Haro gravel bike?
Seems a bit odd for a BMX brand, but ok. Via Velo
Kona is up for sale
Kona employees were seen setting up the their booth and then tearing it back down and retreating from the show. Latest at Road.cc
Mavic is back
With these Cosmic carbon gravel wheels and a host of other new products Via
The Radavist
Parlee is also back
With a new Ouray all-road/endurance road bike. Via
Escape Collective
Redshift Top Shelf Bar
Why not just get a different stem? Via Escape Collective
Gary Fisher is still cool
See what he was riding at the show when he talks to Ben Delaney
Sierra Nevada Sea Roamer
My favorite part of the show each year is just seeing what Paul and Sierra Nevada come up with. This year’s bike did not disappoint. Via The Radavist
Today Cane Creek officially announced their new Invert gravel fork. They are calling it the "World’s First Gravel Fork." Not sure about that, but ok. Still, I don't hate it.
IMO it does look better than the other gravel-oriented forks that have proceeded it, in part because of the inverted design, which is more or less standard on motorcycles.
The new fork features a "carbon fiber crown & steerer bonded to aluminum upper tubes" to help keep down weight, and it comes in two flavors:
Would you ride down an abandoned mine shaft? The Black Hole Trail is a 6 mile underground trail down through the abandoned tunnels of an old lead and link mine in the Slovenian town of Mezica. Not a lot of head room! Watch the video!
Charlie Kelly was on the Cycle Jerks podcast recently. There are lots of great stories in that interview, but one of my favorites was about the review of the first MountainBike in the February 1980 issue of BMX Plus, where they managed to misspell Tom Ritchey's name! Charlie has it nicely documented on fattireflyer.com
Gary Fisher and I started “MountainBikes” in the fall of 1979, with nine Tom Ritchey frames. One of the bikes we built went to Monte Ward, whose friend Dean Bradley was the editor of BMX Plus! magazine. Dean was blown away.
We ran our first ad in that issue. This brought us to the attention of Southern California off road riders., where we found kindred souls.
Dean didn’t even know how to spell Tom Ritchey’s name. We didn’t even have decals yet, so it didn’t appear anywhere on the frame, but he made the most profound assessment of the new bike…ever.
“This month’s 26-inch test bike is called a Mountain Bike. Chances are you have never heard of it before, but believe me, you will be hearing a lot about this revolutionary bike in the future.”
Legendary Rock Lobster framebuilder Paul Sadoff just started a new shop tour series on his YouTube channel. Each video will feature a different bike, and the first bike on the list is the Dumpstervaagen! The frame was built from scrap bin tubing, and most of the parts were free or scavenged. Make sure to subscribe to his channel for future shop tour videos!
I was bummed not to make it to the Philly Bike Expo this year. We had a great time and met a ton of cool people at the last show in late 2022. I was looking forward to seeing coverage on The Radavist, but it sounds like John was thwarted by some bad weather. From Instagram, though, it seems like it was another great show, with people’s choice winners went to Memento Cycles, Básica Estudio and Significant Other. I definitely plan to make it back next year!
Even if you are a hardcore vintage/retro/used bike nerd, you will still most likely need to buy new tires from time to time. So it's nice to know that companies like Vittoria are starting to use more recycled materials. The Vittoria Terreno Pro T60 gravel tire uses 92% renewable and recycled materials, including recycled nylon fishing nets. This tire helped Vittoria win a green prize at the Taipei Cycle last week. Via Bicycle Retailer and PinkBike
Why? I saw someone who did a double metric century around a roundabout and said to my neighbor that we should do a regular century around the one in our neighborhood and he said yes without hesitation
Didn't get dizzy, the oval was large enough that we weren't constantly turning left
1 bathroom break and a couple snack breaks
Went the same direction the whole time
A few neighbors ran a few laps and brought their kids out to cheer us on