So, this Sunday we decided to have brunch up at the Presido Social Club. I reviewed this joint previously here. Awesome atmosphere, very comfortable, great with kids, and a nice example of a tasteful renovation of an older structure. Anyway, since wifebot(tm)s sister was coming and we have a 4 seater MINI, I offered to ride. I’d get a short zip up the grade and over the bridge under my belt, and it would solve the seating issue. I hadn’t ridden in about 12 days, nursing a strained wrist, but it seemed the time to give up the rest and get on it. It was about 75 degrees when I left, and it jumped to the high 80s while I was out. Gorgeous day.

Side note: here’s a shot of the Jolly Roger I have on each bike, for science.

Side Note: note the wisced ’3′ on my stem. I’m superficial.

Side note: and I finally laid down a Team Lope Tyre Clubbe vinyl on Rogue, my Cinelli road bike build. Smaller than usual, but not a lot of room on this frame.

So I got out there and rode through MV, Sausalito and up Alexander to the bridge. This was my usual return commute when I lived in SF and worked in MV, so I’m not reallu used to it in the day time, fighting tourists and swerving cars and rental bikes and sun. On the other hand, no wind, and I’m accustomed to it blowing like stink getting up the hill and over the bridge in the evenings. Anyway, the ride was great, my wirst didn’t hurt too badly, so it was nice to get some riding in. You’re off the bike for more than a few days and you feel like everything falls to pieces. This photo was at the entrance to the Presidio Social Club, near the Lombard gate. Getting there was interesting due to all the construction from the Doyle Drive demolition.

Unfortunately, having scorchers then rain then scorchers then rain is tough on allergy sufferers. The trees get tricked and re-flower so pollen levels are at an all time high. I looked like I was a Less Than Zero extra by the time I sat down. My eyes were on fire and I had the hay fevers and so on. But the food was good and being with my family was better. Ate light. Just heading down the hill again, right?

Well, here’s what happened: the pedestrian and bike traffic is pooled onto the bay side of the Golden Gate Bridge while they do ‘construction’ in quotes, because there was nothing happening on the weekend of course and I saw no dangerous sections of that side in all my drives into the city at this point. I think they just close it off for months at a time and sort out the repair schedule as they need to later. It really pisses me off. Combining riders and pedestrians on the same side is a recipe for disaster, and I’ve commented on this several times here on Team Lope. It’s terrible. The tourist traffic is immense, no one looks where they’re going, the pedestrians stagger or JUMP out into the bike side the bikes get all tangled up with the tourist rentals and such, and then frustrated roadies plow through them all. It’s a bad scene, and very stressful. On the way over, I saw several near-misses, thanks to a girl scout march. Those girls were NOT being managed by the troop leaders, and were out of control.

So, on the way back, more of the same, and despite going slow and calling out and trying to safely and politely navigate through the throng of people who were paying NO attention, I still collected a girl scout. She tangled in my bars like ole Lance, though I was only going about 5mph and I didn’t fall over. The girl scattered and then the troop master or ward started screaming at me. I pointed out that if I was crossing the bridge in these conditions I’d be holding my daughter’s hand if she was out of control, as they were, and that SHE was responsible for keeping those girls in line. I said this very politely as she ranted about ‘us cyclists’. Keep in mind I was being very careful and calling out, while riders in front of and behind me were less patient. I made sure the girl was OK, and she was. She was totally backed up and quiet too, because she knew what she did: she was jumping out and tagging the opposing handrail like a game. Anyway, I was so fired with adrenaline and aggravated at those irresponsible women that I had to burn it off. Not engaging in a confrontation is like swallowing a grenade. So, I got off the bridge and decided to climb the Marin Headlands, and so I did.

That cleansed my palate! I haven’t ridden up that stretch since they repaved it and added a roundabout for all the tourist cars, and it was a nice refresher. Got to the top, took a few pics, descended the other side, felt that cool ocean breeze. Really great! Because of my wirst, my braking was weak so I locked up the back wheel a few times ont he descent avoiding braking cars, but overall, no issues. And MAN, is that tunnel back to the bridge exhilarating or what? I didn’t time it this time but I was ahead of the cars, it’s one way/staggered, and it’s a mild descent so it’s SO FAST. Love it.

