Mountain Biking in Queens - Part1

A few months ago a group of us took the F train to the end of the line in Queens and rode the extra mile to Cunningham Park. A muddy blast was had by all.

You gotta make use of those freak warm weather days in Winter.

Disco Monster Bike

Came across this disco ball of a monster bike in Brooklyn last week.

I'm glad that even though it couldn't be flashier, it still has the common sense to have a bottle cage. Disco Bike also seems to pay no heed to traditional locking methods, such as locking your bike to a fixed object.
I can't recall if the age of Disco was one of free love, it obviously was an age of free locking.

Monstertrack XI 2010 Photo Followup

pre registration funfest across the street from Affinity

Alfred (race winner) at the 73st and 5th ave checkpoint

first crash at 73rd & 5th checkpoint

Heather (women's race winner) at at 73rd & 5th

First basket, first t-shirt, and first thank you

Biggest Gauge

Best Dressed

Flat at 73rd & 5th checkpoint

Finish line hangout

Only jug o milk

Congratulations Heather!

Heather's Squarebuilt

Go Party!

Monstertrack Just Started!

1st Checkpoint
Austin
Alfred
Some Guy
Izumi

Bike Parking in LA

When I first flew into LAX I came across this bike rack. Quite impressive, quite empty.





















A few days later around Venice Beach I locked up to this little guy, possibly the easiest bike parking for a city to install. Take the head off of an old school coin-fed parking meter and then slide a new bike rack over the existing pole. If your city is getting rid of its old parking meters, this is a great way to lobby for more bike parking. NYCDOT finally got on board with this method in the past few months.

Murder Mystery

I have no idea where the other half of that bike is. There wasn't nearly enough snow to hide it completely. The only other possible explanation is that the snow on the Lower East Side is so acidic that it can dissolve low grade steel.

Vanilla Bicycles Booth at NAHBS

The Vanilla Bicycles booth was incredible. They recreated what appears to be the pinnacle of retro bike/rec rooms plus a bit of the outdoors, literally. Dirt and woodchips on the floor. Vanilla's relentless attention to detail and quality mixed with a fashionable vintage flair really made their "booth" a showstopper. I find their visual marketing to be pretty damn enticing, but maybe that's just because I already like their style. Can someone else add their take to this?

A buddy of mine made the connection that both Rapha and Vanilla have a pretty amazing and intense marketing approach, but that to him even if Vanilla didn't have the amazing marketing that it does, its products would still speak for themselves. I definitely agree that if Vanilla didn't have the same aesthetically perfect hype machine, that its bicycles would still have no problem selling. You can't take a nice long look at the Speedvagen and tell me it's not sexy.