Search Term – Change
I love a sunburnt hardtail.
Influences come from many a place. A flicker, chirp or whiff that conveys a feeling and experience. Singlespeed’s have influenced my riding since the turn of the millennium. I knew I’d be forever broke as a bike messenger if it involved maintaining a geared drivetrain year-round through London’s woefully wet winters.
Last month’s Open House at ENVE was a bit of an experiment. The brand wanted to explore possibilities of showcasing framebuilders that have been building with ENVE wheels and components over the years, while offering up an option to ride in Ogden, Utah where they’re based through an event they’re dubbing Grodeo.
Words by Coach Ronaldo Romance Jr. and photos by Team Brooks
(Gallery Photos are 95% disposable film cams that I handed out to the team. Felt like it captured the inner “race” pretty authentically; and the medium was pretty fun in a “trip to the water park” “safe grad night” sorta way)
Booming Billowing Blooping Blurping Gravel.
Even with DK getting as much coverage as the TDF, I trust the pace of the news these days has left your mind blank of such cognizance once again. That’s good, as my memory of competing in the event 2 years ago has also been selectively erased, perhaps that’s why I reluctantly agreed to participate in this particular edition.
Photos by John Watson, words by Sean Talkington of Team Dream Team
Almost exactly a year ago, I flew out to Connecticut to take a tour of Cannondale’s headquarters, grab quick lunch with Lebron James, and discuss the possibility of doing a collaborative bike for Team Dream. To say I’m a cycling fanboy is a massive understatement. This is the kind of idea I have pined over for years.
Each year at NAHBS, a selection of builders at the show lament on how we should actually ride bikes together more, not just talk about them once a year at the show. I get it. Sitting in a convention center, under that horrible lighting, discussing how a bike rides is worlds apart from actually riding out on the trails. This year, Adam Sklar took the initiative to plan a weekend and then some of fun times in Bozeman and sent out an open invite to numerous builders. His idea was to expose people to the culture here, the town’s local builders, eats, drinks, and shops, in an event playfully dubbed the “Builder’s Camp.” Squid, Breadwinner, Retrotec, Falconer, Horse, Alliance, and Strong, along with a few other locals, all prepared for 5 days of non-stop riding and relaxing in this beautiful mountain town.
Falconer Slacker 150mm Travel 29er Hardtail
The work of Cameron Falconer is for the shredders. The people who put function before fashion, or thrashin’ before fashion. Either way, Cam’s work is thoughtful, exact and to the point. Like a succinct text message, a Falconer gets to the point. The beauty about Cam’s personal bikes is they represent a moment in time, or a perspective on how Cam believes a hardtail steel mountain bike should ride, or rather, could ride. Granted, a lot of this experimentation might be a bit much for the average rider to consume. Take for instance a 150mm travel 29er hardtail. It’d take me some convincing to believe that platform was the right bike for me. Hell, that’s a LOT of bike to be delivered in a hardtail, yet it doesn’t hold Cam back at all.
With an effective top tube of 660mm, a 65º head angle, a bb drop of 70mm, chainstay length of 440mm, a seat tube angle of 72.5º, geometry aficionados might nod their heads in approval. These numbers just make sense. For tubing, Cam uses Vari Wall, Columbus, and a Paragon head tube. To top it off, Cam powder coated it to match his 4Runner in a Canfield blue.
This bike is stout, but secure in its shred-pedigree and watching Cam shred it in Bozeman brought me joy. I’ll be seeing this bike in Downieville this weekend, where it’ll be right at home there as it was in Montana.
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Follow Falconer on Instagram and follow along with the #BuildersCamp hashtag.
Just a few, short years back, when people shifted their nomenclature from “bicycle touring” to include the term “bikepacking,” there weren’t many brands or shops for that matter, that catered to outings such as overnighters all the way through extensive tours. At least not compared to today’s offerings. Just about every day I read about a new product that claims to make our time on a loaded bicycle easier, or more pleasant, and as you can imagine, there is a lot of filtering that has to happen in order to cull this seemingly endless parade of new products.
