Bikes on the beach at Pace Bend

Ridge Riders in a nutshell…
When the Ridge Riders was established in 1987, mountain biking was still in its infancy. As mountain biking has grown, so has the Ridge Riders. If you ride on a trail in Austin the Ridge Riders have likely had a hand in it. Besides trail work, the Ridge Riders promote safe environmentally friendly biking, organize rides, volunteer at biking related events and work to the benefit of mountain biking in the greater Austin Area. The Ridge Riders are as passionate about giving back to the community as they are about having fun. Calling them a club may be selling them short as an organization. If it’s Austin and its mountain biking, it’s also the Ridge Riders.

An organization reflected in their president…
After spending five minutes speaking with Judi Ronkartz, you understand why she was elected club president. Her enthusiasm for mountain biking and the Ridge Riders gushes forth. Judi started biking seven years ago, after a running injury forced her to seek out a new method of keeping in shape. Her new hobby quickly turned into a passion. Like many people, Judi became addicted to the little victories you get every day mountain biking. Those victories may be that sketchy downhill section you have never cleared or that loose rocky climb that you have always had to walk up. For Judi, running is work, but biking is fun. There was a natural draw to the Austin Ridge Riders. In 2006 she was elected vice president of the club and was elected president in 2007.

Rides rides and more rides…

Group Ride at Pace Bend

It doesn’t matter what level of biker you are, the Ridge Riders has something to be involved in. If you picked up your bike yesterday, you can ride on any number of group rides organized by the Ridge Riders. Membership is not required. It is a fantastic way to get the wheels under a first time rider. Group organizers are friendly and willing to help. Feeling timid about biking? Worried about flat tires or broken chains? Group rides are perfect, everyone is there to help and show you the ropes. All of the rides are ‘no drop’, so there is no chance of being left behind.

Group rides are also a great place to meet other bikers. Some popular rides are the Sunday ride at Walnut Creek and the monthly club ride that takes place at different locations around Austin. Keep an on their website or the A2W calendar for dates and times.

Ride like a girl…
Women who are interested in mountain biking can sometimes feel intimidated by the predominately male participation in the sport. That is why the Ridge Riders have created the Ride Like a Girl program. This program is specifically by and for women riders. The volunteers will show female riders the ins and outs of mountain biking in a safe, friendly and supportive environment. Before long these girls will be showing the boys a thing or two! Ride Like a Girl generally meets every Monday through the end of September at various locations around Austin.

Ride like a kid…

Kids Trips 2008

Perhaps one of the most rewarding aspects of the Austin Ridge Riders is Kids Trips. Kids who participate are educated in mountain biking skills, etiquette and safety. The Ridge Riders work to develop the next generation of safe courteous mountain bikers by instilling in the children the six basic IMBA rules. Volunteer ride leaders engage the kids in numerous outdoor physical activities. A fleet of kid-friendly bikes and equipment for the children is provided for those who need them. Often times Kids Trips is the first exposure children get to mountain biking. All youth groups are welcome and fun is the name of the game! Visit the Ridge Riders website for more information.

Riders on patrol…
Mountain biking, perhaps more so than other activities, is prone to difficulties. Anyone who has ridden for any length of time has likely experienced a flat tire, broken chain, or a gnarly fall. Sometimes riders go out unprepared for the ride or possible problems they may encounter. The Austin Mountain Bike Patrol is there to help. With the guidance of the IMBA this group of ARR volunteers prowls the trails on a regular basis, providing mechanical assistance and first aid for bikers.

Mountain bikers sometimes get a bad reputation. They are accused of damaging trails or endangering hikers. Some of these accusations are grounded in reality. The Austin Mountain Bike Patrol works to teach riders proper trail usage rules. Prevention is always the best medicine and the more bikers following the rules, the better we all look.

Play hard, work hard…
Mountain bikers need trails. Fun, fast, technical, rideable, exciting trails! A great deal of the Ridge Rider’s efforts goes into improving and expanding the Austin trail network. At any one time they may have three or four ongoing trail projects on the burner in various parts of Austin. The work is done during trail days, often a Saturday or Sunday. It is always done with the consent of the land managers responsible for the area. Having the consent of the land managers is paramount. Rogue trail work can cause a great deal of damage to the natural habitat and it is also illegal.

Trail work is not just great for mountain bikers. It is also a boon for organizations that support it. After trails were completed at Muleshoe Park there was an increase in year round attendance, in part due to mountain bikers taking advantage of the new trails. More trails also mean that the trails are less crowded overall as hikers and bikers have more places to spread out and enjoy.

