Friday, February 27, 2009

Vallie Components Hub Official Release

"Parts for people who break parts" ... hey, that's me!

Lyle is on his way to Indianapolis with the physical manifestation of years worth of effort: the Vallie Components Street Fixed Hub and 15 tooth ISO cog.



We've been waiting for this for a long time. I remember when Lyle introduced me to the work that George French was doing with his G-Sport brand: bringing new ideas to the BMX market to shake the issues of the old designs and ride fresh parts. I was intrigued by the designs that seemed so far from the norm, but at the same time were so logical. 

Now, we have this type of innovation in our own midst. Lyle made a huge step in quitting his engineering job to forge ahead in bike parts design. When we were both working jobs that we were tiring of, this seemed so far away, so revolutionary. Vallie Components is now a reality. It was a step toward working for himself, in an industry he supports. In the years between then and now, we've met and become friends with many people through the international culture of the bicycle.

Project B's presence at 2007's Mini Bike Winter IV had Lyle on the Tour de Bomb podium on his custom-built Killhlimber. This event was a major milestone in our relationship with Portland. We continued to build friendships that had been started a few months earlier at Velomutations. We came back on a high. We were stoked to ride mini bikes.

The following year, Lyle headed down a week early to check out the NAHBS show, meeting up with our Portland friends and making new friends with the hand made bike community.

The 2008 Tour de Bomb was the Portland debut of The Cheetah, a bike that was designed to "give back" to Zoobomb after all they had given to us. And give back it did. Lyle won the freaking race!

It turns out Gabe wasn't that mad at Lyle for winning, though, as he helped him out with the awesome logo and business card design. Just in time for NAHBS 2009 (show coverage at Urban Velo), Lyle's got his site all polished up with the lovely Rhiannon's help. Click through there, and send him a message!

Of course, the final touch on the site is these great photos from WMD:



I've got one of the prototypes in my hot little hands. It's going to be built up soon, I promise - the Rocky has been salivating in anticipation. People who break parts, stay tuned. I'll probably get photos up on flickr before anywhere else.

"It's like bicycle ballet!"

Moneypenny speaks the truth, so here's a little somethin' to tide you over while we await the official NAHHHBBBZ debut of the LyleHub. Chris Akrigg takes off his brakes, and says goodbye to awkward pogo-stick-style trialsin':


Day at the Seaside from chris akrigg on Vimeo.

The truth? Brakeless IS the truth.

Monday, February 23, 2009

History Lesson: Ringlé

Woweee.. Elite504 on Retrobike has posted a 6 part series showcasing development parts from Ringlé.


I'm not exactly sure what his association with Geoff Ringlé is, but I'm thankful he is able to showcase this little bit of boutique part development history. Ringlé was the most sought after name in MTB while I was growing up, and its great to see just what WASN'T released to the public in that era.

Ringle development parts series:
Moby
Trail Stem
Zooka
Ti-Stix and Ti-bolt QR and Collar
AntiChainsuck Thing
Hubs

Incredible. There's always so much to learn! I just LOVE the Moby post design, and the Grafton hubs:


Speaking of prototype development, check out these new Pedals from Terrible One:

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Mini Bike Winter 6 Video

Courtesy of Jonathon Allen for Bicycling Magazine


Minibike Winter VI [2009] from AllenInk on Vimeo.

I've got to say.. Gabe, you started something really great. Its good to see you all are still beating each other with padded blunt objects. I hope this tradition continues.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Doing it Better

Zoobomb Zane and Mechanic Mark have created a really amazing tandem bicycle.

The HAMSTERBALL



Wow. I'm curious if they actually took it in this weekend's Ben Hurtier Chariot Battle? ..or maybe bombed with it? Does it have Ackerman steering? Seatbelts? What would happen if it were to get in a head on collision with a car? Any close up pics?





Details Please!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

How to get your ass kicked in an ice race

1) Make tires out of CX tires that are almost too big for your bike, and trim down the studs so they're not so aggressive.

2)Convince friend in Montreal to allow you to couch surf

3)Convince car owning New York friend that its a GOOD IDEA to go ice racing and offer to pay for half the gas

4)Have your papers in order, as well as a story about how the two of you met to not raise suspicion at the border

5)Bring lots of layers of clothing, wear ALL of them.

