Ted King: Racing with the PROs, Advocating for Bikes

Posted on August 16, 2012 by josh| 1 Comment


Photos via Ted’s blog. 

Ted King’s cycling star is on the rise. The New England native was the top ranked domestic professional in the United States in 2008 when he was tapped to join Cervelo TestTeam and headed to Europe to race in the pro peloton. Now he’s racing for Liquigas Cannondale, competing in some of the biggest one-day and stage races in the world. I interviewed Ted by email as he wrapped up at the Tour of Utah. We discussed his start in cycling, the challenges of Europe, his environmental and bike advocacy, and more.

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Posted in Interviews, Racing

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My First Bike: Yoshi Nishikawa

Posted on August 14, 2012 by josh| Leave a comment

My First Bike explores the life and work of professional frame builders by going back to the start and looking at the first bike they ever built. Today’s My First Bike features Yoshi Nishikawa, a production welder for Seven Cycles who recently launched his own company, Kualis Cycles.

Give me the short rundown of your first frame: when was it built, where, materials, any special details about it, etc.

These two frames were almost built at the same time. One of them is for a C1 racer on the Rapha Japan team. The other one is also for a C1 racer.

I had an order from the customer directly through my blog and website. The customer wanted a bike which made him win in a cross race.

When I design a bike, when I decide what tubes to use for the customer, after checking the customer’s information, I always imagine a frame in my head before it is built. Maybe this way is from my past experience as an architect. I make a little story between the customer and a bike.

I follow all the processes from touching a tube, to adjusting the alignment by feel after welding. I imagine clearly about the tubing character and the stiffness, softness …

This bike was also built through the process for only this customer.  I design and build each bike with each character. Every bike is different even though I use the same tubing.

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Posted in Cyclocross, Frame Builders, My First Bike, Racing

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Steve Garro: Arizona’s Mountain Biking, Trouble Making, Frame Building Legend

Posted on August 9, 2012 by josh| 6 Comments


Photo via mimbresman.blogspot.com

Steve Garro has been somewhat of a mountain bike legend for longer than many people have even been riding. In the late 80s and early 90s, his crew of racing and riding friends, The Mutants, were known as the wild men of the Southwest racing scene. They were as famous for jumping fires and riding gnarly slick rock as they were for racing hard against the biggest names in mountain biking. Steve later began building his own mountain bikes, launching his company, Coconino Cycles. A collision with a car in 2005 nearly took his life, but he recovered and returned to work building custom bikes of all kinds in his Flagstaff, AZ workshop. I got the chance to ask Steve questions via email about his early use of bikes to get out into the wild, his racing days with The Mutants, his frame building, and much more.

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Posted in Bike Industry, Frame Builders, Interviews, Mountain Biking

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Reveal the Path: Good Adventure Porn, Decent Film

Posted on August 7, 2012 by josh| 3 Comments

Recently, I had the opportunity to see a screening of Reveal the Path, a new documentary from Ride the Divide executive producer Mike Dion. Ride the Divide follows a handful of racers during the 2008 Tour Divide. For those unfamiliar, the Tour Divide is a 2,700 mile, self-supported mountain bike race from Banff, British Columbia in Canada to Antelope Wells, New Mexico on the U.S.-Mexico border. That style of self-supported mountain bike racing and riding is called bike packing.

Reveal is, in many ways, a sequel to Ride the Divide. Though it’s not about racing, the film follows Tour Divide alums Matthew Lee (five-time winner), Kurt Refsnider (2011 winner), Dion (he competed in the 2008 race, though he did not finish), and the film’s producer, first-time bike packer (and Ride the Divide director) Hunter Weeks on a bike packing journey, riding and camping on trails and remote mountain roads across Scotland, France, Morocco,  Nepal, and Alaska.

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Posted in Bike Touring, Mountain Biking, Reviews

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My First Bike: Dan Boxer

Posted on July 24, 2012 by josh| 1 Comment

My First Bike explores the life and work of professional frame builders by going back to the start and looking at the first bike they ever built. Today’s My First Bike features Dan Boxer of Seattle’s Boxer Bicycles. 

Give me the short rundown of your first frame: when was it built, where, materials, any special details about it, etc.

I built my first frame at United Bicycle Institute in Ashland, OR in September 2005.

It was designed to be a 650B wheeled randonneur. It was meant to carry a handlebar bag with a dedicated, handbuilt rack; use dynamo lighting for the headlight; braze-ons for the battery taillights; provide clearances for the then-oddball size 650B x 38mm tires and fenders; and the big “challenge,” braze-on brake bosses for MAFAC Dural Forge “Racer” centerpull brakes.

As it happens, I was able to convince the instructor Ron Suthpin that it was okay for me to use the Richard Sachs Newvex lugs, even though they were a bit ornate on the shoreline for a first build to braze very cleanly. I also snuck in some lightweight tubing, .7/.4/.7 Columbus downtube, .8/.5/.8 top tube.

I went a little “fancy” on the dropout connections, trying to emulate the French style where the very end of the scalloped stay or blade end is not filled. It looks cool and requires good heat control to make the filler go where you want it to, especially for a first build. I asked the Ron, and Gary who was assisting Ron at the time, how to do this technique and was advised against it. But I went ahead and did it anyhow.

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Posted in Frame Builders, My First Bike, Randonneuring

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