GSC: WHITE

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John and Kyle posted a very nice build from the Work frames we developed with Chas and Cinelli. By only offering frame sets we commit to a custom approach to building bikes, and seeing how frames are approached from so many directions re-affirms our vision. The detail work on this production frame set is understood by the mechanic, the photographer, and the rider. Personally, the Sugino 75’s strike a cord with me. All of the bikes we have developed with Cinelli have been single speed up to this point. A rider can take parts from a track bike and build a SSCX/FGCX, commuter, trainer, or city bike. These Sugino 75’s with rotational wear are a symbol of this story. Ride what you have. Break it, replace it. Thanks for sharing. Check their full spec at Golden Saddle, and The Radavist sites. Have a fun weekend!

PATH: ERIK ZO

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Oh, how the years go by . . .
In 1976, when I was 11 years-old, I was given a 24” wheeled sew-up clad Frejus track bike. I had been racing on the road for 4 years starting with a 20” sew-up wheeled Legnano, next moving on to a Coppi with the same sized wheels. The road bike I was riding when I got the Ferjus was a 24” wheeled Coppi loaned to me by the Murphy Family. John W. Murphy, the head of the family, ran a bicycle importing company down on Shipley St. in SOMA. It’s where his three daughters and I played while the adults worked. Yeah… I grew up in a bike shop. John also started the bicycle coalition . . . and well, that led to The Golden Gate Bridge being open on the west side to bicycles and Golden Gate Park being closed on Sundays to cars. I also remember how the day after I got the Frejus, an old git came in on an orange Cinelli track bike clad with fenders and panniers. Out of his bags, he pulled out a stack of records and a bunch of cogs secured with a Binda toestrap, and said, “ Hey kid, now that you have a fixed gear, you need these”. The toe strap had inch pitch cogs on it from six teeth to eleven and half by eighth cogs from thirteen to twenty-four teeth. The records— Louis Cottrell trio (I played clarinet as a child!) Stan Getz at Le Hot Club, and Django Reinhardt, as well as a smattering of big band and Dixieland—all discs, any “Jazzman” would approve of. At this point, the track bike was a natural progression in my racing. Because my parents had to keep our shop open on weekends, some customers on the shop team “The Golden Gate Wheelman” would take me with them to the races; the track bike allowed me to ride in events on the banks at Hellyer Park in San Jose. Fast forward thirty-five years or so . . . I am riding down Market street heading towards Fifth Street and 3 teens or maybe even preteens roll by, swaying at the bottom of each stroke to reach their pedals from their seats that are on their top tubes. As the light turns yellow the oldest one yells, “MASH IT!” — I realize they are all on fixes— and they sprint through the intersection leaving me at the crosswalk. Red light. I was remembering how back in 1985 the only fixed gear rider I met the whole year was a P.I. who had moved from New York. Then, Berlin 1993, and it’s the first Cycle Messenger Championships. There are 5 messengers who brought track bikes, the internet still did not have a web browser and maybe 50 out of 500 of those messengers knew what the internet was or even had an address there (clarify). And of course, before you could say “myspace”, all that had changed. Within a few years, the Messenger World Championships had put the fixed wheel under messengers from every city that partook; and that placed the “Fixie” in the eye of the youth in urban areas. It’s a short stretch from there to plot the number of members in the myspace fixed gear army group against the production numbers of bicycles with rear facing dropouts. What I am saying is that the fixed gear meme may be the first global youth trend to grow with the power of the internet. It gave the youth a look at the freedom and exhilaration of a vehicle anyone can understand… and they couldn’t resist. Ten years pass in no time at all, but, it’s amazing what can be accomplished in such a short amount of time. MASH the movie, led to a team, shop, and projects, but most importantly, a community is part of that whole mix. MASH is the old man with the pile of records and the strap of cogs. MASH is this book..and so many more stories yet to be written.
EZ

DFL 12-26-2015

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DFL is the best way to wind down the Cyclocross season, as well as burn off some holiday dinner. Celebrating their 21st year hosting these open corse cross races. One category, and if you wear a dress, you race for free. Enclosed are some details from a perfect morning in Golden Gate Park. 12-26-2015

MASH SHOP SCREENING: CREATE FOLLY

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Last Friday night we kicked off the bike shop level screenings of the new video, with an alleycat, book signing, and a screening of the video included with the book. Matt and Kyle from Create Folly stopped by, and shared some moments from the night. Rob Ward won the alleycat geared, Sean won first fixed. Check in for more details.

