DETHRIDE: A Halloween Bicycle Scavenger Hunt - Denver Oct 31st

This event looks pretty flippin rad. Thanks MS Hurricane for the heads up. Heres the event details from the facebook page

"MsHurricane and ONE 26 Productions Presents:

DETHRIDE: A Halloween Bicycle Scavenger Hunt

Sunday, October 31

3 Kings Tavern

Teams of 3-5 people will compete for points based on items on the scavenger hunt list, extra points will be awarded for group costumes and bike costumes. Bikes, bags, locks and a minimum of one digital camera per team required.

Registration starts at 7pm, DETHRIDE starts at 7:30. All DETHRIDERS must finish at 3 Kings at 9:00pm at the latest with all their items and photographs, teams must be complete to finish the ride.

DETHRIDE is $6 and includes access to the show. Tickets to the show are $7 at the door or $6 in advance.

Music from:

Trees

Wolvhammer (members of Across Tundras)

Corpsetimer (Dethklok cover band)

Party Hard (Andrew W.K. cover band)

Art from:

Paul Romano (Philly) (does art for bands such as; MASTODON, TRIVIUM, DALEK, GODFLESH, WITHERED, EARTH CRISIS, etc)

Sam Turner (Denver)

James Clarke (Denver)

Vincent Cheap (Denver)

COSTUME CONTEST NIGHT OF THE SHOW TO WIN ART FROM THE ABOVE ARTISTS!!

Sunday, October 31, 7pm

3 Kings Tavern

60 S. Broadway

Denver, CO"

Fast Friday

This is where you'll find us this weekend!

I promise to take pictures.

Semi-Secret Alley Cat

Hey everyone, haternation here reporting from san francisco ! Nick Betts has stepped up to the plate to do the next boulder fixed gear alley cat. Details below along with the facebook event page so you can RSVP.

Sunday, September 26

7:01pm Registration

7:21pm Race

Prizes: Probably a few things, but definitely not as cool as the races Mork has been putting on.

Gear: Bring a bag and a camera (camera phone is fine)

Will probably have an after party location. Stay tuned.

Invite anyone that 1) Is cooler than Casey 2) Has a bike or 3) Isn't on this list already. I know I don't have a lot of the regulars here.

Super Secret Alley Cat - Thursday Aug 05 @ 10pm

Hey everyone, so you may not know this but I am moving to california at the end of the week, dont worry Peterabbit will be holding down the fort on posting and whatnot, but I decided its only appropriate to throw one more race before I leave. Im not printing out any flyers so tell your friends and point them to the website. here are the details

Date: Aug 05 (thursday) @ 10pm.

Location: Meet at folsom field buffalo

What: Its super secret youll get all the deets at the race.

Prizes: ya, ill have some stuff

DONT SHOW UP LATE !! And get ur ish on lock its gonna be crazy.

UPDATE** - Due to some unfortunate circumstances, Bama's going away party has been cancelled. So the afterparty has been moved to another location, youll know.

P.S. its also thursday night ride, you might wanna show up for that too.

Tuesday Night Racing: 7-11 Velodrome

I trekked down to Colorado Spring's 7-11 Olympic Velodrome this week for Tuesday night racing and it was a lot of fun, I think I'll be headed back next week as well. If anyone wants to bus/carpool down let me know. You'll need to get a USAC licence as those Olympic Training Center folks don't recognize an ACA racing licence as valid.

Velodrome Info.





Pictures via my mom

Badass Fork on this 3Rensho/Makino

image via 8pilgrim8

An Interview with Kris Thompson of 303cycling

Hello readers: Its no secret, we haven't had much content lately. I thought an interview series would be a nice way to get back on the flow (of web traffic), so heres the first one.

A couple weeks ago I took a ride (a very messy one, still cleaning the mud out of my brake calipers) with Kris Thompson, the founder and one of the primary contributers to 303cycling. Afterwards we did a little Q&A, heres what he had to say.

