Bottles And Chains

Better late than never…

Live the dream, come and ride. Bring some mates. Don’t be shy, it’s fun. Seriously.

Spooky Cycles made the only alloy hard tail I’d have looked at, the Darkside.

After they went away for a while, Frank The Welder started Sinister, they’re back with a suitably odd-ball range. The Horror Taxi is steel & designed for 650B wheels or good old 26inch & a longer fork. They do make them steep though.

For the Roadies, there’s the Skeletor, also the Supertouch crossbike & Kittenpaste fixie.

Kittenpaste?

NZud Rotorvegas local, and full time SS’er Matty Rayment is a good bloke. He rides a ridgid 29er, plays punk music and likes drinking beer.. The Aussie contingent at the  ‘Rest of the World’ Singlespeed Championships welcomed Matt with open arms as he was one of the few from across the ditch who understood how it should have been. Anyway I’ve stolen the below post from Matty’s blog, ‘Start Slow, Get Slower’. Well worth a read. Benny.

SVBBSPNZSSC09

‘It’s a strange mix of feelings for me after last weekend. I’ve spoken before about “Sunnyvale baked bean syndrome” which is what I used to find would happen after a big weekend or week of playing music, usually supports for international acts although it could have been a couple dates of a tour or an ep release show. All the good times, adrenaline, booze and people telling you that you’re the best thing since dah dah dah wears off, and you find yourself (in my case) in Sunnyvale (where I used to live) sitting in your lounge eating baked beans, with a distinct lack of anyone applauding you when you get up to make more toast. Continue reading “The ‘Sunnyvale Baked Bean Sydndrome’ and the ‘Rest of the World’ Singlespeed Championships”

I thought I knew what to expect.. I mean, aren’t singlespeed ‘championships’ just an excuse to drink beer and throw the empty cans at those that mistake the event for a ‘race’? This paradigm has certainly been par for the course in Australia and I really expected more of the same from the boys across the ditch at the 2009 ‘Rest of the World’ Singlespeed Championships. How far off the mark could I be..?? Continue reading “The ‘Rest of the World’ Singlespeed Championships”

June 7th Botanic Gardens EnviroFest, Valet Bike Parking Volunteers Required.
Just what is better than hanging out and talking bikes for a few hours. If you can help drop me a line.

When sitting around wasting time on the internet (as I often do), I inevitably end up passing through a trendy fixed gear blog. It seems like they’re waiting for you around every corner. Much of the time they’re good, honest sites maintained by people who have a genuine love of bikes. A fair few come across as a little pretentious and wanky, but I’ve always got that from edgy, trendy websites anyway. What tends to amaze me these days is that number of sites who seem to be in on this whole merchandising, limited edition, colab, colourways, sponsored event type things. Every second site seems to be tag-teaming it up with underground fashion labels or graphic designers and creating over-priced one-time-only garments or anodised components. And the thing is, it must be selling because it’s not stopping. It’s like the post-threadless design-your-own t-shirt website explosion a couple of years back. Same aesthetic everywhere, the same semi-elitist, somewhat removed and minimalist bend to posts, heavily over exposed photos with lowered saturation and odd angles, bold logos splashed across t-shirts and specially formulated jackets or new era hats. The list goes on.

How the hell do they do it? Where do these companies come from, and where the hell do they get the money to do it? The fixed gear trend has been going strong for what, six to eight years now? Have they all been around from the start, working hard with no recognition until now? Are they trust-fund projects? Are they the kids cool enough to market ideas to the advertisers and get the backing to make it happen? Maybe it’s just that fixed gear and the culture that seems to have sprung up around it is actually big enough to maintain the momentum of these companies.

It also seems as if the focus is evolving a little (or maybe it’s just me being sllow to catch on). With the spring classics filling blogs the vintage aspect that track bikes championed is expanding and covering wider ground. For a while now the vintage road bikes have been growing in popularity, and a fixed conversion isn’t always the first idea to spring to mind when a tasty lugged steel frame is spotted. It goes hand in hand with the jerseys, ‘real cycling’ and the increasing popularity of ‘hard man’ cycling and epics. Rapha’s continental series is a perfect example (though less influenced by trends and more by Rapha’s general direction I think), but it’s bee preceeded by the established Cannonball run documented by Andy and others. Now the Mash kids are out on the road, riding across California looking schmick in their nicely designed jerseys and riding sexy bikes.

What am I getting at? Fuck knows. Maybe I want in? Maybe I’m jealous that these people have the market or the savvy to be printing up t-shirts and jerseys every week while we have to scrape a little harder to make it happen. Maybe I’m confused about how exactly you tap into ‘the cool’ (not that I have any desire too, but it does appeal to my curiosity). Maybe that BnC X Obey X Nike colab that Quon keeps harping on about keeps it on my mind. Maybe I spend too much time on the internet and not enough on my bike (probably).

Either way, it’s nice being able to roll back to Bottles And Chains and find some homely, down-to-earth smack written by people with average literary skill who as a general rule are far from being cool enough to ever get in a video or be sponsored just for riding around on a track bike. Is that a little harsh? I love it!

Roll on BnC, keep it real. Hellbound and pedalling.

That said, if anyone wants to throw us lots of money I’ll get started on some t-shirt designs right away. I’m always for sale.

This post inspired by and tributed to: MASHSF X ArkitipIntel Mash X HipsterNascar X Fyxomatosis X Trackosaurus – Much love.

Well, it’s gone beyond cyclocross weather and into the realms of cloudburst outside. Nothing for it but to spend the day draped in front of the computer browsing the wide internet. The mud and rain has kept the browsing fairly on-topic, so here are a few good links to fill your dreary evening.

SOLO

CROSSJUNKIE

HERE COME THE BELGIANS

RACE CYCLOCROSS

PDX CROSS

RAPHA

Can you spot the theme?

Beans and Mash are currently over in NZ at the NZ SS Nationals. Apparently things are a little different over there as it’s 10:30pm and everyone’s already left the pub. Word on the street (according to some drunk bum I just talked to) is that NZ people are boring, the SS nats are more like some lame, lycra-clad, wannabe-alternative racer fest, and hydreation actually means drinking water. Pfft.

We now cross live to Ben…

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