This summer the ARR has major ongoing trail work at Pace Bend Park. They are collaborating with Austin County Parks to add six additional miles of sweet mountain bike trails. Work is from 8am to noon with a tasty sandwich reward at the end. Work will be ongoing through September, so be sure and check the dates and times. Bring your bike to hit the shiny new trail afterwards.

ARR has already completed five miles of trails at Lake Georgetown. An additional six miles are planned with the help of the Army Core of Engineers. The new section will stretch from Cedar Hollow to Tejas. This will create a 26 mile trail around the lake and promises to be an awesome ride! Also in the planning stages is an additional corridor at McKinney Falls state park that will double the trail length from three to six miles.

If you would like to get involved with any of the trail work go to their website to get dates, details and contact information. Much of the work is sponsored by local bike shops, REI and other businesses. There are often prizes, food and other benefits. For all of the TMBRA racers out there, the trail work qualifies for PayDirt hours. This nets you up to sixty extra points in the series!

Membership has its benefits…
You may be asking why you should become a member of the ARR. After all anyone can attend any Ridge Rider event. Besides the simple fact that membership is awesome, there are a number of other benefits. For only $20 you get a drawstring shoe and bag as well as a subscription to Southwest Cycling News. There is also free park entry at ARR events and free food at monthly group rides.

Mountain biking is not just about riding…
Sometimes it’s about hanging out with new people and drinking a few beers. ARR will have a strong presence and be providing volunteers for Tour de Fat. This event, organized by New Belgium Ale, raises money for cycling related non-profit organizations. Besides some great beer it will be great fun! Keep October 17th open on your calendars, bring your bike and come early!

If you are interested in anything discussed here, the ARR website is a great place to start. Get your membership papers filled out and come to the Muleshoe Birthday bash on August 8th!

If you’re a racer or a bystander at a bike event anywhere around Austin, we need you!

You’ve probably seen us at lots of events and meetings around town (Elliott’s the tall thin guy, I’m the short fat guy…) but we can’t be everywhere so we could use a hand.

What we’re looking for are people to report back to us with:

• Race results
• Your own experiences of participating or watching
• Photos, if you’ve managed to snap anything interesting while you’re out there
• Deep, dark secrets and innermost thoughts, plus your credit card numbers

If you’ve got it, we want it, so send your reports in to submissions@austinontwowheels.org – and by the way, anytime you want to send us story ideas or comments, just use that email address too and both Elliott and I will get the email!

Independent Fabrication's flagship carbon/ti XS model

Today, I joined Gary Smith and Joe Ingram from custom bicycle framebuilder Independent Fabrication for a Tour of Austin ride sponsored by Bicycle Sport Shop. This ride was part of a roll out of Independent Fabrication as an offering at BSS which now joins Freewheeling as part of the IF dealer network.

Gary Smith is former president of The Timberland Company’s outdoor group who purchased a majority share in Independent Fabrication in 2008, and Joe Ingram is IF’s CFO. I spoke with Ingram on the ride and sat down with Smith afterwards.

Independent Fabrication was started by three framebuilders who had worked at Fat City Cycles, one of the frame building pioneers of mountain biking. These founders had a social vision of the company as employee owned and run. Through the years only Lloyd Graves remained at IF from this group.

Gary Smith’s introduction to IF came 5 years ago while still at Timberland. His company was approached by CNN to take part in a show called the The Turnaround where executives from established companies give advice to startups. Timberland was paired with Independent Fabrication for the show where Smith found IF’s biggest problem was undercapitalization, as is common with many startups. Smith liked the company and invested in IF to help solve this problem after leaving Timberland.

Gary Smith with IF talks before the ride. Behind him is a display of IF bikes currently at Bicycle Sport Shop Central including a very cool track bike.

So will the introduction of an outside corporate executive ruin Independent Fabrication? Hardly. “A good bike is an extension of the rider,” Smith said. “We want to improve the company by making our delivery more consistent.”

Ingram echoed this when I asked him about the company’s biggest challenge. “I would like to get where we consistently build 4 frames/day,” Ingram told me. “Right now some days we build 6 and some days we build 1. It’s the nature of custom building where every order is different, but we’d still like to improve on this.”

Smith indicated that an IF customer is touched in someway 12 times during the ordering process. This includes frame material selection, consideration of riding style, paint choices, fitting, and component build up. The average order takes about 2 months from initial customer  interview to delivery of a completed bike.

“We are not the first bike a cyclist buys,” Smith continued. “We rely on feedback from the customer about riding style and what they want out of the bike to craft something that will meet their desires.”