1. When did you start 303cycling?

March 2008. Before that I was doing the same thing on boulderveloracing.com as a means to improve our teams exposure for our sponsors.

2. What was your motivation for creating 303cycling?
Primary reason was my lack of interest in pro cycling because of one scandel after another, I simply lost touch with those people and had a much strong interest in the cycling that was happening right in my back door. Another reason for starting 303cycling was to fill a void that was needed and that was helping spread cycling related news that happens in our community. Where did one go years ago to get this kind of information? I also started this project because mainstream media is failing, newspapers are dying and big corporations are buying up the dead and producing vanilla news or news that has no interests to me or our community of cycling. The future IMO is in targeted media outlets, not the one shoe fits all like Fox News, CNN, NYTimes, etc.

3. Road, mountain and cross racing seem to be the main focus of
303cycling. Do you not care as much about other types of cycling or is
there just not as much to write about things like BMX, advocacy,
commuting, etc.?
I care about all of it but in the end there are only so many hours in the day and the disciplines that I am involved in are the ones I have the easiest access to. I have a strong desire to have a larger non competitive cycling tone then what is there today and as a result we are constantly looking for others to help write or just ping us when something important in the cycling world happens like opening of new bike paths, local advocacy, bike polo events, etc. If anyone ever has news you feel is interesting please drop us a line at 303cycling (http://303cycling.com/contact")

4. Are there any other websites, based locally or elsewhere, that
serve the same function as 303cycling? i.e. reporting on local races,
rides, events, & general cycling news.
BikeDenver.org is close, I would love to have their content integrated into ours, would make for a good site. YourGroupRide.com is very similar to 303cycling but it covers Fort Collins area.

5. What is the future of 303cycling? Any big plans?
Short term, improve our resource pages like our climbs/rides page and our upcoming training/coaches pages. Also hope to bring on a few more writers and a part-time sales person. Long term, Site redesign, move into other related areas like triathletes and running and maybe merge with other related sites.



There you go, stay tuned for more interviews with people who contribute a lot to cycling in the Denver/Boulder area.

Research Event

Some may have heard about this if you were at the race on Saturday...Will be an awesome opportunity, so check it out! Space is limited, so if you're interested let these guys know ASAP. If you have any questions let me know or shoot them an email!
(Side note: they are looking for gentleman only.)

"Come eat and drink for FREE and talk bikes and fashion for 2 hours and we’ll give you $75 to Pearl Velo and $25 CASH.
We are holding research sessions with a major international fashion apparel brand and need your opinions.

We’re looking for anyone involved with the fixed gear culture from serious cyclists to casual commuters... If you ride a fixie, commute to work/school, and/or have every participated in an alleycat race or group ride this event is perfect for you.

If you’re interested email RSVP@thepublicworks.biz "

The event will be Tuesday, July 20th, 2:30pm-4:30pm.

Boulder Fixed 4th of July Post

Ceya's Gianni Motta

BAC To the Future Part IV - MAP POSTED

There are 4 checkpoints, you can goto them in any order. Race starts and ends at the folsom field buffalo.

1. Chataqua Park

2. Eben G Fine Park

3. Canyon Park

4. Pedestrain Overpass near colorado and foothills

BRING A BAG and a HELMET !!

Race is free, and we have a gazillion prizes to give away. Everyone who races is gonna get something.

View BAC To The Future Part IV in a larger map

We made the front page !

Check out the full story 'Alley Cat Racing Rolls Back Into Boulder' over at colorado daily !

Velodrome News

First off, Boulder Indoor Cycling is selling off some of its demo bikes at crazy low prices.

Classes start up again on July 5th.

And track cycling will soon be "exposed" to us civilians. One of my favorite things about living in Boulder is the huge number of professional racers and bike industry bigwigs. Hopefully this event/series isn't too expensive or boring.



I also caught a rumor about another party at the velodrome for Bama's send off to Portland in a few weeks. Stay Tuned.