Back home through the tourist madness of Sasaulito, up to the deck where the whole fam was hiding out from the heat, a beer and a baby in my lap. Great way to end my impromptu climbing ride!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Team Lope Ride Report: Marin Headlands in a Fixed Fury
2. team lope ride report : sf -> mill valley, roundtrip, FIXED
3. team lope ride report : bay point to sacramento NAHBS ride

This is a companion report to the detailed, dare I even say thurra, ride report Ironlung posted this morning. The Primavera event is probably one of my favorite charity rides in the area, largely based on what Lung pointed out in his write-up: excellently supported, beautiful views at the reservoir, and close enough to home to keep it from being a travel hassle. In previous years, I took a road bike, so my perspective was shaky as I planned for this year’s run on a fixed-gear. I remembered the Calaveras Wall but that was about it. Anyway, Lung and I basically rode a variation on what we took to LA in Lifecycle, and ride every day, basically: him on a Cinelli X MASH Bolt, me on a Cinelli X Mash [sceond gen]…we were set up a little differently from each other. He used drop bars, and I had bulls. Our gearing was a bit different too: he ran 44/16 for a 72 inchgear as his base, and 44/20 for the steep climbing sections, yielding something like 57 inchgear. I rode a deeper 48/17 (77 inchgear) with a 48/19 (67 inchgear) for climbs. Previously, neither of us had used bail-out gears on our bikes. We brought cogs on Lifecycle but never used em, and on all of our rides in Marin and the like, we muscled through climbs with what we had, and avoided the super-steep stuff altogether out of practicality (if one may use the term when discussing fixed-gear bikes in this context)… but here we were facing climbs that were part of a regular regional loop for roadies, and those climbs were spread out over a good distance, so attrition would also be a factor. As any cyclist can tell you, you can go all out and ride farther and longer than you thought possible… on one climb… but that’s it, you’re not going to recover. To sustain for a whole day you need to see the long picture. We knew this was going to be the most climbing we’d done fixed, and early in the riding season to boot, but we were all in.

It was also one of those rides where there were very few hitches. I got out of the house 15 minutes ahead of schedule, we arrived about 20 minutes ahead of our plan, and had no delays in check in. We ditched the start and got right on the road, didn’t dilly-dally at the rest stops, had great food throughout and at the end, and never needed SAG or field support. No llama drama. And Lung never had tripleCramps and my bike didn’t become, like a helicopter, a cluster of components traveling in unstable formation, which was all in all a nice change.

Yep, my gearing was too brutal to make it up the wall without stopping, but not for long.

It wasn’t devoid of challenges. I got two hours of sleep before the start, thanks to a sweltering heat wave. Team Lope vet Jeff Muadib Marks met us on the route, living thereon) and made it up Calaveras before suffering the SAME EXACT MECHANICAL that knocked me out of last year’s Gran Fondo, a rear derailleur shattering that I had never even HEARD of before.

Here’s Jeff examining his SAW III type deathtrap derailleur

Lung’s salt tablet deployment system was getting a little surly, and I dropped my chain on the rollers due to bearing race issues in my rear axle, though quickly resolved. There was some saddle soreness. I had suffered a pretty bad wrist wrenching on Mt Tam a few days prior that i was nursing at the start of this, which was at full bore inflammation by the end, so the final descent was very painful. BUT. It was the descent after the final climb, after a full effing day of climbing and riding so I was stoked. And like Lung said, it was great to burn your candle on a long day like that but walk away (literally) without injury or recovery issues, feeling like you could ride the next day. You never know, especially when pushing fixies on these things.

The Calaveras reservoir area was my favorite. Thanks to Jeff’s misfortune, we got to enjoy it longer than in previous years.

