, though, as more people (show attendees) began to crowd into the party and we realized that beers were $9.


The next night (I think), Chris Kim and Mike Dee set up goldsprints in the Level suite. The mere fact that they brought all their equipment to Vegas is amazing in itself. Truth be told, by the time I got there, the racing was over. Alex won. As usual.


We hung out outside a drank for a while. I think the toll of Vegas life got to everybody a little bit that night....people started slowly dropping out kinda early. Around one, I made my way back to the Luxor to do some gambling. All said, I actually did pretty well with a combination of roulette and slots. One word of advice: if your dealer mentions his/her birthday, or the birthday of any of their family members, PLAY THAT NUMBER.


I guess that's a good segway into the actual "Vegas" part of Las Vegas, which I've been sparing you through this whole thing. I stayed at the Luxor (pretty decent hotel/casino...not amazing, not budget). It's a glass pyramid. The whole theme is ancient Egypt, and there's a...well, I could call it a light, but that's an extreme understatement. It's actually the world's most powerful light, shining a beam directly up into the sky. Visible up to 250 miles away. Seems like a good use of energy to me. Interesting side note: Close to the hotel, if you look at the beam, it seems to be shimmering and sparkling. It's a very nice effect. What is really goign on, however, is hundreds of bats feasting on all of the insects that are attracted by the lights. Nice touch, Luxor.

***MORE TO COME!!!

Interbike 2006 (pt.2)

It got to the point where I was spending more time walking around taking in all of the ridiculous stuff than actually looking for cool stuff. Mostly because there was weird stuff EVERYWHERE. Case in point: The Motostik. Please bear in mind that this was one of THREE "extreme pogo stick - er, i mean stik" - companies that were displaying their lines at the show. I never knew there was such a market for this stuff. I was amazed to see that for every three people that walked by smirking, one would actually take a serious look at this thing.


I just had to show the flyer. Please check out the videos at the Motostik website. I can only assume they rented out the skatepark locations so as to avoid possible injury to their "riders". Otherwise, I'm sure there would have been some pretty good footage of random skaters walking by and smacking them in the head. I triple-dog-dare anybody to take one of these things out at FDR skatepark.


Back in the land of the sane, Brooks had some nice stuff in their booth. Along with their world-renowned saddles (which I personally don't like due to their "don't get me wet" nature, but otherwise adore), they had these leather grips. I'm sure most people have seen their older grips, which were basically padded grips covered with a stitched-on piece of leather. But these things....wooo boy. They were made of big leather "O-rings", which themselves were basically a bunch of leather circles laminated together. The ends were aluminum, and you could adjust the length of the grip itself by adding/removing rings. I can really dig the craftsmanship of these grips. What I can't dig, however, is the price tag: roughly $100 retail. Doh.


Brooks also had some lovely leather bar tape. This picture does it no justice. What I really wish I had a picture of (or better yet, the actual item) was one of the beautiful Brooks long sleeve wool jerseys that were available at the booth. The booth in general was incredibly understated; Brooks knows all about the simple beauty of their product, and they didn't try and get flashy. When your stuff looks like theirs, it's enough to just put it all in glass cases and let people drool.


.....And then there's the other side of the spectrum. Oakley. They had an absolutely humongous booth, which was pretty much a mock-up of some crazy futuristic space bunker or something. I'm quite sure the booth cost more money than we make annually. Anyway, at any point during the three-day show, there were approximately 100 people up in this booth. It was pretty nuts. I'm not a big fan of their stuff, but I was curiously drawn in by how over-the-top everything was inside. I did manage to slip into a little room (I assume this is where they talk business with big accounts) and snap this photo of the seats inside. They had custom made, padded barstool covers. The patch near the center opening reads "Exhaust vent". You can't make this stuff up.


Surly had a pretty nice, basic type of booth. They also had this crazy snow bike. The tire must be about eight inches wide. While incredibly impractical, I couldn't help but think about how much fun it would be to ride around Philly on this thing after a blizzard.


Hopefully said blizzard would bury THIS silly, silly contraption under a few feet of snow. It was quite a harrowing experience, going to grab a brochure for this beast while trying to avoid eye contact with any of the reps (which would surely have launched them into a fake, pre-programmed sales schpiel). I managed to slip in and slip out while some other dude was looking at the bike closely. Lucky for most attendees, these guys were placed about as deeply as possible in the "ridiculous new crap that won't be around next year" section of the showroom floor.


Does this really need a caption at this point?


Awww yeah. Now you can get your step on, while also bending over uncomfortably to grip bmx bars on a 20" wheel, and looking as silly as possible all at the same time! I love this show. Seriously.


