STRAIGHT UP!

Before I go for the summer I want to cobble together what's sure to become an auspicious event, the 1st annual STRAIGHT UP gnarlycat in Salt Lake City!



What's a Gnarlycat, you ask? Well I just made that word up! But this one's simple. Meet at Gallivan (where else?) At 10:30 PM on Wednesday night, May 3rd, and fire the race firecracker at 11:00. First one to the top of city creek canyon and back to Gallivan wins! No prizes, no spokecards, no entry fees, and no sponsors. Single speeds get mad props and are heavily encouraged (like, if you have one... ride it).

This race is tricky, because there are multiple routes to the top, where you'll get checked off, and racing back down you must do your best to not kill any of your friends, the riders still heading up. So lights are pretty much required too.

**edit: I just rode this bad boy last night, there's no way we can race back down, it's too terrifying! I nearly killed 4 deer and keeping a racing pace is insane in the pitch black. So race to the top and then friendly cruise down. And bring a little jacket, it's COLD coming down.

See you there!


.... In other news, I have an absurdly practical bike (by my standards).



You know what that means don't you? Euro-TRIP! Dave Wood and I are leaving to the olde country for 2 months for some riding around and cheapskating through the summer.

We're flying to Hamburg and biking to Amsterdam, then wending our way through Monk and beer country to Paris. After that we head east into the great unknown. I'll be documenting our trip and using this blog as a vehicle for my ramblings and exploits.

The bike is a 55cm Salsa Cassaroll, Salsa's foray into swiss-army bike territory oriented more towards the road than the Surly Cross-Check. Fairly light double butted Salsa Chromoly tubing with slack geometry and clearance for 32mm tires with fenders makes this bike a sweet chameleon between slugging it out as a fixie in the winter and a very plush tourer-commuter in the summer. I'm hoping it doesn't get stolen in Amsterdam, as it's essentially 2 of my bikes in one. I've got it set up with 32c Schwalbe Marathons and a 20spd SRAM rival grouppo, which I quite like. It's like the worst touring gearing ever by most people's standards, but I'm a singlespeed rider for chrissakes, a 34x23 shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks a ton to Mark at Saturday Cycles for the bike, he's got the coolest taste in bikes in the state. And he's only open on Saturdays. Read More......

Movin' On.

I've finally decided to sell my ole cafe racer. Guess I'm entirely a bike boy now...
It's still everything a motorcycle should be, in my opinion.

*Sold! This one's next, some day...
Read More......

Alexander and Chris, at it again....

Ok, so not only did Chris Ginzton of the Dada Factory decide to place first in the Expert Category at this year's Sundance Downhill competition, Al of the Dada Factory decided to film an excellent coverage of the race, using a different racer's run for each step along the course and brilliantly editing them all together into a cool feature THE SAME NIGHT HE SHOT IT! The bar sure is high around here. Really freakin' high :).



Well done both. I've got some footage lying around that Chris and I shot a month ago, guess how much I've edited? You've got it! Zilch. I suck at life compared to these over-achievers, but I wouldn't have it any other way :). Read More......

Manifest in Reality: Velo City Bag!

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:




Very happy with this thing. Nathan did some very cool extra work so I could keep my camera+extra lens inside it, and so far this bag's held up admirably under quite a beating. I've used it every day at work of course, and loaded it with all variety of things. Its first job was to haul a frame to 50th south the day I got it, the compression straps are long and work great with odd-shaped objects. The bag is very classy, maintaining its shape while empty and with no extra straps showing when you don't need them. The detachable waist strap is a nice touch, as are the hiding spots for the front flap compression straps. No complaints so far (though I may cut the U-lock strap, I never use it and it slows down replacing the lock). Yesterday I go caught in a deluge of rain coming back from Centerville and the inside of the bag was fine and dry.

Nathan Larsen builds the bags up here in Salt Lake from his apartment. His monster of a sewing machine and materials take up the whole room, it's great. Here're some shots of Nate's process:








Some Dork with his new bag:



And seeing if it works:





I likey. Order a custom one from Velo City Bags or pick up a finished one (for cheaper!) at Model Citizen. Nathan's just released his simple messenger bag as well, which is very cheap and just as nice. Checkacheckit Read More......

Clean Rooms Kill Communists.

...That's a good thing, right?

(what's that hanging on the wall?!?!) Read More......

I have a little problem...

This pile here is just my road bikes. That's skinny-ish tires and 700c wheels, not counting my polo bike. I have 6 %#*#ing bikes, and another on the way! END THE MADNESS!

I have a solution, though I love them all. I'm selling two (clicky picture for the craigslist ads:



edit: schwinn is sold! Bye bye old buddy!


