Living For The City

It’s a sad, sad day for Toronto’s Cycling Community as Cavern Cycles (form. Courier Cavern) is closing its doors for good. After many years of great service Keith has decided to move on to bigger and better things and the day has finally come.

I unfortunately won’t be around this evening to partake but for those of you who have benefited from Keith’s infinite bike nerdery over the years who want to pay their last respects – swing by Betty’s (240 King E) around 6pm this evening and buy the man a drink or five.

Bootleg Sessions will not be a “film.” It will be a down and dirty DVD compilation of cuts from several of our favorite riders from around the U.S. who have agreed to bootleg their daily sessions, progressions, and general post-transportation tomfoolery. It is not meant to be ground-breaking, life-changing, trend-setting, or scene-defining. It’s just fun. Ride/Relax.

Burd (Hangstill Master) from Bootleg Sessions is trying to figure out accurate shipping costs for Canada and I’m going to be a guinea pig of sorts so if you’re interested in ordering a copy of your own let me know and we’ll get a little group order together. The cost is $15 per DVD but we obviously don’t know what shipping is going to be yet – assume that it won’t be too much and that you’ll save a couple of bucks buying as a group so if you want a copy holla at ya boy in the next couple of days.

EDIT: Already ordered – so you’ll have to borrow one of the few copies that will be floating around the city when they come out in the new year.

Let’s talk about this video for a second; Greg Dulli, Mark Lanegan, Massive Attack & Classic American Folk Songs? Ridiculous! Thanks Scott, I’ve been missing out.

On a completely unrelated note; I rode the rollers tonight for about half an hour and only had to hold the cabinet twice which felt pretty good – mostly I found it necessary to reach out after losing control trying to adjust hand position as my wrists would become sore fairly quickly. I find riding the rollers to be much more of an upper body workout than I’d anticipated because I have to expend a huge amount of energy just trying to stabilize myself. I had a good talk with Chad (future track Olympian / puncher of assface drivers / “collector” of Ben Johnson memorabilia / nice dude / local treasure) about riding on the rollers and he gave me some great tips – mostly I just had to learn to commit fully and not overcompensate when I start to feel the wobbles. Once I get the stabilization down I can start to work on my Cadence

I’d like to preface post this by saying that I’m a steadfast supporter of IRO Cycles and am very proud to rep the brand wherever possible. They make well built, well thought out, dependable and affordable fixed gear / single speed bikes and you’re not going to find a better person to do business with than Anthony Portera of IRO – he’s gone above and beyond the call of duty for me (and countless others) a few times and always done so without complaint. I currently own 3 (Mark V Pro, Jamie Roy, Mark V) and these bikes have been very good to me.

With that said, I think the frames look a whole lot better without the logos (Although the new headbadge is dope!) but on all newer models the logos are underneath the clearcoat so blacking out the frame isn’t as easy as it could be. In the past I’ve had Tony send me some black decals that I could put over the logo but the ones he sent me for Lucille didn’t fit – they were likely made for the oversized / ovular tubing of the original Mark V. I was going to paint it out but leveler (& prettier) heads prevailed and I opted to leave the paint in the cans.

Not that this should require any sort of tutorial, here’s one anyway. Despite my obvious uselessness – I like to try to feel useful so here you go…

1) Tape a piece of vellum onto the frame over the logo

2) Trace ‘er out

3) Refine the tracing

4) Tape the tracing over some sticker vinyl & try cutting it out with an exacto blade

5) This does work very well, so take another tracing and glue it backwards onto the back of the vinyl

6) Cut the logo out with scissors – they work better

7) Stick it on the frame, over the existing logo

Ride like hell and look sweet doing it

With the cold weather setting in and my riding being limited more or less to commuting I figured I’d put some new shoes on the winterbike and get myself some sort of indoor trainer so that I can stay in decent shape – er, get back in decent shape.

I’d heard about some of the dangers of rollers but figured that riding on a stationary resistance trainer would get old pretty quickly so I opted to go the roller route. I knew they’d be kind of tricky to ride but I’m not sure that I’d anticipated just how difficult it would be to get going on them.

It took me a good couple of minutes to even get comfortable enough to even take my supporting hand off my cabinet and even then I can’t even stay on the things for 30 seconds without getting some speed wobble and reaching out for anything to hold onto. It’s only day one, granted, but it is maybe just a little bit discouraging. Hopefully by the end week one I’ll have these things mastered and I can get through a session without bustin’ my head open.

This is getting ridiculous

But not as ridiculous as this

And definitely not as ridiculous as THIS

Enjoy – a little piece of classic Canadiana on this cold November morning.

I finally had the opportunity to sit down and watch the long awaited/highly anticipated film, MASH, in its entirety and I’ll say simply that there are ways in which this film kind of disappointed me and ways in which it has seriously inspired me. I’d hoped for less of a “skate video” style film and more of a documentary approach – there are touches of that but the goal of the film is clearly to entertain / inspire and not so much to educate*. With that said, there was a lot of very, very impressive riding that is clearly pushing the limits of what we all do on these bikes and I think it serves as an important cultural marker.