IF currently offers a range of models covering road, mountain bike, touring, and single speed, and they are not limited to materials. While steel is their most popular material, bikes can be ordered built in stainless steel, titanium, or carbon as well. While their model line up has remained the same for some time, that doesn’t mean they aren’t improving the product.

“We aren’t blindly chasing the latest trend just to roll out a whole new product every year,” Smith stated. “We’ve kept the same models but continue to tweak them to yield a better bike.”

Smith compared it to the auto industry. The Toyota Camry has been around for decades, but today’s Camry is far different from one in 1984. They are looking to improve their flagship XS, which is currently carbon tubing with titanium lugs. IF is looking at making a full carbon XS but will put it to the test to ensure it performs as well as the current model. In addition, their stainless steel SSR now uses super light Reynolds 953 which was developed in the last few years for the military.

The well attended lunch Tour of Austin ride stops at the Capitol for a group pic.

I also asked about how the brand has been promoted. Independent Fabrication began promoting their bikes by having racers ride and win races on them and has also been well received at Interbike and the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. They have developed a cult status with their customers who have their own IF Owner’s Club site, which was established and run without any involvement from the company.

“We have a better brand than marketing,” Ingram said as well sped down the road. “We don’t even have marketing staff. Much of our success can be placed at the feet of our customers” who have promoted the bikes extensively the last decade.

While the recession has effected many companies (one of the guys on our ride just got laid off from Continental Airlines after 16 years of service), it doesn’t appear to be hurting IF.

“I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but our sales have been strong,” Smith said. He indicated 2008 was a banner year and winter sales have exceeded last year at this time. Yet, they do not want to grow any larger at this point, instead focusing on improving efficiencies. To this end, it took Bicycle Sport Shop two years from first contact with Independent Fabrication to become a dealer.

Finally, I asked both cyclists what their favorite model. Ingram immediately answered the XS, but Smith demured, “That’s like asking which one is my favorite child!”

So it looks like IF’s financial picture is strong and their products are still top notch. For those wanting to see what the buzz is about, Bicycle Sport Shop currently has a display of IF bikes at the Central store (517 S. Lamar Blvd) and is ready to order just the right bike for you.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Austin Bike Blog Reader’s Survey. Congratulations are also in order to Les Bennett who won a $25 gift certificate to Bicycle Sport Shop by having his name drawn randomly from all the survey participants who left their name and e-mail.

We had great responses which will help us keep focusing on the stories and issues you care about. 

Some interesting results include:

• 84 % of you are from the Austin area. For a site called Austin Bike Blog, this should be a no brainer but is a departure from our earliest readership numbers which were more national/international. I think this reflects our shift from general musing about bicycles to covering Austin cycling culture and issues.
• 52% of you own 3 bikes or more. This reminds me of the old equation N=x +1 where “N” is the number of bikes you need and “X” is the number you currently have.
• 57% of you ride everyday and a whopping 94% of you ride your bike to commute or for transportation. All I’ve got to say is “Way to go!”
• 76% of you ride 25 miles or more a week. Y’all are puttin’ in some miles. Just don’t drop me on the next ride, OK?

We also got some good direction on what you like about the site and how you want us to further develop the site. You all are most interested in additional coverage of routes and traffic, interviews with people in the bike industry, and a comprehensive calendar of cycling events (which we actually launched last week.) You also want to see more maintenance and repair how-to articles as well as profiles of local bike shops and riders.

The good news is we are getting ready to relaunch our site in the near future with all of these features and more. Stay tuned. We think your gonna love it.

Finally, we’ll leave the survey form up for another few weeks in case you want to give us feedback and didn’t get a chance. There are no fabulous prizes at this point, but we’d still love to hear from you.

Speaking of stolen bikes, local cyclist Eric Hougland put out a APB on his commuter bike which was stolen on Saturday afternoon. 

It was cable-locked to a bench in front of the Robert E. Johnson State Office Building at the northeast corner of Congress Avenue and 15th Street in Austin. Please be alert for anyone trying to sell or trade a dark grey 2008 22.5″ Trek Valencia, serial number WTU234C1811D.

Eric's bike looked something like this.

If anyone sees this bike contact Eric at casehougland@earthlink.net or 512 448-1032. 

Of course, you can always read up on our article about how to lock your bike so hopefully this won’t happen to you and you won’t have an entertaining story of bicycle heart break to share with Someone Stole My Bike. (Step one, take a picture of your bike so you don’t have to rely on a Trek marketing picture to identify your bike.)