Anyway, it was a great ride. I will say that I wasn’t as well equipped as Lung, partly avoidable and partly not. For one thing, I chose to keep my 77 inchgear as my main drive, rather than gear back down to the 72 we both generally ride… had I switched back, I would have probably felt better as the day went on, because of the muscle work I was essentially wasting. I mean, it’s a compromise, right. Go to 72, spin more, ride slower. But at 77, ride faster and work harder, sooner. I needed to swap cogs sooner than Lung, and I was suffering more at the end of the day. My bail out gear was a 67, which was not enough. It was sure as hell better than the 77 but it was still too steep for these climbs, so while I DID successfully ride all the climbs on the route, I stopped a number of times to recover.

Interesting snake whip skids coming down to Rest Stop 3 at speed…

But man, we had a blast. Skidding all over the place, flying along those rollers, great conversations on the route and at the rest stops with wide-eyed riders that marveled out our general madness, and I can’t reiterate this enough: AWESOME ride support. Strawberries and pineapple and all sorts of carbs at every stop, fudgecicles, ICE for the water bottles, effing ROOSTERS for no reason, more SAG vehicles on the road than I can remember ever seeing, even when you consider the smaller scale of this event compared to the rider count of something like the Gran Findo or the Marin Century. It was just a great time all day, even when it wasn’t.

That’s the last of the unreasonable fixed-gear assaults on event rides for this year, as Marin Century and Gran Fondo both warrant road bike use (I mean, warrant it MORE) and we missed the Wine Country Century (and gave up on Solvang due to travel time)… but we’ll continue to ride our unreasonable fixed-gear bikes up unreasonable climbs in Marin and around the bay area year-round, so wave or holler if you see us…

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. team lope ride report : primavera metric century 2012
2. Team Lope Ride Report: Primavera Century 2008
3. Team Lope Ride Report: Mt. Tam Climbing Century

In all these years, I’ve never ridden Mt. Talampais on a mountain bike. For those not into history, specifically bike history, Tam is the home of the mountain bike. Sure, it’s more complicated than that, but what we all think of as mountain biking today, from equipment to the terrain that spawned the industry that followed, came from Tam in the 70s. More on that here (and yes, Lung, I can give you the film) so it’s kind of surreal to ride Tam off-road and imgine those guys int he early days retrofitting their frames and putting the big rubber on and muscling their way up the mountain. We take it for granted today. Kind of cool.

A ride, 15 years ago, that almost ended not well.

I used to do a fair amount of recreational mountain biking. I wasn’t like the local guys out here that shoot up the mountain every week, but it was the bike I road in the city and on trips, and I loved both single track and dirt road climbs. And even after I traded my mtb for my first road bike (ie. in the adult era), I still rented them on vacations and did rides when I could, such as in Arizona and the like.

Anyway, I’ve always associated the Tam ride with my road bike riding, as that’s just what I’ve always done. Shoreline to Panoramic to the Tam approach, paved, up to Ridgecrest, both peaks, then down. It’s still a great workout, and variations on it, either that route or the Alpine Dam approach, comprise most of the hardest riding I do in my back yard here in Marin. But I picked up a big ole 29er to build into an Xtracycle for kid and cargo transport, and thought to myself: self? You need to ride this as it was intended, before you hack it up… and nowhere better than Tam. So I did. I didn’t really know the route, though friends in the area gave me a general sense of it, and I just cut out of work a little early, and made a go of it. Unfortunately, it was during our recent heatwave, so I worked a lot harder than I would say, today, 35 degrees cooler just 72 hours later. Anyway, it was awesome.

It also kicked my ass! Even with all those gears, that specific gear ratio, the suspension, and a reasonably mild ride from a technical standpoint, it was work. For one thing, my bike isn’t the lightest, being on the entry level end. For another, I haven’t muscled my way up a mountain offroad since Sept. 11, 2001, so there was no muscle memory for that combination of high spinning AND the myriad little surges and pushes you do to get over broken terrain. Plus, it was effing HOT. And lastly, you know, after a full day of work, I wasn’t at my personal best by any means. And yet, it was still a memorable ride I plan to revisit soon.