Reminder: Tomorrow

Ring of Fire

via BAMA

Awesome Keirin Posters

For Sale over at NJS Export

35th Anniversary Colnago with 50th Anniversary Campagnolo Super Record

One of these is hanging up in Vecchio's, but with Colnago Carbon 5-spoke wheels and 35th Anniversary Colnago-C-Record Group.
eBay
current bid:$4k
4 days left

Somec Tandem Track

nasty
for sale, $800

Thursday Night Ride

Hey everyone, the crew is riding dirty tonight. If you havent been in awhile, come tonight its going to be super prime weather, and sunny till like 9pm ! We meet at folsom field @ 7pm.

Im gonna have more fliers to give out, and any help spreading the word is greatly appreciated. BAC to the future Part IV is looking to be our biggest race ever, and weve recently added a ton of sponsors who are giving away a bunch of cool prizes.

BAC To the Future Part IV - Alley Cat Race - July 3rd

UPDATED - 06/17/10 (New sponsors IZZE, DVS, Snarfs) ; 06/18/10 (New Prize category, and Sponsor Baphomet Cycles)

============================================

Alley Cat Race, and Trix Competition

Race Starts at 2:30 SHARP so dont be late !!

Check back the night before for a map with all the checkpoint locations

Ohh and here is a link to the event on facebook so you can tell your friends

_____________________________________________

Prizes:

DVS - is giving away a pair of their new Cadence X DVS Shoe for the winner of the Race AND for the winner of the Trix competition.

The Top 10 races, and the Top 3 Trick riders are also getting prizes from DVS

Snarf's - (AKA best sandwich shop in boulder) is going to be giving away gift certificates to the top racers and the trix winner

IZZE Sparkling Juice - everyone who races gets a free IZZE courtesy of Action Marketing

Baphomet Cycles - New prize category added, the winner will be chosen at Bama's discretion. The prize is a pair of his new super durable no nonsense Pantagram knickers.

__________________________________

Meet at the Folsom Field Buffalo at 2:00pm

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Fast Fucking Friday

Wheelbuilding Measurements etc

I recently re-read Jobst Brandt's book the Bicycle Wheel and it inspired to me make a wheel-related post (as well as hand-build some 36 spoke wheels with Mavic MA2 Rims). So I got on my computer and made some basic wheel building tools.

If you've ever built a wheel, you know that before you can begin, you need to calculate the length of spokes to use. I wrote some MATLAB code that calculates the spoke length you need for a given rim and hub combination. If you have MATLAB, then you can paste the following text into an m-file and run it as a spoke length calculator. Otherwise, if you are a computer nerd, I think that C & C++ are similar enough to MATLAB that you could modify the code to work as such.

%Peter's Spoke Length Calculator
disp('unless otherwise implied, all measurements are to be entered should be in mm, but typing "mm" afterward is not necessary')
disp(' ')
D = input('What is the Effective Rim Diameter? ');
disp(' ')
d = input('What is the Flange Diameter? ');
disp(' ')
WL = input('What is the Left Flange Spacing (Center of Hub to Center of Left Flange) ');
disp(' ')
WR = input('What is the Right Flange Spacing (Center of Hub to Center of Right Flange) ');
disp(' ')
S = input('What is the Flange Hole Diameter? (Usually 2.4mm) ');
disp(' ')
X = input('What is the Cross Pattern? (eg. 1 2 3 4; radial=0) ');
disp(' ')
N = input('How many Spokes? ');
disp(' ')
T = 2*pi*X/(N/2); %Spoke Angle
A = d/2*sin(T); %A = Spoke Position Offset
B = D/2 - d/2*cos(T); %B = Radial Component
C1 = WL; %C1 = Hub "Half Width"
C2 = WR; %C2 = Hub "Half Width"
LL = sqrt(A^2+B^2+C1^2) - S/2; %LL = Left Spoke Length
LR = sqrt(A^2+B^2+C2^2) - S/2; %LR = Right Spoke Length
fprintf('The Left Side Spoke Length Needed is %4.1f mm \n', LL)
fprintf('The Right Side Spoke Length Needed is %4.1f mm', LR)

The program works fine if you know all the measurements, and for most rims and hubs a quick google search will get you all the necessary dimensions if the manufacturer and model of rub and rim are known. But if you can't find the information online, or don't trust the source, then you must measure the rim and hub yourself. So I made a few metrics that show how to measure hubs and rims yourself, supposing you have an accurate set of calipers or a steady hand and a good ruler.


