Indy Critical Mass

hey guys,

there was a pretty good turnout at the indianapolis critical mass. i would estimate between 80 and 100. we did run into some trouble with the police though for running lights / taking up multiple lanes. i know in columbus we are more law-abiding than that. but just for future reference, that would be a big no-no. although they didn't really seem to have the capability to lock us all up since we were very mobile and numerous. one girl did get a ticket for - what people tell me - smiling. anyway, i posted some photos on my facebook if you are on my friends list. also, i posted some on my flickr page.

i would encourage everyone from columbus to try to make it up there the last friday of every month. here are some of their sites:
myspace page
official page
http://www.geocities.com/indycm/

i will be brainstorming more on the magazine today. i'll let you know when i have something to show you guys.

Foot Down

8.21.08

Big Crowd at the Library!

Sean and Craig

Craig brought a friend.

JC's new ride.

Part of the crew at ZwanzigZ.

Mountain Bike Fail

Last night a group of us went to Brown County Park for some mountain biking adventures. It was so much fun…a few gnarly wipe-outs and close-calls. Flying through the end of the trail, the handle bars for the Barracuda completely snapped in half…I definitely ate some of the earth from that. So afterward, we went to Tapatios and had some lime and red flavored Margaritas courtesy of Molly and Andy. Tapatios even blended up ice and brought us cups so we could use our own mix ha. It was a blast and I want to thank everyone involved and hope we can do that again very soon.

Moral of the story: Tapatios rules.

RE-Cycling

There's a new initiative among the biking crew.  The plan is, to build a few trailers and go around town to business that don't recycle and would perhaps like to and collect their things.  They would have to be fairly sizable trailers with bins for glass, plastic, aluminum, and cardboard/paper.  We'd be helping the environment by a) riding our bikes everywhere instead of driving) and b) helping businesses that would otherwise be throwing out tons and tons of recyclable stuff recycle.  This is one of many plans for trailers that I found online.  Instructables has a boat load of biking ideas that we should probably check into as well like these.  Nita said she was going to think up a business plan.  So we need to start looking for scrap metal and start building trailers to get this ball rolling!

Thursday Night Ride

We had a big turn-out last night! Did anyone get a head count?

The ride had several themes. "Riding a bike that is not yours" proved popular at the start:

We cruised through two cemeteries (nice and quiet with no cars!) and headed over to DQ for some frozen goodness:

People seemed to loose motivation to ride after the ice cream and the ride split as folks made plans for the evening. Overall a great night for a spin around town.

See ya on the ride!

p.s. more photos: here and here

The Magazine

So Jon (with no h) Earley made a post in the comments before I made him an author about the magazine he wants to get together.  Just reading over his short outline of ideas got me super excited the whole thing so I thought I'd put it up on the main page to help get it more attention.  And as I mentioned in a earlier post, everyone keep the pressure on him to get the ball rolling.  This is a great start to something that could be really awesome.  This is what he's got so far:

"So, here is a basic idea for the magazine:

-I want it to be very artsy and graphic design oriented.  I want ti to have a lot of great photos as background elements.

-I want to have featured bikes, featured riders, featured trails, etc.

-I want it to include articles on "how to..." such as "how to patch a tire", "how to convert your bike to a fixed gear", "how to adjust your brakes" etc. 

-I want a section with reasons to ride your bike (it's cheaper, it's healthier, it's greener, it's more fun), and also include some of those cool quotes to go along with it.

-I want to have a map with bike routes and cool spots to ride to.

-I want a section explaining the difference between all the types of bikes (fixed, road, single-speed, mountain, cyclo-cross, etc.)

-I want a section on bike events such as races, gatherings, conventions, whatever.

-I would like to print it in a green-ish fashion, like print it on recycled materials or use soy-based inks, whatever.

-Since I am working at the paper, I would like to use my connections there to somehow get it inserted into one of our papers or have it mentioned in our "connect" videocast on therepublic.com or get an ad space for it.

-I would also like to get some sponsorship from bike-related business to take care of printing costs.

The ultimate goal is to get people in Columbus (and beyond) out of their cars and start riding around making the world a better place.  I want to have this in people's faces and get them to the point that they have no reason NOT to ride to work or wherever.  

That's all.  Please send me suggestions at:

punchmybucket@gmail.com

-jon

more biking photos

hey guys,
here are some more photos of us biking (among others) on my flickr page:
http://flickr.com/photos/punchmybucket/

Just Because It's Awesome

Just wanted to post some things to say I did really.  We built an old Specialized Stumpjumer over the weekend that turned out to be one of the better builds we've done yet.  The fork didn't work (which we didn't realize until after we were done) so we cut some PVC pipe to length and zip-tied it on there; thus making it a rigid fork.  It's the poor man's lockout (patent pending).  Anywho, I rode it out in Brown County for it's debut and did some pretty fast downhills without fail.  I thought for sure the rigging job was going to explode sending me careening down a hill uncontrollably.  So now to the real point: some cool guys riding trials stuff.  They're insane.  Check out this video.

New Facebook Group

I just created a Facebook Group for the Bike Cave, join if you wanna. Also in the process of creating this group, I went to the trouble of creating an email address for the group.

bikecave@gmail.com is ALL OURS, mwa haha.

If and when you join the group, you should post some pictures, videos and write something on the wall ... I'm just sayin.


Sincerely,

Craig (I live about 15-20 feet from the bike cave) Dismore

More Bike Stuff

So we had about 12 people over at the garage the other night and got tons of bikes torn down.  It was tons of fun and Nita brought beer so it was even better.  We even got an artistic cycle built (see video like below I think), but then realized it needed to be a fixed gear.  So we just made it into a single speed.  Good story.  Latest update: Loran and Baylee made a screen print so shirts and flyers will be here very soon.  I guess if you want a shirt made, go buy one and give it to Loran.  Also, John Earley is planning on make a magazine about cycling in Columbus.  So be sure to keep the pressure on him to get it done.  He said he wants it to be a collaborative thing, so perhaps start thinking about writing an essay or something if you're into that kind of thing.  I'll try and keep you posted on that.  Anywho, don't forget about the Thursday ride (7:00PM @ the Library).  Peace.