I took Blithedale out until it narrowed to an unmaintained road, then hopped on the trail. The main route up largely involves Old Railroad Grade, which used to be the bed for a tourist rail system that brought people up Tam back in the day, itself something of some notoriety for being the ‘crookedest railroad in the world’…you can read more about that and the history of Tam here. I was initially disappointed when I learned it was a railroad bed, because my previous mountain riding several years ago was single track. However, it was still no joke. It was heavily rutted, bounders and ravines and rocks and slurry and steep drops down the side. It wasn’t technical enough to be outrightly dangerous to the inexperienced rider, but challenging enough and long enough to give you a go-round, regardless of fitness levels. Much like Paradise and other nearby loops, it’s one of those rides that can kick your ass at first, then become the FUN kind of workout once you’re seasoned. I love that kind of flexibility with regards to loops like that, allowing their continued enjoyment on repeat rides. So I knew going up that I was experiencing it at my general worst for this kind of thing, and that future runs would only be easier.

For the most part, the ride was just fine. I was flying along all the way up to the top of Summit Rd, through great sections of tree canopy and blocks of no coverage where the sun was very hot. I was hydrating and eating and not overdoing it, so I was approaching it the way any experienced rider on unfamiliar route/terrain would: I kept reserves and respected my ride. At the top of that, I missed the cut off to continue up the grade, so I went down quite a ways, further than I’d like thanks to some bad intel from a hiker, but then decided I was returning to Mill Valley that way, flipped it and went back up again. This time, down the other side the way I came, I found soem riders who let me tag along, and set me on the right course again before they peeled off. There are a million smaller routes and side trails you can take, even though general off-roading is banned on Tam to save the ecosystem from getting trampled to death. So after those guys were gone, I kept going alone. My only real trouble was zig-zagging going into a large raving and wrenching my left side, hand and foot, pretty badly in that maneuver, which I would then be favoring the rest of the ride, and much worse a few days later on the Primavera Metric Century later in the weekend.

Otherwise, I got as high as the West Point Inn (used to be a restaurant/shelter for people on that railroad trip, now a hiking shelter) before I got the call from home that my wife could use a hand with the kids, so I had to turn back rather than reach the East peak as intended. As it turns out, I was thisclose to getting there, and had I known that at the time I probably would have just continued to the top.

Anyway, I flew down at the measured, controlled pace for which I have been known in all my years of riding, as friends would fly past me on freefall descents, road and mountain, and sometimes crash out, on road and mountain. I gots kids! Anyway, it was a great descent. I knew of a shortcut that would have reduced the trip to 10 minutes all the way down, but it was very steep and seemed unwise so I kept at my original route until I saw a second access point to that alternate route and took that, ultimately dropping out just shy of Four Corners. At that point, I was actually thankful that I didn’t go that last bit to the peak, because my fuel ran out (OK, yeah, 3 fish tacos and a handful of peanuts was not enough for the day)… so I was bonking hard on Panoramic and all the way home, where I plowed through a beer and some peanut butter like an animal.

Word to Lung, whom I point at specifically, here, representing Team lope in the distance.

Lessons learned on this first ride up Tam the right way:

- stretch more in the upper body: unlike road riding, you rely on your arms and shoulders and upper back a lot when navigating rocky terrain, and I really just stretched legs and core out of habit. I might not have wrenched my wirst otherwise.

glorious fish tacos from FISH. Not enough.

- feed a LOT more than I did. I mean, this would apply to most any good climbing route, but I got sort of complacent about grabbing the chance to ride even if I wasn’t well fueled, as often happens on my morning or lunchtime Paradise Loops prior to eating. Up there you burn out faster, and then guess what: you’re far from home. It’s just common sense. But I had a chance to ride and took it, frankly not knowing how far up I’d make it anyway.

