Watts Included

2006 Cannondale Six13 ships with integral SRM power meter

The Six13 is there somewhere in my wildest dreams. Costs a fortune and will for sure become even more a wild dream since the SRM power meter will be included in some of the 2006 bikes.

Read more at bikebiz.

Bicycle Paintings, by Taliah Lempert

Bicyclepaintings.com - Bicycle Paintings, by Taliah Lempert



This post over at Velorution lead me to Taliah Lemperts site www.bicyclepaintings.com.

Check out here gallery for more beautiful pictures of beautiful vehicles. Next time I'm shopping for art i know where I'm going!

Taliah's statement
I work from observation not photographs.
A photo captures an instant.
I spend many hours on each picture.
My brush strokes record that time.

I paint pictures of bicycles
to document, explain and express my community and myself.
The bikes belong to people who ride them.
They are worn and customized in unique ways,
being at once a specific bike
and a collective symbol of empowerment.

Begone Gravel! Begone!

Ahhhhh... Sitting here sipping my morning coffe listening to the machines sweeping the asphalt clean of gravel on the bike paths outside. Time to take the road bike off the trainer and hit the drops!

Shoot Low, They're Riding Recumbent

This article from the Green Bay News Chronicle portraits a couple really living by their bikes.



Passionate people


During the last weeks I've got loads of referrals from the site LigFietz Plaza linking to my post about Stylish Bicycle Storage. It's a Dutch club for Recumbent riders. It seems to be a really big thing in the Netherlands. Here in Sweden you see them from time to time but not that often. However the people who ride them and participate in online communities seems to be very serious and passionate about their riding. It makes you want to try it out.



Fantomen (the Phantom)


Another interesting spin-off from the post about Surly's Pugsley was the comment by Mary which lead me to the site Velo Mobiling. This is something i have never seen in Sweden except for some blueprints on a model called "Fantomen" (Phantom) you could buy from the Mail Order company Hobbex when i was a kid. Last time i checked they still sold the blueprints for 42 SEK roughly 4$.

Velomobiling was as passionate about their thing as the Recumbent people was. And when people are passionate about things that for me seems a bit strange or odd i think it gets even more interesting.

I think that there should be more cross-over get-togethers among HPV-users no matter what kind of vehicles you use. This would give us curious people a chance to try, feel and understand each other.

Maybe i missed something. Maybe this kind of meetings already exist. If so please enlighten me. I can't wait to pedal that Fantom or go feet-first on a stream lined recumbent.

Premiere Spring Ride

10 degrees Celsius, clear skies , moderate winds and good company by Per, a new acquaintace from the Swedish biker community www.happymtb.org, made the premiere ride on snow free bike paths a very enjoyable experience.

Per took the initiative by announcing a so called "Happy Ride" on the community forum. I grabbed the opportunity to follow with him. The Internet is fantastic :).

Before leaving home i switched my snow studded winter wheels to my road tyres on the Kona. Great gawd what a difference!!! It's like taking your ski boots off after a day on the slopes and sliding into sneakers. Like walking on the moon.

We traveled at audax speed (avg of about 22 km/h) for 50 km. Chatted about cycling and family life. Per is foremost a MTB-rider and he helped me mentaly a bit further on my way to become a owner of a "Forrest bike".

A good ride that we will be doing again with even more company from the community.

Hook this to your trainer

Read more...

The Velorution is here again

One of my favourite blogs are back online after a lengthy break. Check it out...

WANTED: 90+ Riders

You know of any riders older than 90 years and still riding? BikeBiz reports of Daily Mail wanting to get in touch with them.

Read more...

African winds brings the spring

Wooohaaa!!!

The temperature is rising. Around zero degrees Celsius today and on Friday they promise a very welcome 8 degrees. African "Hairdryer"-winds (Fönvindar in Swedish) usually finishes off the remaining ice and snow very quickly.

Will probably change my bulky, soggy but highly effective snow stud tyres to my 700x23 WTB El Caminos tomorrow.

Me + Dr. Dew + sun warm tarmac = happy.

Petting the hand that feeds you

I just added a couple of blogs maintained by professional riders to my daily readings. I however stumbled upon a problem that they all share that in my opinion makes them go to dev/null without passing the recycle bin.