Back at the Accelerade booth, Taliah Lempert was still busy painting. Probably a good thing, given what was going on around her. Some booths had begun to bring out kegs,and fools were having even more animated conversations about carbon fiber than before. I've gotta give props to the guy from Risse Racing (they make aftermarket shocks for pretty much every bike on the market). He was right across from one of the major free beer booths, dealing out shots of Cuervo with salt and limes for $5, including a Risse shot glass. Good stuff.


Ok, so by now it should be fairly obvious that I didn't really do much as far as researching any new, useful products. mostly I walked around taking pictures of people and wacky inventions. And scouting where the next free alcohol giveaways would be. And deciding what to do later during that particular night. Which is, realistically, a hell of a lot more fun than actually taking this mess seriously. Truth be told, we will have a booth next year, and our booth is going to make the show about 25 times more exciting than it is normally. We've got big plans. Trust me on that one.



On one final note: Kryptonite is introducing a whole new line of locks this year. And the amazing thing is, they've actually listened to messenger input for the designs. They've switched out the incredibly annoying, rotating "rain cuff" (the thing that used to cover the key hole) for a nice new sliding "door". So you can leave it open most of the time, and with just a flick of the thumb you can slide it over the key cyclinder to keep your lock from eventually rusting out. Now you no longer have to cut off the cuff! They've also come out with a new model for NYC heads, dubbed the "fuhgettaboutit" lock. It's basically an extremely beefed up evo mini. The thing is HEAVY. Very heavy. As in "might rip off the back pocket of your jeans if you put it there". But it's not nearly as heavy as 3 feet of chain and a padlock. To top it all off, possibly the nicest, best rep I've ever met works there: Donna Tocci. She's amazing. She's responsible for all of the locks that get given away at alleycats and major races all year long. She even gave one, on the spur of the moment, for the Inetrbike alleycat Whitesnake and Dozr threw. More on that in the next installment: Interbike 2006 - The Fun Part.

Interbike 2006

On September 26th, I left for Las Vegas and the illustrious INTERBIKE industry convention. If you don't know about it, I'll spare myself from writing all the details. Suffice to say it's where all of the biggest companies in the cycling industry, from bike and component manufacturers to clothing, accessory, and marketing firms, debut their new lineup for the following year. If you really want to check out exactly what is encompassed in this week of salesmanship, check out the official site. Anyway, there are tons of companies, both large and small, showcasing tons of products, both amazing and hilariously futile. There used to be a smaller version of this same convention that would come to Philly every year at a different time...but thanks to our infamous convention center (and it's even more infamous union crew), that got shut down about 7 years or so ago.


The concept of Interbike generally sounds like it should be pretty interesting and fun - and sometimes it really is - but honestly, although I used to race mountain bikes, and was for a short time into road bikes, since I started messengering I really lost all interest in bicycle technology for the most part. I have a couple of keirin and track bikes, a cargo bike, and an old Fat Chance mountain bike. I hoard old Shimano thumbshifters and prefer to keep my rear cluster at 8 gears or less. Not exactly the target market for most companies. Upon entering the convention hall (located within the plush Venetian hotel on the strip), I quickly began to notice a general trend amongst the attendees. Many of them looked like this guy above (btw, I think he studied that bike for about 20 minutes, no joke). Shop employees roamed around in little groups wearing identically embroidered polo shirts. I saw a whole mess of people rocking hydration packs. It gave me bad flashbacks to when I used to work for shops myself (1990-1997).


And a WHOLE LOT of em looked like this guy right here. I'd kinda forgotten about the whole freeriding/mini motorcycle mountain biking phenomenon. It came back slamming in my face REAL QUICK. It was roughly 95 degrees in Las Vegas. Still, wool skully hats could be found with every swivel of the head. Nylon cargo shorts with padding, goatees, wrap-around Oakley's made of exotic materials (usually worn sitting above the brim of a baseball hat)...check, check, and check!


It was all about mountain bikes that looked like motorcycles, and 10-speed road groups. I remember when Rock Shox first came on the scene. Back in those days, you had barely two inches of travel, you'd ride it for a few months, the seals would explode, and every day you'd be wiping oil off the lower legs of your fork. And we liked it! Now they've got these newfangled four-to-ten-inch travel beasts, what with their adjustable damping and compression, and lockout features.....bah.


This bike was really exciting. Seriously though, I actually confused this with a pic from the SRAM booth. SRAM had one of the few new things that I was genuinely interested in. Mostly because it was some new competition in the Campy/Shimano road group war. First debuted in Philly during the....aw, I don't even know what the race is called anymore; whatever bank runs it now is my guess, but it is formerly known as the Corestates, or First Union, or Wachovia USPRO race...anyway, during that race this year. Ok, so before I babble on any further, SRAM has a new road group that should give the "Big S" some competition this year. It features one lever that's used for both upshifting AND downshifting. Short throwns upshift. Long throws downshift. It felt GREAT, and it worked flawlessly on the showroom floor...but then again, what doesn't?