- Drop the diet for the climbs: I tend to use a low/no carb, lean protein diet when I’m trying to get fit, and of course, on ANY type of ride of enough duration and effort, it’s a challenge when you don’t have the carb reservoirs. I had nothing to burn on this ride. At least on event rides I break my diet and fuel up on carbs the day before and the day of. This was spontaneous enough for that not to be possible. I really wished I had that energy reserve up there.

- STAY LIMBER: my wriest wrenching was a great lesson on how easily you can jack yourself up on those jagged sections of trail.

- Lizards are awesome: I saw snakes, a tarantula, birds, a fox, and a metric ton of lizards up there, and in the latter case, I was taken back to my childhood obsession with gladhanding bluebellies. Make what you will of THAT.

- Mountain biking is pure: that’s something I used to know, but forgot over the years. I’m talking purity in the sense of being at eace, being contemplative, enjoying the sport aspect but also having some freedom from the stress of the day. I’ve clocked tens of thousands of hours on road bikes and fixed gears over the years, with a lot of that without a rider or car in sight. But being on paved roads STILL means density: cars, other riders, what have you. Plus, unexpected road condition dangers. On a mtb ride, you are equipped for uneven terrain and expecting it, and you may have other riders around sometimes, just like with hiking, but overall, you’re alone, you and nature. It’s humbling and wonderful. The smells, the sights, everything. It’s pure cycling fun. You put away he time trial brain (at least climbing) and focus on the experience. I mean, I do, anyway. There’s all sorts of competitive mtb riding appealing to any kind of rider. But for me, the lack of an SUV crowding me was the single biggest appeal.

As I said, I plan to do this more frequently, now that I know at least one route, and damn it’s easy to get to from where I am. Ridiculously so. I’ve always said I live in road biking mecca… but the same is so of mountain biking. Now in a few weeks time, my 29er will be an xtracycle. And it is planned to be running slicks. But I suspect that if I pull the kid’s seat off, and perhaps change the rubber, I could get that bad boy up. I mean, I never went into third, or granny, ring on the bike on this run, so even with the added weight of the xtracycle build, I’d have a whole ‘nuther ring to work with and the stability of that longer frame. I look for ward to finding out!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Team Lope Ride Report – ALC Day on the Ride, WR’s Account
2. Team Lope Ride Report: China Camp Fixed
3. Team Lope Ride Report: The Napa Ride Weekend of Destiny 07

despite being pretty grueling, the FFBC PRIMAVERA METRIC CENTURY was one of the best event rides that i’ve ever been on, and WR and i agreed that it was one of the best that TLTC had participated in, ever.

for the most part, this was the kind of ride we love and do with regularity — dozens of miles of long, winding rollies. that’s my favorite kind of ride because you have to be on your toes (cornering) and you can’t pussyfoot (climbing and descending the rollies takes effort), but you don’t kill yourself. you put in good work and you feel like you’ve had a ride, but you’re not blown out and useless for a day.

however, on this ride there were two distinct factors that we knew about going in. one was the heat. it was fucking desert hot. the sun just crushing you with almost tangible weight. this also means that you’re covered in sunscreen, which makes you filthy, and when it runs into your eyes, blind. the other factor was the climbs. with 3786 climbing feet over 63.5 miles, it SOUNDS like it would be a challenging but not necessarily backbreaking ride. but keep in mind that 2300 of those climbing feet are in two individual climbs — "the wall," at mile 18, and another at mile 50. because we knew we were going to be facing these challenges (and because i’d had a throat infection for a week and was still on antibiotics), each of us had outfitted out bikes with a bailout gear, like so…

my regular gear ratio is 44/16, which is a nice middleground 72.3 gear inch. the bailout shown above takes me to 44/20, which is a 57.9 gear inch — baby’s first climber. please note that i also carry an extra couple chain links to accommodate this bigger cog. my chain is outfitted with a master link, as is the extra section, so swapping doesn’t take me long at all. it proved to be a good decision. "the wall" is 1100 feet straight up, over barely 2 miles. "not for babies," as our brothers of HYPE down south would say. it stops guys on full cassettes, and we were fixed. given that fact, coupled with the heat, and trebled with the fact that we’d still have another 40-some miles to go afterwards, we didn’t even try it on our regular gearing, we just swapped at the bottom and proceeded. and even with this climbing gear, i was beat up at the top of that climb. covered in sweat, pushing hard, and moving slowly. but we both made it, and that’s what counts. then we flipped back to the other side for the next 30 miles or so.