Aaah, that'll take me down to only 4 bikes. Feels better already! :) Read More......

Silence in the 48.

It's 4:00 on a beautiful summer day.

I'm barreling down the road in a car that isn't mine, adrenaline pumping, eyes rolling, searching frantically for perfect silence. It's hour 45 of the 48 hour film festival and I haven't really slept in 2 days. We've been filming an apocalyptic tragedy with a relentless, grimy edge, and my mind's a bit frayed.

Our crew of 20 or so has been non-stop, filming under ravaged freeways and in the back lots of our wasteland neighborhood. The shooting morning started with a giant graffiti mural after a sleepless night of writing, painted by bike, manically carefree. The team is well put-together with a clever and thoughtful backbone and the vibe has been positive. But hour 45 has taken its toll.



The warehouse is buzzing with energy and action, handfuls of specialized equipment zipping back and forth, each task executed with skill, from scoring the scene to doling out omelets to the fatigued all-night editors. Rolling into home after the second night at 6 am, I notice our similarity to an efficient drug-running operation and ponder our potential profits.

I don't have a real job, except to hold it all together, a less specialized manifestation of our director's will that gets things done and tries to be everywhere and of service to everybody (or, in Al's words in the red-eyed dawn the night before "the bitch." He won't be forgiven soon). I've hauled gear, people, props; welded, written, illegally painted, climbed, blocked, lit, gripped, edited; scouted for locations and hung lights off a 3-story scaffold.



Now I'm driving due west in the industrial landscape, peeling into the gravel, turning of the car, and pricking up my ears. A bird. Grass rustling. An airplane. No good. There are no birds in the Apocalypse, no cars on the freeway. Time to move on.

I find myself hurtling along the freeway towards Wendover, with only 3 hours until our film must be done. I pull off an exit at random, as the buildings thin and the landscape turns tan and white. I run into Ali, a biker friend, out in the middle of nowhere on a road ride, in a cluster of women on race bikes. "What are you doing here?" she asks. I lean out the window with a delirious smile, shaking my fearsome weapon, the camera, in the air. "45 hours down!" I shout, not bothering to clarify, and skitter off into the dust. While hurtling down a narrow frontage road at 80mph my mind crunches, thinking of the ways I react differently under sleep deprivation, and the value of a life lived in full insane pursuit of the things we assign meaning. I find a rough and jarring path perpendicular away from I-80, so knobby and misshapen that even the jeep has no fun clambering along it. I come to a knurled fence and a row of breaker rocks along the Great Salt Lake. Scraps of human debris and piled rocks over buried unpleasentries make the place feel like a movie set of a more grisly theme, with nobody to be seen.

My ears tune in. Met this time with silence. I clamber over the fence and thrust the camera between two rocks, shielding it from the breeze. I try hard not to breathe, and record 30 seconds of silence. Giggling at the absurdity of it all, I roar back towards the Dada Factory like a cart on a wooden roller coaster, cobbled together out of the illogic of will and fancy that creates a life worth living.

Read More......

sneak preview

I consider this image especially poignant, considering what we have in our back yard right now. More soon.

Prefab77 via Wooster Read More......

Gallery Roll and Bike Bonanza

Come Check out some Bike ART this weekend on the 15th. My 'Bike Winter' shortie will be playing. I'll be hitting up the reception till about 7:30, when I'll head over to Bike Bonanza at the Gallivan Plaza to model for Velo City and Saturday Cycles. After that there's tall bike jousting at 9:30 Gallivan Plaza. I love bike month! Read More......

Pastry Cat goes Underground!

Our own Esther Meroño did a nice write up on the Pastry Cat for SLUG Magazine, featuring a pic and a quote from yours truly. Thanks Esther! I really like the comparison between Krisha's description and Patricks :) Read More......

Always Happenin' at Captain Captain.

Rainy Night, Riding home at midnight from polo with Al, Jess, and some bread. Stop in on Captain Captain to see what's up, and sure enough there's Patrick Munger from Lake of Salt hanging out in front of a giant portrait of Sri Whipple painted by Ben Wiemeyer.









I got a sweet 80's style sleeveless jersey from Patrick, keep an eye out for those embroidered coming up soon, and he gave Jess an old copy of Neuromancer which is even cooler. Read More......

SCREW YOU, SWINE FLU!

I don't know who this little guy is, but he's here to tell everyone that every year there's some new epidemic to worry about and every year the liklihood of infection is way less than the number of gun deaths and automobile accidents every day, so NOBODY PANIC!

Unless you make out with pigs. Then panicking is fine, just fine. Read More......