Candy Cranks

Some lovely fenders hand crafted in Montreal out of poplar or oak from Nick at Red Tail Fenders.

More pics here.

Hand made and choice of saddle colours available, quite beautiful indeed.

Tarn and I dropped into Pony Bikes to say ‘Hi’ to Sasha and check out her bike shop in West Melbourne that’s been open for about a year now. It’s female run shop and Sasha has been working in the bike scene for over a decade. The shop looks great and Sasha’s work is ace, she specialises in custom builds, repairs and maintenance.

Pony Bikes leather jacket by 002.

Sasha at the helm. Thanks for saving us from the Hail Sasha, see ya soon!!

Saturday morning we got up and started riding to the Richmond, VA convention center, hoping we’d find a place to stop and eat breakfast on the way. We seriously hit the jackpot! If you know me, you know I’m all about breakfast. I wish we had a place like City Diner in Nashville. Not only was the food great, but the service was amazing too; City Diner saved my life this past weekend. All photos by Keith Gallagher.

The North American Handmade Bicycle Show had a lot going on. There were so many insane bikes and parts to even name them all. I met the guys at Urban Velo, and they were really cool. I also ran into Ben and the rest of the Cinelli guys again. Here are some pictures that Keith took while we wandered around the show. More photos here.

I will be recapping this past weekend at NAHBS in Richmond, VA in a few parts. The entire weekend was insane! There was constantly so much going on. Friday night Keith, Andy, Candice, and I got some sushi and headed over to the Carytown Bike Co Party. It was a really relaxed party and a lot of fun. And I finally got to meet up with Ben from Cinelli! Ben also introduced me to the frame builders. Every one was SO nice and Ben especially was way too good to my friends and I. If you guys didn’t already know, I love Cinelli! After the Carytown party cleared out a lot of us rode over to a house party that soon after got broken up by multiple cop cars and vans. From there we rode over to Mojo’s before finally riding back to the hotel where we ordered some pizza, rode around with some of the Philli and Milwaukee kids and some roman candles, and finally called it a night.

Photos via Andy’s cell phone – @ Carytown Bike Company

Looks of exhaustion at the end of the night

Primate Frames, maker of the lovely Candy Cranks frames and other bicycle beauties like The Wasp, has a new website. There’s an array of new bikes on display including mountains bike, 29′ers, single speeds, fixies, aerotube bikes, a 24″ as well as the monster downhill bike he’s building as a personal project.

Check out the new site here.

*Happy Valentine’s Day everybody*

I always wished to make people happy with my hand brewed coffee on bike. My dream has come true on Valentine’s Day!

Charinco (Bicycle) + Rie = CharRie’s

HAHA… I’ve been studying hand brewed coffee techniques at a local café and tought it would be cool to serve to my friends and customers at Circles which is my favorite bike shop in Nagoya and has a big influence on my life. The owner of Circles let me use a little space for setting up my bike café as a Valentine’s special event.  I always make miracles at Circles so I did it! I sold out 100 cups of coffee at the 1st day, yaaaaay!

Rum Ball & Gateau Chocolat made by Izumi & Rie

*Thank you for coming*

￥300 with chocolate treats (￥200 for a Refill)

Hand made milk caps.

Wrapping cube sugar.

CharRie's bike café totally matching the colors with Circles.

Circles offered me to do this every Sunday starting on March 7th *Thank You*.  I have a crazy friend “Crankee“, he invented his BBQ SURLY, we will put our bike kitchen toghether next time!

 I have a confidence with my coffee, it is actually soo GOOD!! Please stop by Circles in Nagoya and say hello to my coffee bike when you ever get a chance to visit Japan.

Thanks a lot to Circles and everyone who stopped by and had my coffee, to all my great friends who supported to put me up and had awesome happy time together.

*Have a happy coffee*

More pics → HERE!

Assembly Required: One Peace at a Time from Bikes Not Bombs on Vimeo.

This short video shows part of the story of Bikes not Bombs, a charity in Boston, MA. Bikes not bombs has seen the donation of tens of thousands of bicycles to youth programs and charities from Boston to Ghana.

Bikes Not Bombs promotes bicycle technology as a concrete alternative to war and environmental destruction. For 23 years, BNB has been a nexus of bike recycling and community empowerment both in lower income neighborhoods of Boston and in the nations of the Global South. BNB’s programs involve young people and adults in mutually respectful leadership development and environmental stewardship, while recycling thousands of bicycles.

This film is (C) 2008, Allegra Anderson

Frame Specifications

Cinelli lugs, dedacciai tubes and custom tips laid out prior to the build.

Frame mitered (cut) and set up on the jig.

Frame and fork in the raw after being brazed (welded) together.

Testing out the colour scheme.

The frame back from the painters.

Rim, Aerosposke, frame, forks and handlebars back from the painters, checking out how it’s going to look.

Getting the bars through the Nitto stem was not as easy as it looked, the angle was a little high and it ended up being scratched. It was sanded back and sent to the painters to get re-sprayed with the stem in place.

Stropping (removing) any excess paint off the steerer tube.

Tarn adjusting the headset.

All the bits ready to get put together.

Ta da! Le bike is ready to roll!

More pics on flickr.
More on the bike specs.