we’d hooked up with TLTC supersoldier jefe, who was ghosting the ride, just before the wall, and he made it up and over with us (on his fucking BADASS klein road bike), as well as another few miles before he had the same catastrophic derailleur failure that WR had on the grand fondo some months back. his derailleur caught in the spokes and was torn upwards and apart in a millisecond. luckily for him, it happened on an ascent rather than a descent. we pulled over and endeavored to convert him to a single-speed so he could at least limp into the next town, but his shit was HOSED and it wasn’t happening, so we begrudgingly left him there with a promise to call his old lady once we got a signal, which WR did. jefe also lucked out when SAG brought him down into town, despite the fact that he wasn’t a registered rider. so everything worked out great there.

the only other mechanical we had was when WR threw a chain. turns out his axle bearing race (which is a misnomer, as he has sealed bearings, but it’s still called that because it has the exterior locknut) had come loose on his last wheel swap, allowing for his axle nut to loosen up over a few miles. once we identified the issue, he was good to go in a matter of seconds.

at mile 50 we hit the second climb, which was a different story. it was also 1000 or so feet of climbing, but this time was over a more realistic 5 miles. as such, we went into it without the intent of switching gears. we pushed up a mile or maybe even two, muscling along in our standard gear inch. we pushed and pushed, but every single time we’d round a corner, it kept going. there was never an end in sight, and that gets to you mentally. for me, it was when i finally got to a point that i could see a good 100 yards ahead and it was still going up that i decided to switch gears. ordinarily that would fuck with me but not push me to bail out. it was because at the terminus of that 100 yards, where it turned another corner, i saw a cyclist coming down the hill, whipping around the corner at speed. that meant that there was even more. and keep in mind that we’d been going for 50 miles in 90-plus degree heat, plus the previous climb. and it was a good thing that i did pull over to switch because i needed to take off my helmet & cap, as well as open up my jersey and down half a bottle of water. i was more burnt than i thought. additionally, after i did switch, there was no more shade till you got to the top. that’s a big deal. had i kept pushing through that on my regular gear, i’d have opened myself up to heat stroke.

at the top, once again, we swapped back to our regular gearing, which would take us all the way back to the start for another road ride conquered by the TLTC west coast commanders in a fixed fashion. we’re killing it these days, and getting known for it, and we fucking love it.

ordinarily when we show up on "fixies" to road rides we are met with a mix of admiration and indignation. some people condescend to us with passive-aggressive observations like "that’s just stupid," or "why would you do that?" others tell us that we’re awesome, or, as on this ride, "animals." we take it all in stride because we’re just out to have fun and challenge ourselves. we try and remain good-natured about it when people are shitheads, and we try to normalize it to others when they contend that we’re doing something impossible. but on this ride, it was extra nice because we didn’t really get any of the indignation. we were the only two people doing it fixed and we got a lot of props for it. people cheered us on and congratulated us and even wanted to talk to us about how and why we were doing it. it was really nice, a very cool community on this ride.

one of the greatest things about the day was the support and organization. with the possible exception of ALC, this was the best-supported and organized event ride i’d ever been on. there were enough SAG vehicles, the rest stops never felt overcrowded, nor were they ever out of any food/liquid supplies or medical/mechanical aid. it was really wonderful. nevermind that we had access to a pretty large meal at the end. lasagne, hot dogs, salad, fruit, juice, brownies, cookies, whatever we wanted. very awesome.

the one improvement that we offered as a suggestion was that they could have used a bit more clear route direction, but that was suggested with a caveat — the route WAS marked clearly, it was just marked on the road surface with spraypaint rather than on trees and such with signage. not everyone knew to look to the pavement rather than to signs. i figured it out early on and had no troubles at all, but others didn’t know about it, so we suggested that they just make that better known.