Saturday started out pretty good. My alarm went off, and I immediately figured out where the coffee was kept in Laura's apartment. I then got to work mounting the snow tires on my Spicer. It took a while, but I was confident that the tire liners were in the right position. A little after 11:00am, we rolled out to the Parc Jean Lance to check out the course. At that point there was only about 8 people there. One person was setting up the sponsorship barriers, and another was taking a pick axe to the ice to break up the larger jagged protrusions. We found out from the organizers that they had gone there with a shovel on the last night it was above freezing, to shovel a track in the snow. Then they dumped water on it.. then it froze and thawed again. We did a few laps. Scary!

My front tire would scratch along the surface of the ice diagonally, until I lowered the pressure to what seemed like under 20psi. Only then would it hold some semblance of a line around the icey hairpin corner. I also dropped down my rear tire so that I could sprint out of the saddle without spinning. That seemed to work well. I had pretty good acceleration out of the corner.. in practice at least. It seemed faster over the bumps too. Almost like my bike had suspension.

People were starting to fill in on courier time. Some set up a mech tent, other set up a soup station, a bbq, and even a BBQ bike. People worked on dialing their setups. Confident I had practiced enough, we went for breakfast at Patiti Patata. Poutine and grilled cheese should give me enough calories to get through the day.

When we got back from breakfast, there were a lot of people there. A big crew from Toronto had showed up and brought a portable propane heater to circle their lawn chairs about. Photographers snapped pics of bikes and racers. People dialed their setups, doing hotter and hotter laps than just an hour earlier.

You could tell the atmosphere was getting serious. People wanted to race, if only to keep warm. At the registration tent, the organizer was stoked to find out we drove up all the way from New York, and then again that we would run in studded class. I guess that was unexpected.

When the race did get started, they had consolidated all racing into two categories, and a number of heats. I guess there wasn't enough of each type of bike to run all of them together. Geared roadies vs. track bikes vs. girls vs. the extracycle vs. the cruisers. They only distinction they made was between studded and rubber class.

My friend Andras was up before me, and did alright. His Kona Paddywagon was set up with risers, single speed, platform pedals and a rear brake. He put his foot down each corner, and managed to do a complete 180° almost every time. Not the fastest way around but at least he stayed up. At one point he put his leg out and it caught on the rear tire of one of the other racers, sucking him into the rear stays. It looked a little painful, and left some marks.

When I was up I was a bit tense. I didn't ride that fast in practice. I found I had to brake MUCH sooner on the slightly downhill straight to keep a line in the corner. I made it around a couple of laps before realizing I was riding on my rear rim. I found out after losing the back end and wiping out in the corner, then trying to hop back on realizing my rim was on the ice.


Sadly, I carried my bike back to the pit and began the painful process of trying to change a tire in -10°C weather.

I missed the next few races, focusing on trying to seat the bead on my tire, cursing at mechanix gloves for not being warm enough, and hating myself for riding on my rim as long as I did. When I got the tire re-inflated, the shoulder studs would hit my chain stay every revolution. This meant I had to do a field truing. I simply wound the spokes half a turn tighter for the area I knocked out, and got the tire to clear the stay. I wasn't even finished, and I was being called to the starting line. I quickly put my mittens back on my frozen hands (over the mechanix gloves), and ran over to start my next race.

I guess I was in the wrong head space at this point. I burst off the line and kept up with the leader who was on a CX bike up to the corner. At that point he out braked me, and peeled off to my left. I went sailing straight into the barrier. I hopped back on, and kept up with the guy at the end of the pack for the next lap.. and promptly sent myself into the barrier the next time I attempted the corner. ..and I got back on.. and was now close to being lapped by the leader... and I think I may have stayed on the bike after that. It was a bit fuzzy. I could only feel two things, pain from my hip, and that my fingers were still frozen. I may have fallen a third time. I definitely finished the race though.

I limped back to my bag where my tools were still scattered in the snow, tossed my bike down, and grabbed a beer. Then I went to huddle around TonyMTL's BBQ bike. They fed me a veggie dog and eventually I started to feel a bit better. I had some ibuprophen as well.

