The Radavist

What do I need to even say about this one? Controlled anodizing with titanium is freaking bad-ass! And while my enthusiastic endorsement in an earlier post might not have been accurate, Firefly is doing an incredible job with their branding incorporation. I do however like a few of Leni Fried’s designs. Including this Fat Chance logo.

Regardless, I can’t wait to see how the guys take their art to the next level!

There’s not a lot I can say about this video featuring Chacon but anything that brings people from another background into bikes is good in my book!

“Went out to shoot Mike Chacon in Venice and Santa Monica, freestyle riding his fixed gear bike and he was doing all the latest tricks. I met Mike through his father Berto in the lowriding scene. The Chacon family is famous in lowriding, reppin the Westside, as you can see here in this video. Keep your eye on Mike Chacon, he’s doing things”

Thanks for sharing Mike!

Bas shared with me a project he recently completed. It’s a series of linocuts inspired by the parts from a track bike. Check out the rest here.

Ok, seriously? When’s it going to end? Mac Spikes has quite the collection of Chris Chance bicycles and this custom road bike takes the cake. Just look at that paint job! Here are the details, as provided by Mac:

“Chris Chance road bike from 1997 with Campy Athena gruppo, Mavic Reflex rims, Veloflex Corsa open tubulars, 3T Pro Chrome stem, 3T Forma handlebars, Fizik tape and Flite in matching colors. Quite a unique bike. My brother will be riding this. This paint job is called “Matt’s paint job”.”

Yikes! Check out more here.

Previously:
Beautiful Bicycle: MacSpikes’ 1982 Chris Chance Singlespeed
Beautiful Bicycle: MacSpikes’ 1985 Fat Chance Kicker
Beautiful Bicycle: Mac Spikes’ Pink Chris Chance
Beautiful Bicycle: Mac Spikes’ Chris Chance Pista

The grassroots bicycle shows keep coming. San Diego, Philly and now Madison, Wisconsin are all hosts to their respective velo shows. The Heartland Velo Show will start a new tradition of the “Made in the USA” bicycle show. Check out the press-release below!

While I’m up in Boston, I visited Ian at Icarus to further discuss my Icarus track bike and shoot some photos of him working. For those of you who aren’t aware who Daedalus is, he was the father of Icarus, the child who flew too close to the sun with his wings of wax and feathers.

Check out more photos from my visit with Ian of Icarus below!

Alan, in some sick twist of fate, ended up in Rifle, Colorado in Yamaguchi’s framebuilding school. If you’re not familiar with Alan’s work, he’s the one behind some of the most insane tallbikes out there. Head over to Cycling WMD to see what Alan’s been up to in Colorado!

Photo by Milica Wren

You may have caught my little ranting on Twitter last night about how I just don’t get the desire to buy a 20-year old aluminum frame. It’s always strange to me why people will pay absurd amounts of money for an idolized aluminum frame like the 90’s Cannondales when they could get a custom bike for a couple hundred more and you’ll never have to own another bike.

Well, Ian at Icarus has a nice feature up on his blog called “Why Icarus? Why Steel?“. In it he addresses many questions and misconceptions. Did you know that the average Icarus frame weighs 3.5lbs and that’s without using any superlight, race specific tubing.

Photo by Milica Wren

So where do people get this whole misconception that steel is heavy and not stiff? A good framebuilder can design and build you a bike that suits your specific needs and if getting your ass hammered by a stiff tubeset is your desire, they can make it happen. Racing aluminum is one thing but chances are, if you put enough miles on aluminum on the road, carbon fork or not, you’ll notice a lot more muscle and joint fatigue. I have ridden enough aluminum to know that a 30 mile ride will really take it out of you whereas steel is always more forgiving.

Granted, the mass-produced steel frames of this new “track and fixed” era lack a lot of the qualities that I admire from my older steel bikes. SLX and MAX are two great tubesets but those aren’t the only options. True Temper and Columbus make a grip of tubesets that will offer you more than enough stiffness to get your siq fixed whip going down hills brah.

Enough of my rantings but remember, PROLLY SAYS STEEL IS REAL.

Go read Ian’s take on all this and be on the look out for the Norse x Icarus TRACK frameset soon!

Drew at Milwaukee has been saying for years “we need to make a road version of the Orange One” and I always agreed with him. But where do you get it made? Taiwan? Sure, you could. It’d be cheap and you’d be able to sell them in bulk. But that’s not always the answer. With Milwaukee’s relationship with Waterford, they decided to go local. Waterford already makes Milwaukee’s Cream City so going with a road model was painless.

I received my frameset a few weeks ago and finally got around to building it up yesterday at Fast Folks. Check out more photos of my Milwaukee Bicycle Co. Orange One road below!

