Candy Cranks

Coming from the craziness of Honolulu’s streets full of potholes and terrible drivers, a vacation to Oregon was the Hawaiian cyclist’s paradise. Luckily with Hawaii powers, we brought the sunshine to Oregon and had fantastic fall cycling weather with wonderful friends. Our first stop was for a delicious Thanksgiving feast in Corvallis, home of Oregon State University. This college town is flat and comprised of over 90% bicycle lanes. We visited our part-time Hawaii resident friend and bike polo enthusiast Eilif, who lives at the Corvallis “Bike Haus”.

The Bike Haus residents graciously lent us polo bikes and took us on a mini bike ride on some paths and to downtown Corvallis.

Cuties Kevin and Shanna rocked the tandem bike!

Eilif even gave people rides on his bike rack.. Dave looks like he’s having tons of fun

And by chance, we ended up with the Corvallis bike and pedicab crew’s section in the holiday parade. The kids enjoyed the pedicabs, bike tricks and wheel guards on the polo bikes.. hopefully it made some of them want to ride bikes!

From Corvallis, we went to Portland for a weekend of bikes, beer, friends and good food. The Honolulu community bike shop KVIBE is getting a cargo bike from a local Portland framebuilder, so we went to the cargo-bike specialists at Splendid Cycles to check out the bikes, and pose for pictures.

The Ace Hotel where we stayed offered free bike rentals to hotel guests, which allowed us to explore the bike friendly streets of Portland with great happiness. Our friend Shawn gave us a tour of the North East Alberta district and other friends Brett and Megan biked us around the South East area.

Overall, a successful vacation from a tropical paradise to a cycling paradise!
Most photos by Sau Hsu.

2011 Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championships from Hans Kellner on Vimeo.

Sheila Moon Presents the Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championships 2011
(It’s raining right now in San Francisco so the course is guaranteed to be good and muddy!)

Sunday November 20th: RACE DAY!
A world class course awaits featuring oversize obstacles the likes of which you have never seen. Races running all day long. Race multiple times and win!
Races will be held near Metson Lake in Golden Gate Park. (MAP)
Costumes are optional, though they may help start positions.

Race-Day Schedule of Events

9:00 Men C/Clydesdale/Juniors/Tandem/Women (SS/geared) – 45 min
10:00 B Men (SS/Geared) – 45 min
11:00 Open Men (SS/Geared) – 45 min
12:00 Men SS E.A.W. – 45 min
13:00 Women SSCXWC – 45 min
14:00 Men SSCXWC – 60 min
15:30 Awards

16:00 – ?? – Post Race Party and dinner at the Buckshot Restaurant Bar and Gameroom! A short ride from the park at 3848 Geary Blvd. (Between 2nd and 3rd Ave) Please note that the Buckshot is CASH ONLY.

To help big up all the female riders, every registered female racer will get a pair of Sheila Moon sleeves/moonwarmers. Sweet!

more photos of  KLIFGT 2011 TRIP  I & II

KLIFGT 2011 *Kuala Lumpur International Fixed Gear Tournament 2011

via WOOF

early stage of our camp build with the headless unicorn bike

A month ago I did a little post about the bike I was planning to take to Burning Man and the heap of bikes in a dust lot in Reno that I picked it out of. I never did get to ride that red Specialized because the friends who took it up to the event early sent me a text saying that it had a totally busted tire and to just grab another one from the lot. So I did. They gave Big Red away. There’s a lot of gift giving going on at Burning Man. So, I picked out another bike, a beautiful silver cruiser. I didn’t have much luck with bike number two either. It turned out that under Silver Lightning’s sparkly coat was a bright lime green finish, meaning that she was a “yellow bike”, a shared community bike, and I got busted by the crusty yellow bike police. While the loss of this second bike nearly broke my heart, I knew that she had community duties fulfill.

The thing that people say about absolutely NEEDING to have a bike at Burning Man is totally true. Black Rock City, the town that exists for just one week of the year in the Black Rock Desert, is a big place and a bike comes in handy for getting around to all the many things you want to see and do, plus when everyone else has a bike and you don’t it just sucks. It was a great pleasure to just cruise around in the open desert at night all lit up on a bike, avoiding pedestrians, other cyclists, and art cars, and trying not to get lost from my friends. I learned that when going to the massive parties in the club districts at either end of the city, it is imperative that you leave your lights and EL wire on and blinking or you will spend a good chunk of time looking for your ride.