My spirits picked up throughout the afternoon as more people asked me about my hub. That was fun. Though, every time it seemed they asked me the same question en francais. Something about whether it was a 'mountain fixie'

The sun was getting low in the sky and it was getting colder by the minute. They would run the finals with 7 people on the course, instead of 4. Once everyone was on the starting line they tried to figure out how many laps to run it. Once they settled on 10 the organizer blipped the siren on the megaphone and they were off.

The ice had gotten progressively more churned throughout the day, and all of the racers in the final had really good tires, so they tracked as though they were on pavement as they went about the course. You could see them slowing with each painfully cold lap. I was glad to not be racing this late in the day.

A compact guy named Andrew from Ottawa took La Coupe Des Glaces, and we immediately started packing up. A quick roll downhill and we were at BARFLY. A cute little place full of Canadiens paraphenalia from when they won the Stanley cup in 1986. Sonic Youth's cover of The Carpenter's "Superstar" played while the petite barkeep knit herself a sweater.

The racers filtered in and peeled off the layers. It was nice to see what everyone looked like. Eventually they got to the prizes, and amazingly enough, gave us some out of towner prizes. I got some great Netti Windstopper gloves (from Cycles Lambert!) courtesy of Le Grand Cycle L'Atelier. Andras got a nice Cocotte hip pouch.

Later that eve we bundled up again, and made our way across town to go to a quipster party. Riding dry pavement on studded tires is pretty amusing when drunk.

Sunday afternoon we did a fun lap of town with Duncan leading the way and eventually decided it was time to return home to Les Etats Unis. What a trip. Thank you for the lesson in ice racing, Montreal.

Edit: The wifey has illustrated this great MSPaint rendition of this post:



For other photos from the weekend, check out the Flickr Set.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Projekt-Breakfast

Wednesday at 8am I hope to see the same view.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Smoothness.

This is some riding to look up to. Shane Weston is a 21 year old ripper. Smooth manuals, barspins, and not too many nosepicks or tail whips in this edit.


Shane Weston from Hoffman Bikes on Vimeo.

Nick has been spotted riding brakeless BMX. Let us hope he can hold it smooth and keep the wrist together. I am sending a public request that he be bothered to get new bars; those S&M race bars are done, even if it is the BMX version of the Vitali's custom cockpit.

The Lolcat

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Bonhomme de neige



I'm off to Montreal, QC tomorrow. I've fit the nastiest meanest tires possible under my Spicer, and have geared it appropriately for churning such steel filled pneumatics.

Passport, check.
DS2019, check.
I94, check.
Proof of health insurance, check.

(who would have thought visiting ones own country would require so much documentation)


My front tire is a new Schwalbe CX Comp filled with 348 #8 screws. The rear is a worn, and then siped Bontrager Jones CX with a mere 208 screws. I read an ice tire tutorial put together by the race organizers, and they recommend anywhere from 300-600 screws for a 700c tire. Wow. I'm doing it dumber apparently.

leg armour, check.

I've been a little stressed lately with the hub business, and things are finally starting to roll smoothly. This weekend has been the most fun weekend of my life for a couple years now, and it should be a time to celebrate. So fuck it. That's what I'm gonna do!

Besides La Coupe Des Glaces, its the SIXTH Mini Bike Winter. Way to turn 6 guys! Its also cause for celebration because its the one year anniversary of me and Alicia Rhiannon getting married.. AND our Reverend was JUST FOUND NOT GUILTY in his taser trial! YEAH! We're so happy for you Phil.

Sometimes you just have to stop and think about how good you actually have it. Then clip back in and fucking pedal harder.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

This is broken?

Cause we love watching Sean Burns wreck stuff.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Gettin' rad in the Parkade

Here we see a classic example of how Morgan treats bicycles that are not his. Rad.



Keep in mind, Dennis snapped the headtube off his last Kona gettin' rad in the parking garage, so watch out.

In other rad news, my Vallie Components Street hub prototypes are done, and I'm testing them out now. I'll be sending one to Morgan for abuse as well. Hopefully I see shots of his Rocky getting this rad.

I also spent some time gettin' rad at WMD's with the welder, and mitered and tacked up my Time Trial Tall while a camera crew got up in my grill.



Yep. Today's forecast is 7°C, 0% POP and 95% chance of gettin' rad.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Downhill Tall Bike

More info wanted on this bike if anyone's got it...