They review their sponsors products! Fair and balanced? Don't think so. It's all "hallelujah", "The best i ever tried" etc. etc.

I understand that these people are in great need of their sponsors but please don't under estimate the intelligence of the people that read your blogs.

As the late Frank Zappa said:

"There is a great difference between kneeling down and bending over".

Bicycle Storage with High WAF

Turning Bicycle Storage into Art





The above article lead me to the Delta Cycle Corporations home page. They have specialized in making stylish bicycle storage solutions that will look nice in the space where you are actually living not only your garage. If you, like me, live in an apartment, have no garage and receives looks that could kill every time you mention that storing the bike inside the apartment would be a good thing, this could be The Shit.

They also have good solutions for transporting your bike(s) in a SUV (god forbid), Flatbed or Van. From last summer I'm a lucky owner of a mint condition Volkswagen Transporter -88, and they had a pretty neat solution in the form of an expanding bar that you fix between the sidewalls of the van and attach lockable fork mounts to. I guess i would be able to get at least 3 or 4 bikes inside my Transporter with this solution.

The only thing that keeps me from ordering right away is that they currently have no reseller in Sweden.

BikeBiz: Daily News Modernized

BikeBiz: Daily News

After some struggle with the demons of technology their RSS-Feed is working!

Really tough field tests for the Pugsley

surlyblog:

Dan Sunshine from Surly did the Pugsley vs. SUV test yesterday.

Read all about it.

Surly's new fattie

Picture of the Pugsly prototype mentioned in yesterdays post. Got it from Andy Corson from Surly with a permission to publish it. However he pointed out that this is his prototype and it differs from the production version which will be in a different color (purple sparkle coat) and have black side walls instead of tan.

Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy

Singletrack Magazine reports that Surly has a new bike called Surly Pugsley in the pipe.

Aimed for the harsh winter commuter it has tyres of a size i have never seen before. On the pics it's not equipped with fenders. Can hardly imagine how much muck this machine will throw on you if you don't put some on.

Not sure if i think it's ugly or cool perhaps it's both (usually a very good thing), but it sure looks Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy.

Read some more...

Also check out the Surly blog for news about the test rides.

Touring Guide from Bike Nerd

Knox Garnder, owner of the blog Bike Nerd, is home in Boston after his 2004 tour of Europe waiting for warmer weather when he will hit the road again aiming for Seattle.

He has put together a simple guide for us folks that havent dared to stay out for longer than a couple of hours and think touring is more complicated than it really is.

Check out his guide and don't miss his Europe Diary (in the July, August and September archives).

Glow in the Dark

Illum Jacket : Glow in the dark clothes

Now you can ride like Robert Redford in "The Electric Horseman" but without bulky batteries.

BikeBiz reports about a new innovation that PPD and independent apparel design consultancy Goose Design has developed.

It's called Illum Jacket and is developed with bicycle communters in mind.

This is the short story:

The Illum concept jacket features electroluminescent surface graphics, activated by a soft-switch set into the cuff and powered by an integrated thin film battery that provides the small charge needed to activate the lighting via a transparent, printable conductive layer. A further printable polymer forms a photovoltaic solar cell used to recharge the battery.

Read more at BikeBiz.

Oh my God it's gonna look like Tron on the commute when this hits the market!

Helpful Tacx FLOW review by "Team MWC, FTJ, NGT"

Blogger ashwinearl has put together a very helpful and thorough review of the Tacx FLOW trainer over at his blog Team MWC, FTJ, NGT.

Go there and read the review if you are shopping for a new trainer or just find out what the TLA:s in the blog's name means :)

Re-Cycle

Unique gifts made from recycled bicycle parts



Clock from Recource Revival


Got an alert today from Google News leading to this article covering an enterprise called Recource Revival. They capitalize on the fact that Americans throw away 5 million bicycles each year. We all know how beautiful most of the parts attached to our steeds are and Recource Revival saves them from rusting away at the dump and turn them into gifts and home furnishing that they sell online.



Relax in a stylish way with this piece called Vector Lounge Chair(LCV) from Bike Furniture.

A bit funny to read about this today since I got the first 2005 issue of the Swedish Cycling magazine Kadens today. One of the articles was about another company, Bike Furniture, that also recycles old bikes into furniture.

I guess these guys makes the bicycle an even more environment friendly innovation than it already is. And thats a good thing.