UPDATE: Our friend Rob D’Amico over at Bicycle Austin Blog had his wife’s bike stolen this weekend at church no less. Jason at ATXBs has started a Stolen Bike Registry so if you are victim or see a suspicious two wheel, you can check there.

Here’s what Rob has to say:

Today is the last day to take our our short, 10 question reader survey for a chance to will free stuff. We are always looking for ways to improve our site and your feedback will help . 

We will be giving away a $25 gift certificate to Bicycle Sport Shop in a drawing of those who take the survey by 7 PM CST on Monday, January 26, 2009 and leave their name and e-mail contact info. (NOTE: This info is not required to complete the survey.)

Please take a few minutes to take the survey if you have not done so yet. Thanks!

Click here to start the survey. ]]> http://austinontwowheels.org/2009/01/26/toady-last-day-to-complete-austin-bike-blog-reader-survey/feed/ 0 http://austinontwowheels.org/2009/01/24/reminder-take-the-austin-bike-blog-reader-survey-by-monday-for-a-chance-for-free-stuff/ http://austinontwowheels.org/2009/01/24/reminder-take-the-austin-bike-blog-reader-survey-by-monday-for-a-chance-for-free-stuff/#comments Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:12:00 +0000 elliott http://austinbikeblog.org/?p=2761 We’ve had a great response so far, but I just wanted to remind anyone who didn’t see Thursday’s post about our reader’s survey or haven’t had a chance to take our short, 10 question survey. We are always looking for ways to improve our site and your feedback will help . 

We will also be giving away a $25 gift certificate to Bicycle Sport Shop in a drawing of those who take the survey by 7 PM CST on Monday, January 26, 2009 and leave their name and e-mail contact info. (NOTE: This info is not required to complete the survey.)

Click here to start the survey.

At Austin Bike Blog, we aim to be your one-stop resource for bicycle news, events, advocacy, product reviews, and humor in Austin, Texas. We are always looking for ways to improve our site and would like your help by providing us feedback in a short, 10 question survey. 

We will also be giving away a $25 gift certificate to Bicycle Sport Shop in a drawing of those who take the survey by 7 PM CST on Monday, January 26, 2009 and leave their name and e-mail contact info. (NOTE: This info is not required to complete the survey.)

Click here to start the survey.

Streetsblog posted a great video at the end of last week that covers many of the innovative things being done in Paris (France, not Texas) to make streets safer and more accessible to cyclists and pedestrians alike.

The City of Paris has already made great strides in creating a massive bicycle path/lane network and introducing their wildly popular bike share program. Now they are experimenting with how to make streets safe and accessible if cars, bikes, pedestrians, and buses all share the same space. It turns out the way the street is built has a huge effect on its accessibility.

“The only way to slow down the car, is not through the police and is not through the radar, but it is through getting rid of the straight lines and through making the streets sufficiently irregular,” says Eric Britton of New Mobility Agenda in this Streetsfilm short documentary. 

This sounds a lot like what New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan is doing to create public space and slow cars down on some of the widest, busiest streets in the Big Apple. What’s even better about what Sadik-Khan is doing is that she achieves many of the results of what Paris has done with low lost, temporary measures to test results. There is no reason why any American city could not try out what Sadik-Khan is doing (hint, hint, City of Austin Public Works.)

In addition to changing the streets, the Parisians have developed a culture of looking out for those who are smaller than they are. Cyclists have the responsibility to look after pedestrians, cars after cyclists, buses and trucks after cars. What a concept! We should think about someone other than ourselves? That sounds downright unAmerican!

I think this should be a guide for those thinking bikes and cars should share the same space at the expense of bike lanes and other infrastructure. I’m taking about people like the Dallas Bicycle Coordinator, whom some people think we have a vendetta against. Yes, bikes can occupy the same spaces as cars safely but not in streets built only to move cars as fast as possible and not in a culture ingrained with self-centered, car dominance. 

In the meantime, bicycle infrastructure and sidewalks are very reasonable responses to building safe places for bicycles and pedestrians in our car culture. That’s why we encourage you to help make sure Austin builds this kind of infrastructure by signing the Austin Bike Plan Petition if you have not yet done so.

I gotta get me one of these to replace the old church key on my key chain

With designs created by Seattle based metalwork artist Erica Gordon, Steel Toe Studio offers belt buckles made of gear cogs as well as belts made of recycled tubes. In the land of big belt buckles, this should fit in well. The recycling is not limited to bike parts with a buckle of metal type blocks. My favorite though is a key chain bottle cap opener that uses part of a gear cog to do the opening. Talk about form following function.

While not super cheap, these pieces of true velo couture are available at pretty reasonable prices from Steel Toe Studio’s online store.