I like my bikes like my chaps...

Fast Boy Assless

Prototype Assless: rattle can spray painted.

Mid fab and interestingly staged.

Tuck position makes for expedient trips downhill.

 Ezra Caldwell, a NY bike builder, was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2008.  To make matters worse (as if things could get worse) doctors forbade him from riding in a saddle at all.  The following is an except from Ezra's blod, teaching cancer to cry, highlighting the realization that he would be unable to ride as he knew for the foreseeable future.

"...I was hoping that I would say to the doc, “Hey doc, Alberto [the radiation oncologist] says I can’t ride a bike..  it that true?  Is he just being over cautious?” and that he would say “Oh that’s just silly..  Go ahead and ride your bike.  Your happiness and sanity are of the utmost importance..  I’ll call Alberto and tell him myself”
This is not what happened, of course.  Instead, he said “no..  He’s right.  You really can’t.  And in fact, when the treatments start, it will be quite uncomfortable for you to even sit on a chair, let alone a bike saddle”
..."

Realizing his physical and mental need to ride, Ezra designed and built the Fast Boy Assless Bike.  This sans-saddle frame allows Ezra to cruise across Manhattan to treatments, appointments, and errands.  The bike is undoubtedly unpractical but it serves it's distinct purpose.  The white finish with red cross is certainly easier on the eyes than the spray painted prototype (which should be noted Ezra built in the midst of chemo and radiation treatments.

If insterested, check out his blog.  It is sad and inspiring and will make you want to ride long and hard (or whatever your passion) incase tomorrow you can't. 

All the Dingle Ladies

Fast Boy Dingle Speed

 This is a Fast Boy build from 2009 and I'm loving all the function Ezra puts into such an attaractive package.   This Fast Boy utilizes a White Industries DOS Freewheel mechanism, which allows two cogs on a SS freewheel which is why it's called a Dingle Speed. Not only that but the chain ring also has two sets of teeth so it’s a dual dingle-speed. Lastly, the rear Phil Wood hub is a fixed/free flip-flop hub. So it is, in fact, a double-dual-dingle-speed.
All nonsense aside Ezra Caldwell has been documenting his battle with cancer in one of the most sincere and real bogs I've read.  I recommend it.

Back on Track

Hillbrick Track by Pony Bikes

 The famous cobblestone alleyways of Melbourne is the perfect backdrop for this Aussie made bike.  Sasha Strickland established Pony Bikes nearly 6 years ago and conintues to gain popularity among Melbourne's cycling community.  This beautifully lugged Hillbrick frame features custom paint, Paul royal flush crank, Brooks saddle, and rounded out by Phil Wood components.

Track Meet

Factory 5 Low Pro Track

Factory 5 track bike.  61cm frame with killer component kit including one of only five pairs of H+Son carbon fiber wrapped Formation Face rims.  They won't see full production, because they are a pain to fabricate, but look great.  Love the stylish Paul Royal Flush cranks which make this bike go.  The photo shoot was in the midst of a Chinese tour which add to the bike's character reminding us that bike's are made to be ridden.  
"We Build. We Ride" Factory 5

Two for tea

Bilenky Cycle Works

This gorgeous tandem can join you anywhere in the world.  Six couplers allows the bike to be broken down into a single suitcase without sacrificing the frame's integrity.  Typically I trust collapsible frames as much as I do carbon fiber which is not much.  However, the ability to travel a bike overseas is a benefit that far outweighs (literally) the benefit of an ultralight bike that will only last 20,000 miles.  Bilenky has mastered fillet-brazing bike joints to add stability especially to weight bearing tandems.  The video below introduces Bilenky as well as the technique.


Art In The Age Presents... Fillet-Brazing with Steve Bilenky from Art In The Age on Vimeo.

L'Eroica

I can't add anything about this amazing event that the video and pictures don't convey.  All I can say is this is bucket-list priority one.  Now accepting donations.


L'EROICA (english version) from Edouard Sepulchre on Vimeo.

Not for a hundred million, trillion, billion dollars!

Wolfies Cycles

Wine, cheese, ballparks, and bikes all get better with age.   It’s the weather worn bikes with a few battle scar, greasy chain, and timeless style that have the most personality.  During the 50s, everything looked like it could blast off into orbit.  Kitchen appliances became more streamlined, cars grew fins and even bicycles began to look like they would roar like a jet and exceed the speed of light.   Australian Mark Austin, with a background in architecture concentrated on this era and amassed an inventory of some of the most impeccable examples of bicycles from this era.  He sold this collection in 2011 and I'm sure he's regretted it ever since.
The collection includes bikes from Roadmaster, Western Flyer, Elgin, J.C. Higgins, Schwinn, Monark and a shaft-drive Columbia from 1895.

"I wouldn't sell my bike for all the money in the world. Not for a hundred million, trillion, billion dollars!"

Bikes with baggage

MAP Randonneur

Randonneur (noun): long-distance cyclist, especially one who participates in randonneuring events usually consisting of courses 200km or more.

The true beauty of randonneuring is there is no more glory for the day's first finisher than the days last.  Though many chastise the modern day 'everybody wins' athletic mentality, completing such a distance in a day puts you in an elite club and forever crowns the successful.  

Another example of beautiful West Coast bike makers making beautiful West Coast bikes.

Sioux sweet

Figo Vengeance

Part two of DSC and Gee's collaboration is based on Figo Vengeance, a Sioux shaman known for winning a West Coast bike race in 1957.  Featuring tied leather grips, trailing feather, and Sioux totem graphics, the ride pays tribute to the man as well as Lakota heritage.

Movement for action

El Capitane 

"Never Confuse movement for action" ~E. Hemingway

When is a bike not a bike?  When it's art.
Artist Stevie Gee and Death Spray Custom (both of the UK) co-created the custom paint of El Capitane.  Inspired by Ernest Hemingway, this cycle is 1/2 of the two part collaboration called Vengeance is Coming.

"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them." ~ E. Hemingway

"Rosebud"

Bob Jackson Light Tourer

Classic bike, lots of style.

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"Rosebud was a bike."  The mantra of San Francisco's Citizen Chain bike shop sits proudly in the front window next to the bikes with the most personality and character. Rosebud, the enigmatic last words of the newspaper mogul Charles Kane, has been regarded as one of the greatest secrets in cinema.  The idea that a bike could be so intimately connected to person to be their dying utterance seems like a leap to say the least.  However, cursory research reveals this to be one of a half dozen leading hypotheses. 

The story is that in an early draft of the film, screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz wrote that Orwell’s character mentions Rosebud to a secretary who then asks “who is she?”  Kane’s answer is nearly as cryptic as his dying breath, “It isn't a who, it's an it."  Stories circulate that the symbol of Mankiewicz's own damaged childhood was a treasured bicycle, stolen while he visited the public library and, in punishment, never replaced.  Some critics believe this is the emotion he drew on when writing the loss that haunted Kane.  I suppose we all have our own Rosebuds.

Welles' may have been "don't-let-them-make-war-of-the-worlds-into-a-shit-film".