So, on that sad sad morning when Silver Lightning left me, what did I do? After a few moments of feeling sorry for myself, I remembered that Susan, the lovely lady from Reno who had let me pick my first two bikes out of that pile had had the smarts to pack an extra bike in her RV, just in case. At the time back in Reno, I thought she was crazy, but I was blessing her that day out in the desert. I just walked over to her camp and picked up the spare bike and took the opportunity to borrow her kids trailer and hauled some water back to my camp. Bike problem solved and hydration provided! I even inherited some EL wire to light up that last bike, I’ll call her Lucky. So, I rode Lucky through the potholes and fluffy patches of dust for the rest of the week. I cruised around with new friends to the perimeter fence and airport, to various bars, parties, and burns. I checked out art and participated in Critical Tits, the largest group ride at Burning Man with around 5,000 riders, women only, tops off.

Third try's a charm. Me and Lucky hauling some water.

out by the perimeter fence with little planes landing and taking off just behind it

Me and some camp mates all set for Critical Tits with the Man behind us

Dude taking pics of all the tits. Expectedly, still sadly there were many like him.

looks like some sort of Critical Pink is about to happen...I was just passing by in the wrong colour

It was such an amazing week that was filled to overflowing. If you haven’t been to Burning Man and you have friends who have and they don’t stop talking about it, just forgive them a little. There’s just so much going on and it’s tough to describe. I was so into experiencing it that I didn’t take many photos. There were tons of crazy bikes lit up in crazy ways, some super tall, others with antlers, or unicorn heads and ponytails. I did however document the parking lot at the casino hotel I went to after the event. There were cars with crazy dusty bikes all over.

Good ole Lucky served me well and is now is storage in Reno. Hopefully I’ll get to ride her again, perhaps even next year.

Hi all in Honolulu.. If you’re free this weekend, check out these events!

First off, a Kalihi Melee at the community bike shop K-VIBE (Kalihi Valley Instructional Bike Exchange). This is an event which emphasizes healthy lifestyles through biking and eating ono foods. K-VIBE is a bike shop catered to the kids of Kalihi to get them involved with a positive hobby to meet friends, learn skills, improve themselves and ride bicycles. There will be a BMX competition for the kids, bike polo and a bicycle powered blender for smoothie making from Cycle Manoa. More info at the K-VIBE blog!

Aloha Sunday is back!

Hope to see ya there!

A few years ago whilst traveling through Nepal, Tarn and I were lucky enough to meet Tangi. A lovely French guy who had previously ridden professionally for Commencal. He lives in Pokhara during the summer months taking tourists out on rides, the riding in Nepal is amazing and breathtakingly beautiful.

In this video Tangi journeys from Kathmandu to the high Himalayas in the Solukhumbu region of Nepal. Here he climbs (for 2 days!!) and rides the virgin peak of Pikey discovering exciting trails, snow capped vista’s, and some sort of inner peace. A once in a life time trip to discover some of Nepal’s hidden secrets.

The Enjoyride exhibition is a collection of photographs taken during the 16 day Melbourne to Brisbane Joyride bike ride, which took place in November 2010.

Thursday June 2nd

7pm Deus Cycleworks

72 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst

Vimeo

Seattle ladies! It’s time to get competitive!  The women behind the monthly Menstrual Monday rides have planned an all-girl alley cat for June 11th, starting at 2 PM.  Here are the details:

“An adventurous romp through the Seattle city streets celebrating the best thing ever, GIRLS ON BIKES. In addition to prizes to the fastest riders, we will also have prizes in fun and creative categories to encourage new or non-competative riders (DUDE over a $1,000 worth of prizes). Plus we will have a rockin after party to celebrate the girls. What could be better?”

So, to be clear, prizes for being super fast but ALSO prizes for fun and creativity. I can’t think of anything better.  Sadly, I’ll be in NYC so I’ll miss the fun but all Emerald City ladies should def be out there!

You can RSVP on the Facebook page and, at the very least, check back there to get more info.

Not tough enough to run a 26 mile marathon, but awesome enough to bike it the night before? Then join the Boston Midnight Marathon Bike Ride, hosted by Greg Hum and BostonSOS!

Since the start/finish lines and fancy mile markers will be set up, you’ll feel just like you’re running the marathon, except without all that silly cheering, and on a bike! If you don’t have a bike, you can rent one from a place like Urban Adventours (http://www.urbanadventours.com)

Put in for your vacation day at work NOW!

Itinerary:

1. Arrive at South Station with bike and bring bike with you on 11pm Commuter Rail from Boston South Station, arriving in Southborough at 12:01. (Commuter Rail Schedule: http://bit.ly/9Thmlo)
($6.75 for ticket from South Station to Southborough)
2. Ride 3.2 miles from Southborough Station to Boston Marathon Starting Line in Hopkinton, Ma. (about a 20 minute ride)
3. Ride 26 Miles, 385 yards to Finish Line in Copley Square, Boston Ma. (Depending on your group’s pace, this could take you anywhere from 2 to 3.5 hours)

Point A: Southborough Commuter Rail Station
Point B: Starting Line in Hopkinton
Point C: Finish Line in Copley Square

More details