You set em up, and I'll knock em down. THIS doesn't work well on the showroom floor. Or any other floor, surface, or universe in general, for that matter. If you've read any of this blog before - well, number one, I'd be suprised - If you've read any of this blog before, you'll remember this contraption from the Japan trip 2006 posts. Atsushi had one of these at Depot, and we were killing ourselves trying to ride it. Turns out, NOBODY can ride it. Not even the people who were running the booth! Once again, just so we're on the same page, here's what we've got on this thing: one 20" wheel, three shocks connecting the wheel to the hub, a disk brake, a seat and handlebars, and one rollerblade wheel in the back. According to the manufacturer, the whole purpose of this product is for other people to laugh while you try to ride it. I did notice that they had a video; it shows possibly the one person, located in Japan, who can ride this thing for more than 5 feet. Just don't ask him to turn. Final note: This device is patented, so don't think about stealing this design.


This is NOT the one person who can ride this thing (dubbed the "Max Challenger"), by the way. But this dude won the International Useless Bike Competition by convulsing and swerving his way
slighly beyond the 3' mark. Congratulations, you win a one-way trip to Detroit!


Now that I have delved into the land of marks and "Made in Taiwan", I feel I must show something that's actually really cool. There were a few displays in the show that really made my day. Number one: The Independent Fabrication booth. They decked out this frame like an '80's Skyway TA. Ridiculous. You can keep your 1.357 lb carbon time trial frame, just give me this!


To me, this was the Bike of the Show. Based around Shimano's Nexus internal transmission group, this bike sported custom, intergrated racks and a sick integrated chain guard. Full stamped metal fenders (I always forget who makes these things but they're among the nicest available), and a sweet machined cable pulley for the rear hub. I stayed here for a minute before braving the crowd once again. BTW, please note the sport sandals in the pic. I would actually wager money that at least 60% of the attendees had either sport sandals or those Croc plastic clogs on. No lie.


This is the chainguard I mentioned. I would have had better pictures of this thing, but did you notice the hand on the bike in the previous photo? That dude was practically making love to the bike. He stood over it, gripping the bars, hand on the seat, generally messing up my photos (along with his sandaled friend) the whole time I was there. Jerk.


I was walking around with Loud Steve from American Expediting, waiting for 2pm (the first official free beer giveaway of the show), and I caught a glimpse of some artwork that looked very familiar. I was getting ready to get really upset, because I could swear it looked just like Taliah Lempert's work. Then I got to the booth, and lo and behold...Taliah was there! She had been brought in by Accelerade and the Davis Phinney Foundation to do a painting of a replica race bike during the show. She was super-psyched about it. Shameless plug: Check out the Fabric Horse utility belt she was wearing.


The Accelerade booth became a home base of sorts, since Taliah was always there and they had some comfy couches and chairs. There were actually a bunch of kids from all over at Interbike: Brad and Patty from Trackstar NYC, Jason and Mike from Cranked Magazine in Seattle, Chris Kim and Mike Dee from NYC (they run a ton of goldsprints comps; check out their website, Bill Dozr and Whitesnake from NYC Mess Mag, and Kim from D.C., Jason and Alex from King Kog NYC). Reed and Scott from Level Components were up in Vegas all early with a baller suite at the Venetian. Plus, Jill Rogers paints for Indy Fab, so she was in Vegas too. Add some more familiar faces, and you've got a pretty solid crew. Anyway, the point of this paragraph was this: Amy and Kevin "Squid" Bolger were there for a little bit, and Amy's got an amazing new book chock full of her photos from years of NYC alleycats due to be published shortly. Hopefully we'll have a few copies; check out www.newyorkalleycats.com for more info...


Ashira was there too...and her birthday was a few days ago. She was in really good spirits all week long, and took a ton of photos that are much better than mine...they're up on flickr right now.


In the world of mass-production track bikes....KHS continues with their Aero 100, which is just like the new Kona track bike, which is just like the Bianchi track bike. Surly still makes their steamroller, which I actually really love because of the tire clearance and oversized tubing. I think Specialized still makes that Langster, but I never made it to their booth to find out for sure. It's aluminum, anyway, whether they make it still or not. On the "extremely scary" side of things, SE Racing - the old-school bmx company responsible for legit classics like the Quadangle, Floval Flyer, and OM flyer, of which I've actually owned and loved the latter two - had a single-speed/fixed bike on display, with a supposed retail of roughly $300. For the COMPLETE BIKE. Closer inspection revealed some parts specs that would make even the worst penny-pincher shudder. Most notably ONE-PIECE CRANKS. Oh boy. This should be fun to watch.

*More to come in the 2nd installment!!!