The flange diameter is measured from the center of a spoke hole on one side of the flange to the center of the spoke holes opposite that hole. So pick a hole and measure from the center of it to is opposite. To verify you are doing this accurately you should count 8 spoke holes between the two holes for a 36 hole hub, 7 spoke holes between the two for a 32 hole hub, 6 spoke holes between the two for a 28 hole hub, ... (N/4)-1 spoke holes for an N hole hub. The flange hole diameter is kind of hard to precisely measure so it is usually safe to assume it is 2.4mm.


A dimension that is particularly hard to measure, at least for rear hubs, is the distance from the center of the hub to the center of the left and right flanges. Here is one of many ways of measuring this:
Measure the OLD (over locknut distance -- which is usually 100mm for front hubs, 120mm for rear track hubs, 126mm for old rear road bike hubs, 130mm for modern road bike rear cassette hubs, 135mm for modern mountain bike rear cassette hubs, and can be all sorts of things for tandem & other unusual hubs), then measure distance "a" and distance "b," which is the distance from the end locknut to the center of the hub flange for both left and right sides respectively. The distance WL from the center of the hub to the center of the left flange is (OLD/2)-a and the distance WR from the center of the hub to the center of the right flange is (OLD/2)-b.


Another dimension that is particularly hard to measure is the effective rim diameter. The effective rim diameter is the diameter of the inner wall of the rim where the spoke heads sit. One way of measuring this is to drop a spoke nipple in the rim and measure the distance between the top of the nipple head and the outer rim diameter. I have done this by marking a spoke stuck down the hole into the nipple head then measuring the distance "x" from the end of the spoke to the mark. Subtracting this distance "x" from the outside rim diameter will give you ERD, the effective rim diameter.


Hope these are useful to someone.

Headset Tutorial

Hey, y'all. Thought I'd try my hand at a mechanics tutorial since we haven't had much content to post lately (but hey, if you only posted original content how often would you post?). Heres the first in what may become a series -- how to overhaul a threaded, unsealed headset.









Note: I posted this on a popular online bike forum and asked for some feedback and have a couple things to add.

1. The orientation of the ball bearing cage isn't always necessarily ball-side-down, the ball side should face the bearing race, which is almost always down for the bottom race, but can be either way on the top race.

2. When tightening/adjusting the top nuts of a headset, use two wrenches, one to hold the bottom nut in the correct position, and the other to tighten the top nut.

3. Some people suggested that the amount of cleaning of the ball-bearings was overkill. Indeed, if you regularly maintain your headset, all thats really necessary is a wipe down with a clean rag and some fresh grease. This headset (like a lot of "track" headsets, which have no grime seal on the bottom) was thrashed, so it needed a lot of cleaning.

4. I wrote "biodegradeable, please" about what degreaser to use. I was informed that "bio" degreaser is no longer bio-degradeable after it has grease and grime entrained in it. So I'll take the opportunity to say this, use as little degreaser as possible and dispose of it responsibly. Degreaser should be landfilled or taken to a solvent disposal site, not dumped. Regardless of what jerks on the internet say, I still think citrus degreaser is better for the environment than a solvent like tetrachloroethene.

5. The frame (not mine) in the photos is busted, you can see damage in the paint/tubing where the headtube meets the top tube and down tube. If your bike is damaged in this area, its not too safe to be riding hard, and you should keep a close eye on the damage to make sure it doesn't get worse.\

6. Finally, this Park Tool page has everything you could possibly want to know about threaded headsets.

Thursday Night Ride

Ok first off wanna thank everyone that came out last night, shit was super prime, hella good weather, had a good ride all around town.