That’s where the local bike shop model comes into play. My favorite part about visiting any city are the shops that make these places tick and in Portland, Oregon, there are so many shops around that specificity is the name of the game for survival in the ever-struggling retail economy.
One of the ways shops – and brands for that matter – have found the key to survival is by carefully cultivating a selection of products that have been thoroughly vetted by either the shop’s staff or close friends of the shop. The only way to determine the feasibility of a product is to actually use it, right? I’ve noticed this happening a lot, the culling down of the bike shop. In many ways, this makes for an easier retail experience, from the customer’s perspective and the owner’s.
It’s that time of year again! After last year’s Ante Up For Trails campaign, put on by the Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz, it returns, this time with an Ibis being the grand prize. Enter at MBOSC and read the full press-release below!
Geological wonders are the largest attraction for Cari and myself to Southern Utah and Northern Arizona. The Kanab, Utah region has countless zones that look like they’re straight from a science fiction film. One of the most popular being the Coyote Butte region and “the Wave.” The problem is, with popularity comes demand and thus, human impact. From people walking on the crypto soil to toilet paper and even the wear and tear on the delicate Navajo sandstone from walking on its surface. The Bureau of Land Management throttles visitors to this space by running an online lottery, four months in advance, or an in-person at the Kanab BLM office, for the following day. Each morning, hundreds of people show up for the Wave lottery, or one of the other Coyote Butte zones; North and South.
I tried my hardest to document the process of getting fit for my Geekhouse Woodville but unfortunately, the veil of the “show bike” took over. Usually Marty and the crew cover each bike’s process extensively, offering up the client photos of their bike. Now whether or not this is key in the client > builder relationship is debatable. Does it help assure the client? Is the builder looking for approval? Does it muddy the process? These are just a few questions that’s raised by documenting a custom bicycle’s fabrication. But that’s not why I’m raising those points. What I’m trying to do is walk you guys through out process, to make the often overwhelming process of getting a custom bike more attainable.
Check out more below.
Abe and Tyler are hustlin’ at full speed. I gotta hand it to Outlier, they produce some fine clothing. I’ve worn these pants for about two weeks now and have been caught in the rain a few days. Their pants stayed bone dry. Even in the pouring rain.
When it’s below 40 degrees, I wear my leg tights underneath and I stay warm, but not hot. The finish of the pants feels like Dickies on the outside, but is soft on the interior. They fit about the same as the Dickies work pants, but as I said, are water-resistant, stain-resistant and they don’t stink like ass after riding in them for a week.
Some people do the wine test, but I spilled a good amount of Budweiser on them recently and it just ran right off! Not to mention coffee, while riding one-handed to work from Gimme! in the morning.
Here’s some news ahead of the jump! Stay tuned all week as I update their drops!
An Outlier product is not your typical garment. We strive to make what we call future classics, garments that don’t just last a season but instead work for decades. That means we are always in action, always tweaking cuts and experimenting with fabrics, always striving towards producing the perfect garments.
The experimental drop is a series of extremely limited production runs of the garments we expect to be producing full on a few months down the line. It’s for the people who want to be ahead of the curve, who want to taste the future before the rest of the world knows it exists.
These are garments that are deep into our development process, we are pretty damn sure they are amazing, but we still want to test a bit more before we can give them that Outlier “future classic” seal of approval. With this series we are giving you a way in on the newness before the rest of the world is ready.
For the next four days we will be releasing one garment a day, each of which we have produced just 10 garments, give or take a few depending on the fabric.
TODAY we will be releasing a version of our OG Pant in a new Workwear fabric. The exterior is a tough canvas, the inside a soft fleece. This is the durable one, its got a high abrasion resistance, and Lotus treatment so that dirt and grease rolls off when exposed to water. It breathes great, is highly water resistant and dries fast. Available in a dark blueish gray.
If you’re in NYC, you can pick these up at Affinity Cycles and Chari & Co!