BASPS 2015: Dylan Buffington

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Dylan was out with the CX team racing, and taking photographs this past weekend. Check his full set HERE.

YASHICA T4 / TMAX400 LONDON-BERLIN-TOKYO-SEOUL

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While traveling last month, I shot a roll of 36 TMAX400, and just picked up the prints. Enclosed are some details from London, Berlin, Tokyo, and Seoul.
Duke
London Alleycat
House of Vans London
Flea market
Kid crash at a pump track
Evan
Brick Lane
Keirin Berlin
Michelle and Mika
Treptow
Small Skatepark
Tokyo
Dylan in the rain
Wakako and Toshi at Lug
Group Ride
Bike Pile
Marco
Art Show
Chas
Walton Brakeless
Blue Lug
In Seoul with Hacheon and Erica
Eddy
Vans

MM

Santa Rosa Cup 2015

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Last Friday night, some of the CX team headed north to race in the Santa Rosa Cup. A 3 day series that consisted of a night race, a reverse day race, and the third event on a fresh course, after some fresh rain. These moments where captured at the first night race. Bike Monkey has grown to support these fun races, and we are grateful for their efforts. Chelsea, Al, Eddy, Rainier, Dylan, and Walton came out, and put in work. Walton won the series for the Elite Men’s A’s. Chelsea took 3rd for the Elite Women’s A’s. Enclosed are some details from Friday night.



Cross weather is here.

The wide open sight lines meant no chase was ever really over.

These guys actually smacked racers in the head in an unpredictable way.
This corner was velcro at the beginning then got worked looser and looser, forcing riders to rethink their lines. Hops.

Empty kegs created a maze of confusion with smoke, laser beams and cranked up music.
Bike party.

Nearly all of the night’s races took place after dark and the hecklers were out in force in every corner.
Line it up.

Stay loose.
Send it.
Get after it.

The fast track let racers really cook the corners.

Bike Monkey organized an amazing event and positive vibes carried through the weekend.

Walton and Gavin battled lap after lap.Cameron J. Moose.Holeshot vibes.
Braaap-braaap-braaap.Solved the maze.

The Walt and Hoppin Haley. This format was a huge hit! Let’s do it again.

BAY AREA CX: KYLE EMERY PECK

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Cubby has been smashing in the SS B’s this season, and between races, he has been shooting some film for a CX zine. Enclosed are some highlights of our team racing that Northern California sand this season. Thanks for sharing!

MASH JAPAN PREMIERE: N.B.

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We are back in San Francisco after touring Japan and Korea for events last week. With a few days to get acclimated, we are finding fun photo sets from these trips, and want to share them here. The first set comes from N.B. who works at Blue Lug, and took time to show us around while in Tokyo. With Hiro, the team had a weekend full of events, and a new city to explore for many. Enclosed are some of N.B.’s images from that weekend in Tokyo.

We met at the airport on Wednesday, and celebrated Chas’s shorts birthday ever, as we flew forward a day, landing in Tokyo Thursday. Nine of us flew out from SF, bikes are built, and we explored, quickly mapping routes to the event spaces we would be using in the days to come. Open Distribution set up the Tokyo events, and we could not believe the details that went into this packed weekend. Friday, we met at the gallery, where a team was fast at work setting up a large photo show, and had flown the 10 year Cinelli Parallax from Italy to have on display. Riders where met with some photo/video press interviews. This was a new experience for many of them, and an indication of what the weekend ahead had to offer. The room filled up as the night ramped up. Many old friends we had med over the years, so so many new faces, excited to better understand what our group of friends/riders are into. Chas was greeted with a birthday cake, and some dudes got loose that night.

Setting up the show

This was the first time we had traveled with Matt and Eddy, and it was a blast for these guys to have time to explore the city together.

We had sent hundreds of photos published in our new book to the organizers, and they in tern sent them to several bike shops and cafes. We did not realize this until we rolled to W-Base and found another full art show, with tons of artifacts from our premieres hosted in 2006 and 2007. Very inspiring for all of us to see the love and respect that came from Moto and his team.




The next stop was another full display at See You Soon Shop. The guys all loved their designs and instantly bought gifts to bring home to friends.

They had a wall of Polaroid 665 prints, and asked the guys to contribute to the prints.


We learned there was a lottery to win tickets to the video screening. The venue seated 250, and the plan to show the new movie two nights in a row made it possible for most interested in checking it out. the following photos are a mix of Saturday and Sunday screenings, that offered a Q&A, as well as a warm introduction of the history of our project, translated.



