Bike Hugger 

Unmoored by MCA’s death, didn’t know yet what to write or say…This blog and what we do here and elsewhere were defined, in part, by the Beastie Boys. Just like a generation was. When the news broke, saw images like this on Facebook

Photo by April Dawne in Austin

and all I could muster at the time was a status message on G+

Feel like smashing a TV in a smoke-filled room, while cracking open cheap beers, and walking around with a fish eye lens camera. Effects set to polarize.

Then we went on vacation. Back now and to this

The best tribute.

Sabotage with the wife, kids, and nephew from James Winters

A few weeks ago, the millennial’s buying habits we’re written about and how the automotive industry was in a panic. Car makers don’t know how to market to a generation that doesn’t care too much about cars. I confirmed this trend with my teens that don’t equate their social standing with the name brand of car they drive or will drive. I’ve also posted about many car-branded bikes, like BMW, Porsche, Mini, and more. That’s not new, of course, Volvo and Volkswagen were in the sport and now VW is back sponsoring USA Cycling.

An Audi e-bike

Even though more Americans are riding bikes, the industry remains flat and has for nearly two decades. I predict we’ll see more efforts to attract buyers and a new generation of buyers into showrooms by car companies. The automotive industry has the dealer network, engineering prowess, and budgets to make a next-gen, bike consumers will want. If it’s not at the high-end like Audi’s Wörthersee, then maybe a Hummer Montague folding bike brand.

How’s a failed car brand a hit in Japan? The WSJ writes about the trend today

GM brands are hot among Japanese bike buyers. Compared with the battleship gray or dull black utilitarian bikes stacked outside Japanese train stations and supermarkets, GM-brand bikes cut a more exciting profile—because of their mountain-bike styling, prominent logos and vivid colors. Bicycles with GM logos are sold at more than 3,000 retailers in Japan.

“Hummer is the top seller by far. It stands out on a crowded bike rack,” said Takuji Motoki, who manages the Import Bicycle Factory outlet here. “It’s an aspiration-driven purchase. Most people who buy a Hummer bike could never buy a real Hummer.”

This video is from the British Film Council and shows the Raleigh Bicycle factory in 1945. Of course, they don’t make bikes like that anymore and few in the UK. While in the UK a few years ago, we toured the Moulton factory, where they still make bikes and 14 Bike Co.

Mad Men Marketing bikes

images from Barreda Museum’s shutterfly

Byron sent me this link, which seems as if Manolo Saiz, the former team manager of ONCE, Liberty Seguros, and Astana professional cycling teams, is selling off his personal collection of bikes. I don’t know if it’s legit or not, but I don’t really care since I don’t have $50K to advance the bid nor do I have room for 57 bicycles in my studio loft. But the array of bicycles listed is just amazing, almost 2 decades of cycling exotica. Sure, Saiz might be a pariah now, since the Operacion Puerto, but the advances he brought in other aspects of cycling are frequently forgotten.

Giant for hill climb TT. 650C wheels

From the artist that made the BikePorsche, a Ferrari.

A tandem inside

The porsche was cardboard. This is aluminum tubes and plastic

Video

The video mocks Michael Schumacher’s SLS “tunnel” video and the project is a parody of the 05 Ferrari FXX.

image source

There’s been some head scratching on the configuration of the new Dura Ace 9000 brake caliper. Velonews speculated that there are 3 pivots hidden in the caliper above. What’s kind of weird is the spy photo from Japan (about a month old) seems to show a full production model, while the shots of Team Sky Pinarellos at the Giro this week have logo-free examples, as if they were prototypes. I would say that the new caliper most likely just has two pivots, but instead of Shimano’s previous (and widely copied) configuration of a central pivot and a secondary pivot, the DA9000 looks to have to equally spaced pivots. This would mean that the mounting bolt is not a pivot at all, that it simply holds a centre piece with a pivot at either end.

In essence, the DA9000 would be a cross between a centre-pull brake and a side-pull in that there are two pivots in roughly the same position as a short reach centre-pull, but the cable pulls along the side instead of having a straddle cable and yoke. Seen below is the Paul Components “Racer” centre-pull (from paulcomp.com)

The similarities between the two also might explain the “direct mount” brake that Velonews discovered on a leaked tech document. Paul’s offers a “direct mount” version of the Racer which does away with the central bracket and instead mounts the two arms directly to a pair of brazed-on bosses, the arms pivoting there on. With a number of aero frame manufactures building bikes with integrated brakes, the DA9000 direct mount most likely has a similar purpose. However, bikes like the Willier Twin Foil that I have written about before have pivots that would not accommodate centre-pull-like brakes. The TRP brake that fit the Twin Foil are a variation of linear pull/cantilever arm brakes much like v-brakes, and the mounting boss sits below the rim’s sidewall (ie between the rim and the axle) rather than a centre-pull which has the boss above the rim. Also, I’m not sure how the cable arms and barrel adjuster would work on a rear brake, which on aero bikes is frequently jammed up behind the bottom bracket. Such as position would have the barrel adjust and the chainrings competing for the same space.

In this huggacast rode two bike lanes through suburban blight, then back to the hotel, like a man in a suitcase.

Bike lanes through suburban blight

Watch the ride now on YouTube or download the video file.

Right lane only

Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.

Ed. note: YouTube is blocking this video for mobile users so Sting can get paid. We’ll upload another version without Man in a Suitcase. For now, click the download links to view the file from our servers.

Uploaded by KOBB to Flickr

In part one of this post, I shared a caricature of Pantani by Jorge Mora and a blog post about Il pirata’s suicide note.

Sal Ruibal wrote that note and posted it under his Nick Verstain alias. Why? I asked. Sal replied

At my first Tour in 2000, Lance had a press conference at the first mountain stage. A member of Lance’s entourage asked me to ask Lance a question about Pantani calling himself The Pirate (Il Pirata) instead of Elephantino. I did and Lance launched into what was a prepared rant about how you can’t give yourself a nickname, it just happens. And he kept referring to Pantani as Elephantino. As I was new to the European peloton, I didn’t know that Pantani hated being called that and was enraged about Lance’s insult. Pantani got psyched out about it and that affected his performance in the Tour. There’s more to it, but the gist is that after Pantani killed himself, I felt that I had contributed to his pain by setting him up to be humiliated. The poem is my way of making him human again, explaining what he couldn’t say while alive.

Whoa. Wait. Sal was there? Wasn’t that the no gifts era and the next day Pantani rode Lance off his wheel?

Yes, but that was Lance’s intent. Then he folded on the Col de Joux Plane, lost too much time and left the Tour.

No gifts for Pantani.

Uploaded by KOBB to Flickr

From Kleider Studios.

He was more of an artist than an athlete - an extravagant figure, a Salvador Dalì

Posted this caricature of Pantani by Jorge Mora last night. Sal Ruibal replied with a blog post about Il pirata’s suicide note. Sal posted it under his Nick Verstain alias and it was published in Dirt Rag in 07. I got teary reading it.

You will read this after, so I want you to know I was happiest on the bike. For all of my memory I felt the most at home With my feet on the pedals and the world moving around me. The perfume of grease, mentholated embrocation and the heat in my legs.

Matt Rendell wrote about the life and death of Elephantino for the Guardian in 04.

Everyone longs for freedom to behave in the way they see fit. I’m a non-conformist, and some feel inspired by the way I express freedom of thought. I’ve never been meticulous or calculating, on or off the bike. I ride instinctively, responding to the moment. There’s chaos in everyday life, and I tune into that chaos.’

The sport hasn’t seen a character like Pantani since. It needs one.

Desperately.