Candy Cranks

Take a peek at cycleangelo’s newest Bike Check 212 vid, featuring Jarah sittin pretty on 650c’s! His camerawork and tight editing explore each rider’s individuality through their gear. Looking forward to the next Bike Check 212!

Take a look at these great bicycle illustrations by Juri Zaech, who is currently working on prototyping an actual bike like this! Awesome! May I suggest spelling S-A-N-D-Y…?

So i’m sitting in my comfy leather chair wondering how i will make it to bed..my legs are numb..totally dead! But a good feeling nonetheless..i was the only girl in today’s ‘How to ride fixed’ workshop here in Amsterdam. The workshop was part of the Sur Place exhibition and events that have been happening at Mediamatic Bank (check it out here )

The workshop was pretty cool – Keng from Pristine was our instructor and he gave us some good tips for improving our skids, skid jumps, track stands and a few tricks..i didn’t realize fixie riding in the sun could be so much hard work!! Lotsa fun tho..maybe next time more girls !!

Here are a few pics from the actual exhibition space

Beijing is hosting their 2nd ever alleycat next weekend, Aug 14th & 15th. Looks like they’ve got some fun stuff lined up and some sick art by Canadian/Shanghai-based artist Allister Lee. It’s gonna be a great event, big ups to the Beijing Fixed Gear crew!

Reality Studio recently skipped the traditional catwalk and opted instead to show their latest collection on the streets of Berlin – on bikes! Models donned pieces from the label’s fall/winter collection and cycled around the city center proving that you can be stylish and comfortable on two wheels. The girls toured Berlin on Electra Townie bikes, don’t they look great?

I just got back from a trip to Paris via Rotterdam – catching the start of the tour and getting a peep at where it will end!

The Grand Depart was just that : Grand ! Rotterdam was full of cycling enthusiasts and the atmosphere was great ! To top it off The Netherlands put on it’s best weather..a real treat !!

Here are a few pics..

London to Southend, about 60 miles of rolling quiet roads from East London to the seaside town with the longest pier in Europe, with the promise of fish and chips at the end..how could I refuse?

The Dunwich Dynamo is fast approaching, and worried that I hadn’t got any serious miles in my legs, I signed up for the Southend ride on lfgss.com. I’d done the ride several years before and remembered how great it was, plus a lot of my friends were doing it.

This ride was also going to be the inaugural outing of the new Surly Crosscheck light tourer that my good mate Nhatt was building up for me at Brixton Cycles. Disaster struck late on Friday – the bike wasn’t ready! Whilst I didn’t really want to ride it fixed (my only other ride), I had another idea.  So with a borrowed brake lever from Brixton cycles I did some last minute work on the fixed, and stuck a freewheel and a rear brake on it, packed the saddlebag with tools and food, filled the water bottle and was good to go!

After getting up at 6am on Saturday, I met some friends down the road from me and we rode the 10 miles to the start point in East London. After a fresh bagel from Brick Lane, around 40 of us headed off out of London.

Highlights of the trip were a herd of bulls running along side us in an adjoining field as we rode and the weather which was amazing! One of the guys had brought his mate on a massive mountain bike totally unsuitable for the ride – he was pushed up hills, given food and one of the fixed guys even swapped bikes with him for a stretch (he’d never ridden fixed before). He thoroughly enjoyed himself! The pace was fairly slow and there were a few hills, but even I managed to get up them all.

After the inevitable puncture and water stops, we made it to Southend just after lunchtime, fish and chips had never tasted so good! This was followed by beers on the beach and sunbathing in the glorious weather for the rest of the afternoon, then the train back to London and home.

All in all a healthy 80 miles under my belt – which will stand me in good stead for Dunwich in July.

The next ride will be a ladies London to Brighton ride in June, I’ll be sure to report back on that as well.

Today will be spent watching the Giro, rubbing cream on the wierd spots of sunburn from yesterday and doing as little as possible!

Southend Beach!

On the Road (pic courtesy of Spybot)

So summer is nearing and the days are getting longer..which means more time to play with my bikes! My lovely ex-housemate left an old bike for me to tinker with and i have made it my summer project. The big plan : strip and re-build my first bike

I have never built a bike before and the extent of my bike fixing knowledge is flat tyres and adjusting seat posts/handle bars ! So..2 bike fixing manuals later i stripped the old bike, sanded the frame and re-painted it. Looking good so far.

Next steps : bike building course booked in the UK in 2 weeks (yay!!) then come back home and start the tricky bit! It’s loads of fun…i’ll post updates (and hurdles) in the coming weeks

I contributed a little blurb to Urban Velo‘s I Love Riding in the City column, Shanghai edition! You can read the full article here.

Amsterdam has Giromania! This weekend we kick off the Giro d’Italia here in Amsterdam and the city is dressed in pink waiting anxiously for the big race !
Extremely bad planning on my part means i won’t be in town for the big day but here are a few shots of our lovely bout of Giromania.

If you are in town be sure to check out the bicycle procession that starts Museumplein to Olympic Stadium on Saturday 8 May, they are saying there will be about 4,000 unusual bikes with cyclists in pink outfits..cool !!

Stage 1, 2 and 3 will start this weekend – check out more info here http://www.giroditalia2010.nl/