Martin and Kevin are old friends, and put in endless time to help make the new video strong. We are grateful for their efforts.
On Sunday night, Dylan awarded the first women racer Mone from the alleycat from the night before. Garrett designed special jerseys, and Castelli produced them for winners of all the races that happened as we traveled.
We are a very small project, and bike shop. To travel around the world, and share with others, what we love, was an incredible honor.

Family photo

Saturday night after the screening, Nicolas, and the 25LAS / Black Sox Bicycle Club hosted a large alleycat. 117 racers signed up, and set up for a late night point to point street race. This was the largest alleycat Tokyo had seen in six years. The pressure from police suppressed this community heavily, and we felt lucky so see so many racers come out, and take some fun risks together on this night.

Nickolas



Smoke is always a fun way to start these races, so it was a nice surprise to see these organizers make this dramatic start happen.


The race finished at the cafe where the podium was awarded.
Massa, a messenger from Cyclex was the winner on this night, upsetting Torizo, who has a long standing history of winning Tokyo alleycats.

Sunday afternoon, a large group of riders met up to show the guys the Tokyo streets. The group was maybe 150 riders, so they split up into three smaller groups, and ran around, seeing sites, and finding as many times as possible to stop for ice cream. Mission accomplished. Group ride photos by Takuto Watanabe.



We want to thank everyone for coming out, and the endless amount of support put out by all of the volunteers to make this a massive weekend in Tokyo. We all got on the plane, instantly missing new friendships made. It was a reminder to come back soon.

Thank you!

Vallejo Race Report: Rainier Schaefer

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I started in the third row for the very wide and very steep uphill road start. I found a line on the very outside of forty-five racers, and got a good jump. Unfortunately, in the center of the first or second row, something happened and it looked like a wheel was exploding mid-sprint. The racer was flailing around as his bike jumped around under him like a crazed bull. This threw me off—but not as bad as I’m sure it did those behind him.

I came around quite a few dudes before we hit the dirt. After a couple of turns we rode a loose and sketchy dirt chute that was six inches wide. I think I was just inside the top ten at this point. The new Scott Chapin, Justin Abbott, was leading the way with Derek Yarra a few spots behind. Over the next couple laps I, maybe a little too furiously, tried to pass (my first cross race of the year, afterall). I was making moves on a couple leg-sapping grassy hills and definitely hit it hard on the pavement climb. These features helped me move up a few spots. However, a few technical spots on the course made me lose just as many.

First, I came around one sketchy ninety degree sidewalk corner and sprinted hard. In doing so I completely lost control of my rear wheel and my rear end flew in the air sideways toward a cliff. I lunged the other way at a chain link fence and bounced one-handed back on two wheels. It was a miracle! Second, I lost my front wheel in a u-turn off soft dirt, falling and losing a spot. This type of crash is very typical for me. The third crash, occurred in one of the many dark corners of the course. Digging deep into my pedals over rutted dirt and roots I skipped my rear wheel and again completely lost control of my rear end, sending me spinning off my bike into the dirt and losing a couple spots.

The good thing was that I learned from each of these. Thereafter, I played it safe exiting the sidewalk turn, ran the dirt u-turn, and soft pedaled rutted roots. The bad thing was in one of those incidences I landed on my rear derailleur. I discovered this when shifting into my largest sprocket and put my derailleur into my spokes.

Strong-man Swanson came around me after my last spill and I was grateful—his steady riding was a relief to the furious elbow bumping, wheel skidding, sprint/brake riding of the first few laps. Swanson and I picked off a few riders for a couple laps as he motored along, but Keith Hillier popped by both of us on a grassy rise and got a good gap. After a lap chasing with Swanson, I gave it all I had into one grass climb and came around Swanson just before the top. Now it was up to me to catch Hillier, who had a little less than twenty seconds on me, and I had a solid nine laps to do it.

Eight to go and it was still up to me to catch Hillier.
Seven to go and it was still up to me to catch Hillier.
Six to go and it was still up to me to catch Hillier.
Five to go and…you get the picture.

That is, until one to go. I closed ten seconds in the first half of the lap — at this point he was very close. I just needed one more solid effort — I had to get around him on the road climb. After the road climb, the latter half of the course was single track, single track sidewalk, single track run-up and a bunch of turns (for all intents and purposes also single track). I sprinted as hard as I could up that road and just as I was nearly coming around him near the crest he looks back and says “shit!”. He accelerates ten meters over the top and maintains his lead going into the single track to finish second.

Rainier Schaefer

Photos courtesy of Tim Westmore.