I’m not sure if it’s because I was hit a few weeks ago or not but I watched the entire film with a certain sense of dread – just waiting for someone to get completely smoked by a car and I was super happy to see that no one got hurt too badly because there is a lot of seriously dangerous riding in this film. These guys don’t ride all that differently than my friends and I do but I’d wager to see that they ride through (downhill SF) traffic a lot faster than most of us would which is fine if you know that you’re a good rider but you’ve always got to remember that it doesn’t matter how good you are – it matters how bad “they” are.

One of the things that surprised me a little about this film was in the Special Features there are two additional rider segments, much like those that feature each of the riders in the rest of the film that focus on the directors; Mike Martin & Gabe Morford. It was great to see that these guys are extremely talented riders and can hold their own with any of the other dudes in the film. Why should that be impressive? A lot of times when people take on the task of documenting a sub-culture or movement they are outsiders who see something great happening but don’t really know how to present it because they don’t really understand it. At times I’d hear Mike telling riders things like “do a wheelie through the cars, do a wheelie through the cars!” and I’d start to think about how irresponsible it is for the guy documenting this to encourage riders to do questionable things – then I realized that he’s not a director documenting the guys he is one of the guys.

I haven’t had the chance to really check out the accompanying book from cover to cover so I can’t attest to its content but the layout / art direction is quite nice – Benny Gold & Garrett Chow have done a great job with it.

All in all – you can say what you will about the MASH crew and I know a lot of the older heads have a hard on for them because they are young fashionable guys on track bikes, often times riding them like BMXs, and I know that this offends their riding sensibilities but there is no denying that these guys are serious bike enthusiasts and their infamy is going to attract as many good folks as it is bad. So take it all for what it’s worth and enjoy the ride.

*Now that I’ve had the chance to read the book I’m starting to think about the film in a little bit of a different light and starting to appreciate it a lot more.

For anyone who was there last night, it’s fairly obvious that the Bull Run didn’t exactly go as planned. I approach how I talk about this with a certain amount of caution because, despite the fact that I now wish I had, I didn’t say anything about it last night when it would have been relevant. Overall, I think my sentiments on the events last night have been perfectly summed up by Ben so I don’t feel the need to say much more on the subject but there are two points that I’d like to reiterate from his post:

1) People need to learn to conduct themselves with a little bit more grace & humility – some people’s attitudes last night were like school on a Sunday; No Fucking Class!

2) Nadir & crew; sometimes things don’t work out the way we all want them to but anyone who matters knows that you bust your ass for us and we appreciate it. You were gracious in the faces of a mob of angry and/or confused bikesters and you handled the situation as well as anyone could have expected you to. Don’t sweat the petty, brother, pet the sweaty.

Folks; if you have a chance make sure to swing by La Carrera and check out the Stash / Futura x Colnago bikes while they are on display and give Nadir a pat on the back while you’re there.

Pre-Race:

Checkpoint:

Post Race:

Totally unrelated; posted on the construction boards across from my place

There is pretty much no good reason to be up before 8am on a November Saturday morning but sometimes a guy has got to make an exception and today was one of those days. This morning was part one of Look Ma, No Brakes – Sprints at Unwin out on the East Side. The main race (90k Alleycat – $3000 Purse!) is this evening and from what I understand there are some pretty heavy hitters in from out of town so it should be interesting – step up Toronto, let’s show ‘em how we roll!

The top 3 overall were pretty much as expected:
1. Chad
2. Brooks
3. Maki

The top 3 times, however, were a little unexpected because my name somehow made it’s way onto that list:
1. Brooks
2. Matt* / Ernesto (tie)
3. Chad

*Likely human error at some point but I so rarely make it only any lists so cut me some slack & let me have my little moment, mmmk?

Allow me to introduce Lucille

Say hi to “Fuck You”

RIP “Trouble”

Congratulations Heidi, Keigo & Kai!

The next couple of weeks are going to be pretty brutal as far as my workload is concerned so local cats may not see me out much. At least I got this little fella to keep me company.

I liked this bike when I saw it in the window of Inabstracto but now I’m going to have to put it on blast. Sure, a lot of us post our bikes online for other folks offer commentary but do we really need the press release? Dude, it’s an old frame built up with some painted parts – an interesting bicycle but certainly not a useful one. Look at that stem! How are you gonna take the time to powder-coat the spokes and yet still put such a gawdy / ill fitting stem on a bike of this “pedigree”? What is this? Amateur hour?

High Park Cycle is one of the most successful and celebrated independent bicycle stores in the country? Really? This may be true if you ask anyone that has never actually stepped foot in High Park Cycle. I mean, I’ll go there because the dude usually has some very nice stuff to look at (if he’ll let you look at it) but the guy is so hilariously difficult to deal with that this becomes the primary reason for any visit; ½ Bike Porn – ½ Comic Relief.

The bike? I’d never ride it but I do think it’s got some nice details and is just crazy enough to be kind of cool.

The press release? The Gas Face!

I do, however, think it’s pretty sweet that Eoin managed to score some of those Clipless Cycling Pumps that Reebok put out back in ’92.

Well folks, it looks like it’s time to bust out those fenders and get your winter gear in order – first snowfall!

This is obviously a LONG shot but does anyone have a left side, 165mm Miche Primato crank they don’t want? Nick Brown managed to strip the hell out of his. I sense a strongly worded letter on the horizon!!!

Get that shit OFF my bikes!