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S24-abort

I know I said there'd be a campout report from last Friday, but I ended up just riding out there and hanging out until late at night and then riding home. A unique combo of circumstances made going home, taking a hot shower, and sleeping in my own bed irresistible. I could almost see my place across the bay from our camp spot anyway. The photo above is from the same spot on a different, more successful, overnight. My apartment is off to the right across the water, a quick 30 minute bike ride away.

It actually ended up being pretty fun, I left the campsite around 10:30pm and the ride back was just the right amount of spooky. Dyno lights mounted low cast strange shadows and the headlands were totally silent once I got out of the wind. I managed to get 8 hours of sleep too, instead of my usual campout 2 or 3.
-will

A peek at Grant's new book

For Earth day, we're leaking 8 pages of Grant's self described unpublishable book about the history of Earth day and how it relates to bicycles.

Grant used to hitch hike to school but his dad bought him a bike for Earth Day, a Schwinn Varsity, and that was the start of his riding as an adult. If it weren't for the oil spill in Santa Barbara, Grant may not have started riding again and Rivendell wouldn't exist.

Backabikes are finally back

And with updated mounting hardware too, rigged up by handy fella Roman. Here's what it looks like now:

This way is less finicky than the older, still perfectly good, buckle at the bottom. The leather straps work great and are more our style, but if you want to really cinch the bags to the rack, replace them with these tiny Voiles.

Also: if you have a saddlebag of ours that just barely brushes your tire over bumps, replacing the leather saddle attachement straps with the Voiles will bring the bag up enough to clear.

Back to Backabikes: We only have Royal and Grey Grid right now, but we'll get more colors eventually. They're sold individually and I hope people get one of each color. They look good together. They're here.

New pins

The sharpie is for scale. They're 1.5 inch, but end up slightly smaller after they get pressed. It's our Flying Guy logo, perfect for a saddlebag.

Two of Mark's bikes up on the site now

Mark is an ex-cyclocross racer, a successful one too, and even he rides steel forks. Both his Rock Lobster and his Calfee (next week) used to have carbon forks and he switched them to steel. He's also clearly a fan of DT Swiss hubs.

Check 'em out here.