Another shop that’s been a staple in my life here in NYC over the years is NYC Velo. Andrew and the guys do a great job in catering to the neighborhood commuters, PRO racers and the younger, hip crowd. NYC Velo has a great collection of interestingness, spanning the ages of cycling. From Fat Chances, to Richard Sachs cross bikes and Eddy Merckx 7-Eleven frames, the shop is littered with Beautiful Bicycles.

Check out more photos from my Farewell NYC Shop Visit to NYC Velo below!

Remember Mac’s Chris Chance Pista I posted a little while ago? Well, Mac recently acquired another one and this one’s got quite the back-story:

“This pink Chance is a bit of cycling history. When Chris Chance started making mountainbikes in the eighties under the name “Fat Chance”, this frame was kept somewhere in the workshop. It was used at a certain point to try a new paint and left and forgotten. That is, until Ron from King Cage (an ex-Fat Chance worker) asked if he could have the frame. Chris agreed and Ron applied the high gloss pink coat, as well as the last set of Chris Chance decals around. The fork was rubbed on the left side and was touched up with fluorescent orange and yellow. I recently obtained the frame and built it up with a NOS Superbe Pro 7-speed group, Mavic MA4 tubeless wheels, Vittoria tubulars, Modolo Speedy front end, Selle Italia Superleggere seat and Look World ARC pedals (matching world cup stripes on the rear).”

Man, that’s one hell of a bike. Check out more photos at Mac Spikes’ Flickr.

Previously:
Beautiful Bicycle: Mac Spikes’ Chris Chance Pista

Since day one, I’ve been telling the guys at Fyxation to make a bigger tire. Finally, at Interbike this year, Nick brought over a pair of the new 35c Sessions tires to wave under my nose and lemme tell ya, I liked what I smelled. Well, they are finally available today, at the Fyxation site and I’ve been giving these a go over the past month and they’re holding up really well!

Check out more photos and the rest of my Well Used review below.

Eisentraut is quite simply “the man”. He learned the craft of building handmade bicycles alongside Paramount maker Oscar Wastyn in Chicago. Many regard him as is the father of USA custom frame builders. Known for his “Model A” frames of the 60s and 70s, Eisentraut’s work stood heads above other US builders, who looked to Europe for their precedents.

There’s a great article from Bicycle Guide on Eisentraut below, so check it out!

The story of Icarus is a sad one. In Greek mythology, Icarus, the son of Daedalus tried to escape Crete by flying with wings his father made from wax and feathers. Daedalus warned Icarus to not fly directly into the Sun’s light for the wax would melt. Icarus ignored his father and perished after falling from the sky. While Jon’s Icarus didn’t perish, it looked kinda sad laying in the road before we shot photos of it.

Here’s the bike in the middle of South Congress with its owner, Jon. I’ll tell you a little bit more about Jon and show you his bike in detail tomorrow. I just thought you’d appreciate these photos from my Recent Roll. There are photos from the shooting range, Sterling on his BMX, Kittencrusher and others. Check out the rest here.

These are amazing! They’re a series of photos demonstrating how to defend yourself with and while riding your bike. Awesome. Many thanks to Rock n Rolling Cycling Team for digging these up!

“Do not attempt to take my bicycle, sir!”

Photo by Blaine Davis

Just because the fair-weather cyclists in NYC stop riding, that doesn’t mean the builders stop building! Everyone knows the winter time is when builders get on top of their building queue and Thomas from Horse Cycles is doing just that. From revamping his website to building this single-speed cross, Thomas has been busy this winter.

Check out some more photos below!

This is well worth the watch. You might recognize a lot of the photos in this video. Here’s a background on Leo Furmansky of LAFotography:

“21-year-old Leo Furmansky lives in Austin and works at Fast Folks bike shop on the East Side. Originally from the Ukraine, Furmansky and his father moved here 10 years ago from Brooklyn. He started with BMX, but later moved on to fixed gears.

Through his interest in biking, Furmansky got into photography. He takes action shots of stunts but also loves street photography. “BMX and photography definitely got me out of trouble. It definitely helped me focus and do my own thing,” he says.

“The society’s great, the people are awesome” he says about Austin’s bike community. “There’s so many different kinds of people.” Most of Furmansky’s friends are bikers, and he often joins in on the social rides happening on any given night of the week in Austin.”

Solid Leo, really making a name for yourself!

The Molteni jersey and frames that Merckx rode are icons from the history of professional cycling. Even when they’re in black and white, you still know what you’re looking at. Tokyo Fixed Gear recently visited Kamir’s show at Tom Dixon‘s and on display is this Molteni Corsa Extra. For those of you who appreciate throwback designs, you need to read on.

Check out more Merckx Mondays below.