Ted James Design Logo by Arther Optera
Ted James‘ skull and cross tools logo lends itself to re-working as I posted before, here is another one, this time by Arther Optera, very nice! Spotted this at Ninja Cats.
Night Rider
Last night I went out for a solo ride at 9pm, my girlfriend was working a night shift and I thought it would be more exciting to go for a spin than it would be to sit in and watch TV.
In reality I was so desperate to try out the cleat placement on my new shoes that I was ready to burst and simply had to ride. It ended up being a lot more than what I was expecting though, I live right by the seaside and there is a promenade right along the beach so I rode on there. It’s pitch black for much of it and absolutely dead at night so it was really nice, it’s a 5 mile run each way.
I ended up going off the path and taking in a few hills but I wish I hadn’t; I ride the fixed for commuting and fun times and the road bike to climb hills and push myself but last night I realised that I don’t really ride for no reason whatsoever anymore. There is always some kind of goal: going to work, distance, height, shopping…
I am going to continue these night rides along the front but from now on there will be no hill climbing, no sprints, no looking at the Garmin to see how fast I’m going or how far I’ve travelled. I am going to log the miles because I have a general 2012 overall milage I’d like to accomplish but these rides will be about just riding and nothing else. They’ll last as long as they last, some could be 10 miles, others maybe 20-30, who knows. Last night it was 16.5 miles.
Brother Cycles Reflective Sweatshirt
Brother Cycles have a 3M reflective sweatshirt on the way, these look super cool. I’m a big fan of both their logo and their typeface (I’d call it a font but thats not hip enough anymore). They should be available soon.
Ninja Cats get Social
The London fixed freestyle troupe Ninja Cats are now on both Twitter and Facebook, may god have mercy on our souls.
14R Release: Imminent
Looks like the often copied yet never beaten mystical 14R frameset from 14 Bike Co and Fixedgearlondon is about to drop like a spotty teenager’s nuts.
More details to follow later this week…
howies Brenin Cycling Jacket
Following hot on the heels of the news that howies has bought back it’s independence they have announced an awesome looking cycling jacket called Brenin.
It is made from 80% recycled polyester / 20% polyester and features stretchy patches in all the important areas, reflective detailing and a chest pocket with headphone cable access.
It will retail for £100 and is available this spring.
Brother Cycles Reynolds Track Frame Drilled Option
The badass silver Reynolds 631 track frame by Brother Cycles now comes with the option of a drilled fork for all you safety conscious front brake using dudes and dudettes. So if your puny legs prevented you from buying one of these frames in the past you’re now in luck.
My New Road Shoes: Giro Trans
I got a new pair of road shoes in the post today, exciting times! I’ve been using a pair that were way too big for me all winter so I couldn’t be happier.
The Giro Trans are a mid-range shoe with an RRP of £159.99 but look and feel like a top of the range pair of whip kicks; they feel like it too, the fit is sooooooo good. More on these when I’ve used them for a while.
Kraftwerk Tour De France Animated GIF
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while because it’s immense! Nobody loves an animated gif more than I do and I also love cycling and Kraftwerk so this ticks a lot of boxes.
Tour De France if very probably Kraftwerk’s worst album though, what is it with road cycling and terrible techno music (and FGFS and terrible rap music)? They should have made a cycling album in the vein of Computer World, they could have easily made songs like Pocket Calculator but about bike parts!
I found the gif at enoFisenough which is a cool blog, I tried tracing it back to it’s source but Tumblr is just a never ending stream of dead ends and infinity scrolling so I gave up.
Reverse Route, Rabid Dogs and Rhydypandy Road
Today we went out at 8:30 again and did a similar route to yesterday but in reverse, there was a bit more climbing so it was more up my street. Everyone else had somewhere to be so they went about their business after 22 miles and I continued on to reach 50.
I headed up to the Rhydypandy Hill climb, I’m not really interested in competing in races but one of my goals for 2012 is to take part in the annual Swansea Wheelers Hill Climb on this 2 mile stretch of road. By the time I got to the start point it had been drizzling for a while and everywhere was a bit wet but I stopped to take off my jacket then set off.
It wasn’t long before I realised I’d taken the wrong road because I rode through the middle of a working farmyard which wasn’t there last time but I was making good time so I decided to keep going for 2 miles and see how I did time wise anyway. Unfortunately I hit a dead end at 1.58 miles, a time of 7:05 wasn’t bad so I turned around and made my way back to the start, a severely rabid dog launched itself at me in the farmyard giving me a minor heart attack, it shot up from 115bpm to 160bpm instantly according to my graph!
I got back to the start and this time took off on the correct route but at half a mile I bonked and it was all over (it took me 13:46 which is really really slow), attempting a sprint hill climb after 32 miles was a stupid idea. Visibility was severely limited, reduced to just a few metres so I took it easy up and over the mountain and under buzzing electricity pylons.
It was so foggy that I missed the turning I needed to get to a climb that @penbwl has told me about on Twitter. I ended up in Clydach which is the village where I lived from age 7-13 so I decided to ride up a mountain in Glais which I walked up back in the 80’s during one of my 24-hour famines for charity. Again I took the wrong road and hit a dead end before returning to the bottom, asking a dog walker the way and riding up the right road which was also a dead end, both were nice little climbs though.
I felt like shit from 30-50 miles, dunno why but I deffo need to get my legs back in shape!
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