i was also happy to have made a new friend on the ride. this guy here saw me taking pictures of him so he strutted over and regarded me…

a great day and a great ride. and stay tuned to this link, because i have video at home that i have to edit down and post.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Team Lope Ride Report: Primavera Century 2008
2. Team Lope Ride Report: Mt. Tam Climbing Century
3. Team Lope Ride Report – ALC Day on the Ride, WR’s Account

Friends of TLTC Drunk Cyclist just sent over a package of sweet, sweet stickers, including the aforementioned #OCCUPYBIKESEAT sticks. AWESOME.

We’ll be getting something out to them shortly as well, so that Team Lope can be represented in the fine state of Arizona…

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Love forum
2. Which Cyclist NOT To Cream

Drunkcyclist, which I once thought was one surly, sassy individual but now know to be several, created a cool Occupy Bike Seat sticker, which I hope to soon acquire.

On the heels of that discovery, I noted the quite savvy use of a very aesthetically pleasing, in other words FIT, model to showcase a recent 29er review.

Here she is, displaying an Occupy Bike Seat sticker, making this relevant to the post.

Here she is displaying 29er riding fitment.

I love it! This is what we’ve been missing in Team lope Tyre Clubbe reviews. I mean, sure sometimes we have a soon-to-be-three wee lass modeling the latest baby bike fixie builds, but we need more hotness!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Swarm Seat Clamp Kickstarter Project
2. Team Lope Bike Grrls – Lucky Seat
3. The E-Bike

Don’t know if you can SEE the shirt, but it’s sick. She’s wearing a shirt. Right THERE!

http://trdl.tumblr.com/post/18452739192/great-shirt

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Team Lope Bike Grrl – 3Polo
2. Team Lope Bike Grrl – Sunset

Soon to be available in the shop, this tall mug has the same capacity as my TRDL mugs, but with the added pep of rocket fuel delivery. If you want one before I add it to the shop, contact me privately.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. TRDL Illustration – Team Lope Bike Girl No. 2: Red
2. team lope bike bio : PROCESS LOG – loos3y
3. team lope bike grrls : brie

HERE’S my first stab at video editing for ya. it’s a quick little 13-mile ride from my apartment in SF to WR’s in mill valley — something i do frequently, and which often precedes a more robust ride for both of us once i arrive.

the raw footage was collected on my new GOPRO HERO2 HD video camera, which i mounted under my handlebars.

i don’t know shit about video editing and learned as i went, using iMovie, which is SUPER user-friendly. i managed to get the footage down from over 40 minutes to the most interesting or exciting 4:45. the song is the glitch mob’s remix of the white stripes’ "seven nation army," and i have only three reasons for choosing it — one, it’s awesome. two, it’s over 4 minutes long, so i was able to maintain more footage. and three, it was a free download from the band’s own site, so i have no copyright infringement worries.

i hope you like it!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. team lope ride report : sf -> mill valley, roundtrip, FIXED
2. Team Lope Ride Report – You CAN Take it With You
3. team lope ride report : AIDS/lifecycle 7

Krys Blakemore, one of Joe’s mechanics at 718 Cyclery (amazing artist, sponsored rider, generally awesome girl) was hit by a car yesterday and thrown into a parked ambulance. I suppose if you’re going to take a header into a motor vehicle, an ambulance is about as good as you can ask for. She’s been in the hospital overnight with multiple fractures in her leg and stitches on the noggin. Scarily enough, this occurred within spitting distance of the shop.

We at Team Lope Tyre Clubbe wish her a speedy recovery and back on the bike in no time!

Send a note or a bouquet of PBRs to the shop if you are so inclined…
http://www.718c.com/

And you can read our profile on her on TLTC here:
http://teamlopetyreclubbe.com/2011/02/1 … 18cs-krys/

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Krys Rides with EighthInch
2. Team lope Artist Spotlight: 718c’s Krys
3. 718c’s Krys Interviewed on EighthInch

Less Current »