Crows

I rode the North Table rim rock trail this weekend for the first time this summer. It’s a magnificent little 1.7 mile trail on the top of the mesa, a breezy little relief after you’ve busted your ass climbing up from the valley that encompasses the Coors brewery, clear creek and the straggly bits of Golden.

Near Fall

This is not just my Texas centric perspective speaking, I really think we have a different take on this whole seasonal change thing. I don’t say Fall, as well, we just have Summer and Not Summer.

Cobbles

Beautiful footage of the Paris-Roubaix cobbles. That’s a lot of punishment for both tire and rider.

Just, Whoa…

A year ago this same time, Murray was on a waiting list for a heart. Around the same time, Kevin Underhill, an Austin man who Ron Murray had never met was also experiencing a life-rendering change.  Underhill, an avid Austin cyclist and a rock and mountain climber, spent weeks observing cyclists racing at the Driveway Racetrack off of […]

Racing is Fun

Really. Don’t I look like I’m just having a great time?

SXSW at Mellow Johnny’s

One way for an already kickass bike shop to become more so? Hold free concerts. With free beer.

Comfort

We raced at Comfort this weekend, and to say it did not go well is a magnificent understatement. Here’s how I remember it at least. Ok, here we go wade. One minute, timers, running…30 seconds… we’re going to roll, off clip in, sprint for the first turn, cut it on the inside, and then just […]

Mud. Lotsa Mud

I’m going to defer to Cormac McCarthy to describe my first lap at the Mellow Classic this weekend. If you haven’t read The Road and don’t plan on seeing a grizzly Vigo Mortenson this week when the movie comes out, the brief synopsis is a boy and his father surviving in post apocalyptic America. In […]

BikeFail

It’s 8:30pm, it’s still about 98+ degrees (even though the sun is down) and I’m sitting on the back porch at Rudy’s with rob, clad in full spandex-riding gear, shot gunning a Lonestar, after having walked three miles up from the bottom of the greenbelt. But let me back up… I’m a firm believer that […]

Bad Day

It wasn’t the whole reason, but it was the final straw for sure – after two days of missed appointments and way-too-long phone calls, the AT&T U-verse dude informed me that, due to our apartment’s electrical system being so old it was actually installed in 1836 by Mescalaro Apaches hoping to trade some day-labor for […]

Awesome

This is possibly the greatest invention since penicillin or human flight.

Coldsprints

Take a fixed-gear bike, mount it on a roller with zero resistance, and get fools to pay you $5 to sprint their hardest for 20 seconds to qualify (or not in my case). Add crowd and liberal alcohol, and a jeering MC an you’ve got my fairly badass evening. More pics, including my own epic […]

Mas o Menos

Cars used to be relatively simple – the VW bug is a great example, you can take the entire engine out with three bolts. As we stared into the guts of Germ’s Subaru in Junction, Texas looking at the smoking viscous mass that had spewed onto one of the catalytic converters (yes there’s two – […]

Theivery

I met this guy, Clayton a few years ago as we were starting to get involved with the Dirt Derby. He was a name-dropping-douche-bag-womanizer, so we didn’t really hang out to much – I declined or dodged his offers to go on longer rides and training sessions. Turns out that was a good thing. Yesterday […]

The Non-Renewal of My USA Cycling License

USA Cycling is the national (non-profit) entity whose purpose is, according to their official Articles of Incorporation, “the preservation, development, and administration of the sport of  bicycle racing within the United States of America.” Well, sort of. Keep in mind that we, as cyclists, pay anywhere from $60-100 a year for a racing licenses, to […]

Computrainers

As we know I have a certain fondness for bikes, video games, computers, and gadgets in general. So when Jeremy presented me with opportunity to try all those things at once my head metaphorically exploded and sprayed thinking-organs all over the keyboard. After I collected myself, I made my way to Mellow Johnny’s – Lance […]

Night Rides

Thursday evening finds me screaming down the Hill of Life at speeds unsafe in the day time, and terminally unwise as the sun begins to set on the opposite side of the canyon. By the time we hit the bottom, it’s completely dark, the temperature has dropped another ten degrees with the incoming cold-front and […]

Livestrong '08

Apparently, the hardest part for me about the Livestrong ride is getting up so damn early. 4:30am is not prime-time-wade-time. But just the same, Sunday morning at 5am I find myself hanging out at the intersection of 5th and Red River, with a couple of meth-heads and one dude who swears he just needs a […]

Road Bike

She’s only been at the shop two days, but of course those two days have had some of the nicest weather in months. Damn you brown santa! Bring me my replacement braze-on-to-clamp-on-derailleur-adapter!

Clearing the Air

Four Cyclists who were wearing smog masks when they arrived in Beijing, have been forced to apologize…I guess for not wanting to breathe the stew of airborne-shit that is the city’s air? Four US Olympic cyclists who caused an outcry when they arrived at Beijing airport wearing smog masks have today apologised to Games organisers. […]

Cycling in Austin

Texans are insane. It’s the heat and the good food. More specifically though, Austin cyclists are really insane. By some lucky quirk of geography and wind patterns, the weather in Austin is dry enough (a little more so than the eastern parts of the state) for us to pretend like we’re in a really hot, […]

Doping Sucks

Or does it? Sign me up for some socks that say “Rural Moldovan Destitution Sucks.” And what about “Kazakh Existential Terror Sucks”? Can SockGuy fit that many letters around an ankleband? Do you have enough room on those socks to write whether you’re sincerely committed to the fight against doping if you’re not giving these […]

Reimer's Ranch Race

“If you’re going to walk out, I think you need to go that way, “ said the hippy race volunteer, pointing to the right. “Really?” asked Tim, “Are you sure you have the map turned the right way?” “Oh huh. Right,” she spins the map around,” Yeah, I guess you go that way,” pointing to […]

New to the Stable

After a little bit of waiting, my custom road bike is done. Well, almost, but hell, its painted and sexy. More to be had here.

Bike Gods Are Pissed

For those of you not hip to this jive, normally part a and b are attached to each other in a fashion that allows one to shift gears, while simultaneously maintaining tension in the chain and generally keep the bike moving in a forward, or at least semi-forward, direction. We’d already had a crap crap […]

Waco

We raced Waco on Sunday and accomplished our two primary goals: not being last place and not dying. Germ did better on the first goal (finished 10th) and I did better on the second goal (his freakishly big-wheeled bike tried to throw him off a cliff).  Good Times. Other Peoples Pictures.

Lack of stash

Apparently I’m doomed to fail as a cyclist because I am genetically lacking in a crucial department: facial hair. When one thinks of mustaches, the connection to the world of cycling might not be the first thing to come to mind, but upon further inspection, there is in fact a long and very esteemed list.The […]

Loose Bolts are Bad

(All apologies to the fail blog for a little bit of plagiarism) Following the stunning feat of not dying in Terlingua last weekend, I thought I’d do some light biking around Austin. Riggggggggght. Sat: Walnut Creek’s BMX loop has some great little jumps on it. Nothing serious, but good for some fun – until you […]

Mas y Menos

When we told Tim about the specifics involved in a marathon race his highly appropriate response was something along the lines of, “that sounds like something you should get paid to do, not the other way around.” I’m also pretty sure he prefaced the entire thing with an emphatic and heartfelt “you stupid hippy, why […]