For anyone who hasnt been in awhile, come out next week, the weather has been perfect for riding, something we have all been waiting for, as this winter was pretty brutal.

Meet 7pm @ Folsom Field Buffalo - on campus

May 27th, Thursday night

Free Chrome Bag Repair

There’s been some underground Chrome bag repair going on and Baphomet Cycles needs your help before going public. We need to do a few more repairs and get some testing done before setting this up as a fee-based service. While there have been quite a few successful Strap replacements, we need to do a few more before we feel 100%.

So here’s the deal:

A) If you have a thrashed Chrome bag seatbelt/strap, we’ll do the labor for free and you only pay for the price of the strap (about $5). Send me an email to make an appointment, and we’ll even have your bag back to you in less than 24hrs.!

B) If the “waterproof” plastic/rubber part of your Chrome bag is cracked, wrecked, destroyed, and no longer waterproof, we’ll fix if for free, and you only pay for the price of the chemical (about $5). Send me an email to make an appointment, and we’ll even have your bag back to you in 24hrs!

bama@baphometcycles.com
baphometcycles.com

The Mythical Thursday Night Fixed Gear Ride

A long time ago, in a land not too far from my "place" a group of youngsters used to mob up and ride bikes. Oh the times they had, evading the law, frequenting parks and hollering at people at Pearl Street on any given Thursday.

But then, tragically, they disappeared. Rides became limited at first to only a few individuals, often riding directly to do some loops, then breaking apart to go their separate ways, riding into the dark alone. The ride was falling apart.

We lost our way. With the onset of school, for most, and jobs, for all, the rides were overlooked, shoved under the rug, put on the back burners. What we need the most, the freedom, the release was left unaccounted for.

Then came the discrepancy between our riders. FGFS or not. Stunt? As groups of kids began to dabble in the newest craze, the few rides that came together became segregated by style. Stunting was no fun for Tri-Spoke enthusiasts and who was to blame them.

In the past year the Revival Premier showed just how many kids there were out there that loved to ride bikes. We shared a night of reflection on just how far we had come, and how much there still was to learn and experience.

So, I propose to you now. Begin again. Bring your bikes (whatever style), enthusiasm, and youth and come ride again as we once did. Stay updated as our rides will be posted here as they are decided upon.

As always-Ride Your Bike...HARD

Korean Keirin

The keirin race is kind of an obscure track event. Not obscure in the traditional sense, but obscure in that, until recently, it was not very common outside of Japan. In fact, it would not even be an Olympic event had the Japanese Keirin Association not bribed the UCI $3 million to have it included.

Keirin racing is strictly regulated in Japan, a lot of state revenue is made off gambling on races. Frames and parts must be approved by NJS, a governing body which sets standards for equipment so that no rider has an unfair equipment advantage over another. When someone mentions keirin, I think of Japan and NJS bikes & parts because used keirin frames are popular here in the US.

To my surprise, I recently learned of a similar keirin racing organization in South Korea when I stumbled across a blogspot selling used Korean keirin frames. I'd seen these frames on eBay occasionaly in the past but didn't think much of them, just thought they were plain Korean track frames.


The blogspot has some sweet frames, but its hard to tell what exactly they are. This Corex for example is made of Columbus Keirin tubing and built with Nagasawa parts.

But its not really clear if they're made by Nagasawa, or if they're made by someone else building with Nagasawa parts, does Nagasawa even sell their frame parts?

This Cello Kalavinka looks pretty sweet.


This particular one has been repainted and had Kalavinka decals applied. You wouldn't know the difference if they didn't say it was a Cello. Is it a Cello or is it a Kalavinka? Does anyone know?

Even more confusing: Cello 3Rensho Now I really don't get it.



Can someone explain this builder-branding system to me?