Posts from ‘June, 2009’

Italian city bike maker, Gruppo Bici N.A, has just released their new 2010 line of high end city bikes, Umberto Dei Clodia. Similar to Dutch city bikes but with an Italian flare, these things could give Retrovelos a run for their money. I am a maker and promoter of European city bikes, but it does [...]

This may be good news or bad news depending on your point of view about such things, but yes, we’ve made another list of cities for young, hip, urban, blah blah blah, etc… this one is from Next Generation Consulting,and is their ranking of “Hotspots for Young Professionals.” We’re number 6 in the “large city” [...]

August came early this year. Unfortunately for those of us in Texas, that means we have a long, hot summer in store for us. With triple digit temperatures becoming the norm, I have been receiving workout reports from clients that, I can safely summarize as saying, “who turned on the furnace? I’m melting out there!” [...]

Those looking forward to the Downtown Crits that have been held in late June the last few years were disappointed to see the event vanish from the TXBRA calendar recently. Racing downtown then getting to watch the domestic pros go at it is a blast, and I was sorry to see it go. Well, it turns [...]

This a happens almost every day in our city. You’re cruising along one of Austin’s bike lanes, and Bam! you’ve go to stop or quickly (and dangerously) merge into traffic because your bike lane has been taken over by construction work. Whether its road work, which seems reasonable and is often well marked with warning [...]

From the Bureau of Ironically Titled Urban Rides, come this ride tonight to memorialize the shouting, infomercial pitchman Billy Mays of Oxy-Clean fame who died over the weekend. I guess we are playing catch up to Portland on rides memorializing famous people.

This Saturday was the 47th incarnation of Frankenbike, Austin’s monthly bicycle and bike parts swap. I’m building a randonneuring bike for Marcus and a road bike for myself, so Marcus and I headed up to Hammerhead Bikes, this month’s host, to look for some low cost, lightly used components before we buy new. Not only [...]

New York Magazine helmet controversy is non-existent Last week, I wrote an opinion piece in response to an interview in New York Magazine with actor and cycling advocate Matthew Modine about bicycle advocacy and the issue of bike helmets. I was critical of Modine based on some of the contradictory statements he made in the [...]

This last week was the summer solstice which goes fairly unnoticed in our sun drenched city. However, if you live in places where winter nights go on forever, the solstice is a time to get out and celebrate the warm rays of brother sun.  In Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood (home of the huge VI Lenin statue [...]

In the last few months, I’ve written with great excitement about the introduction of the Versa Road Shifter, a STI style integrated brake/shifter for road drops with the pull ratios to be compatible with Shimano’s 8 speed Nexus and Alfine internal hubs. I’m a big fan of internal hubs for transportation bikes since they are [...]