Rapha Rides the TOC - Episode 3 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

At the end of January, Rapha sent a team of six riders to ride all eight stages of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California. Riding each stage on consecutive days and matching, as closely as possible, the route the pros will start riding tomorrow, every morning for the next week you can find out how they got on.

With an exclusive report posted before each stage begins, and accompanied by compelling photography and video, the Rapha Continental brings you the Tour of California from a unique perspective. For a (slightly) slower but more colourful examination of the places and people that make up this year's Tour route, visit...

Somehow in representing so few of us in the expense of their clothing and equipment, Rapha has managed to represent so many of us in their marketing. I've mentioned this before

The riders of the Continental are of my age and aesthetic, but in the shape I was in in 1996, riding Cat 4 races throughout the southwest. The video I embedded above, some of the closing shots remind me so much of riding Mt. Lemmon in Tucson.

At any rate, all the "ToC" videos (and you should watch them all) are incredible and inspiring, and help to communicate that what matters is that we ride and how we ride, not what we wear.

Pictures from: mannytmoto

BFOC

Yesterday before this lovely T-day meal I went around the lake again--once a week for two weeks in a row feels like progress at this point--and on the way back had to hit this trail that's not really a trail, just an old rail line that hasn't been converted back to light rail or bike path yet. It was a bit thick with stones for my Surly (single speed road bike but w/ thick tires), so I came home and returned with the Gary Fisher (single speed mt. bike). South it goes as far as the lake (and from the looks of satellite view even further). North it turns to constant rail ties pretty quickly, un-fun to the point of totally loosening up my saddle (which has never happened on even the gnarliest of local trails). All it would take would be to remove those ties to make a decent few miles of trail there, from the lake up to Royal/75. Of course there is already the Spring Trail, so it would be redundant. Still, I want to know which rail line it was that originally ran there, and the exploring kind of made me wonder if one could devise a (mostly) off-road century ride around Dallas, connecting established trails with unfinished former rail lines with BMX shortcuts with 4WD truck spots. The Trinity River fire roads could account for upwards of 50 miles by themselves. Then this morning this Rapha story was in my inbox and really inspired me to look into it. First I think I'll look into any other such rides in other parts of the country.

Rapha Gentlemen's Race - Sept. 6th, 2008 from RAPHA on Vimeo.

Pictures and write-up at the Rapha site

I can't afford a stitch of their (probably exquisitely comfortable) clothing, but I love what Rapha is doing in the culture. Neither hipster-fixie or ego-racing, they represent most of what made me fall in love with cycling in 1989. The team I rode on from junior high into college was a fairly hardscrabble set of honest central PA gentlemen and ladies. My three favorite memories from that time are:

1. The Harrisburg-Gold Mine loop. Gold Mine was the most feared climb in the area. Short but ridiculously steep. The descent down the north side started like the first big hill on your favorite roller coaster (but with a sharp right, right at the beginning) that dropped you into about a two mile long dead-straight descent where speeds over 60 mph were common. The loop was about 80 miles total, if I remember correctly.
2. After three hours of play races (6-9pm every Thursday) at Rossmoyne Park--scratch races, points races, miss-and-outs, you name it--sitting on the park bench outside of the Camp Hill 7-11 drinking Slurpees (best recovery drink ever) and talking into the night.
3. After a few hours of winter training on the mountain bikes at Lambs Gap--back then there weren't mountain bike trails, you just rode the motocross and hiking trails--defrosting in my coach's Vanagon (which had the most kick-ass heater ever) as snow began to fall.

I get super nostalgic for those days. By the time I was most of the way through college, bicycle racing had started to be more the domain of the overcompensating and asinine. The non-sanctioned races common in the 80's and early 90's had been litigiously pushed out of existence, and even mountain bike racing was becoming the domain of the Very Serious Athlete instead of just an excuse to drink beer while riding a bike.

Got around by bike today and also walked two full trips around the state fair. The return trip was in the dark, without lights, and there was a lot more zig-zagging and not knowing where I was between point "N" and "R" on that map.

Expired: Shaking your Polaroid pictures

Tired: Cycling culture

Wired: Taking Polaroid pictures of _cyclocross_ riders in _Portland_ with some vague _Belgian_ connection

MASHSF videos, click on "Asustin" ...it's pretty cool, and also features, in the words of the producers, Lance fucking Armstrong.

I miss PA and riding...

Jason McCartney rides around Beijing

Goodness this made me want to ride my bike.

Parent article: A ‘Relaxing’ Ride, but Not for the Faint of Heart

Rapha Continental - Richard Sachs ...more than you're ever going to find on the internet about the legendary frame builder.

fast boy just built one of his amazingly beautiful bikes for Glen Hansard

and found out he has cancer

fooks sake

he'll be documenting his journey via his amazing photography on his flickr stream

consider this a pointer

Gothamist: NYPD Investigates Cop Videotaped Throwing Cyclist Off Bike:

The cyclist who was videotaped being body slammed off his bike in an apparently unprovoked attack by an NYPD officer during Friday night’s Critical Mass ride has been identified as Christopher Long, a 29-year-old resident of Bloomfield, New Jersey who works at the Union Square Greenmarket. His boss tells the Daily News that Long is an Army veteran and "mild-mannered environmental activist." Craig Radhuber, 54, was riding behind Long Friday night and describes incident: “All of a sudden the cop picked this kid out and bodychecked him. I couldn't believe what was going on. [The officer] body-slammed this kid off the bicycle so hard that he went from the lane to the curb.”

...in discussing the video with the News, an unidentified NYPD source says, "The video is bad - what can you say?"

Was curious what I looked like, riding my fixie down the road with a dog attached. He survived about a mile run each way in the heat and caused me very little stress; he is trained to stay on my left which means he tried to pass behind me a couple of times after finding himself to my right, but mostly he stayed in front or just off to my left, neither pulling or crossing my path. #

I can't afford any of their clothes, but Rapha has a Flickr account, which is pretty cool. The stories behind the photos are pretty good, too, even though I don't have enough time to read any of them...and can't afford the magazine, either...

...perhaps some unscrupulous shop is doing its best to cram Pistas into crotches in which they don't fit in anticipation of the Apocalype.

Bike Snob NYC. Also:

Bikes aren't fast--people are fast. Bikes are overpriced.

(Regarding my mood: my Windows install on my MacBook died, and it appears I have no recourse whatsoever. I have tried everything. If I mess about at any lower level I might kill the entire machine.)

Worst Cities For Cycling and I've spent most of my adult life in two out of the three. Woot.