Vote for my mustache!

Hey kids, the great state of NM is having a photo contest for images representing the land of enchantment. We of the South West Nordic Ski club are trying to drum up interest in the nordic skiing here in NM, so my pal Dina put up some photos of the great skiing here including this great image: Click here to view and vote. The pic is from the New Mexico Cup races from 09, NM cup race report Now I am not telling you that you have to vote for my picture, especially as the require an email address and password to vote, but I am telling you if you go to the site and decide to vote for a picture of a fucking hot air balloon, I am going to be really really disappointed. So go check out the great photography of the state and vote for something with a mustache.

Tarik Saleh Bike Club Webstore and such

Yo! I got Tarik Saleh Bike Club caps, pins and patches in stock and shipping worlds wide through the TSBC Webstore

The patches made by Falls Creek Outfitters and designed by ACW Brad came out great.

Also I literally have over 1000 pins in stock and ready to ship.

So you know, operators are standing by....Head over to tariksaleh.com/tsbc and sign up for the email list, or follow the Tarik Saleh Bike Club on Facebook if you want to stay in the loop.

Welcome!

Hey! A blog post. Thanks for visiting via Bicycling.

Got some good reviews quequed up for the coming weeks and some other stuff. Look for new TSBC hat action in May, and possibly some TSBC rides in various cities.

Pins are indeed available and will be shipped next week.

Please root around in the blog archives for some older interesting stuff.

2015 TSBC Cap Time

Hey Folks,
PREORDERS CLOSED! there will be some extra caps when the order comes in, email me to get on the waitlist.
Order Window Extended until Friday April 24!
I am going to do another round of TSBC caps. $34 each shipped in the CONUS with 2 TSBC pins , see below for ordering details

Learn more about the Tarik Saleh Bike Club.
This time there will be two styles:

1. Regular weight wool Navy and Red alternating panels, blue brim, TSBC logo on the red. This is the sort of propeller beanie color scheme. So these are the "propeller beanie caps" no propeller included.

2. Light weight wool, navy and light blue/green (the fabric's name is "goblin"). Alternating panels with Goblin Brim, logo on the goblin. Lets call this the "classy Goblin"

These will be made again by Randi Jo Fabrications, sizes available are as follows:

Large: 24"+
M/L: 23"-24"
M: 22-23"
S: 21-22"

I am between a 7 3/8 and 7 1/2 fitted cap and I find myself in a M with shorter hair maybe tending toward a M/L in full winter glory sasquatch hair. But measure your head. This is your chance to get a nice TSBC cap in your size. I will order a few more beyond preorders, but the price will go up a few bucks. Each cap will come with 2 glow in the dark TSBC pins.

HOW TO ORDER. This is important. All pre-orders will be paid in advance. You must email me with WHICH cap you want and WHICH size you want to hats "at" tariksaleh.com. Use the same address for paypal payment and questions. Caps are $34 each. All prices include shipping to the Continental US. Please email me if you want a cap and live outside the US (Europe is likely going to be an extra $10-15 bucks for shipping, the shipping has become brutal overseas, sorry). Comments in the blog or a facebook page or whatnot WILL NOT result in an order. You must email hats "at" tariksaleh.com and pay me before the order window closes 11:59pm April 20th April 24.

Delivery will be in mid to late May, I will update those who have ordered as things progress..

glow in the dark pins, look white during the day, glow pretty good for a while at night, 2 with each order

Bad riding, good riding

Saturday I took an nice rare February clearish dryish trail ride. Our winter has not been fierce enough for full on fat bike conditions, but the mess of snow-ice-mud-standing water has made it not ready for the unfat. But yesterday it was overcast, fifty and blowing juniper pollen everywhere, but the trails were kind of clear and sort of dry. I finally had some time between a pile of proposals to go for a real ride. I grabbed a fast twentyniner and off I went. I felt pretty good, flipped up some trails and down some others. Got greedy and hit a nice longer descent that ended up being a bit too muddy and icy to continue. I turned around and set to a brisk out of the saddle climb, enjoying the feeling of a responsive bike under me and leaning into the climb a bit.

Next thing you know I caught a pedal on a trail side rock and went over the bars. On the way over I slammed my knee so hard on the stem that I thought I might vomit. I made the sort of heroic gurgling sound that ballads were once writ, and then walked it off for a minute and got back on the bike and kept riding, determined to keep the good sensations flowing despite the rapidly swelling knee.

I had a plan for the ride, I was a bit peaked and sore, but I decided to keep on with it and hit the technical bits that lead to home. I felt OK for a bit, cleaning a few difficult sections, blowing more than a few, but rolling on just the same. Until one little rock step up, where the front wheel got up there, but I did not quite get the english to get the rear wheel up, so I slid off the saddle crushing the back of the stem into my pelvis. Missing the good bits, but still knocking the wind out of me and eliciting more gurgling the ancients wrote tunes about. I rolled off the bike leaving it in the middle of the trail and sat on the side of the trail for something like 10 minutes, watching ravens fly by and clouds blow over town toward the Sangres while I considered my lot. It was not a great day for sitting aside the trail, but I have had worse and sat until I felt more of a need to be home than to continue with the sitting.

I got on the bike after a bit and rolled on the quick way home, bowing out of pretty much every tiny technical bit there was just to be sure there were no more grievous bruising and impacts. Got home, tossed the bike in the bike hole and took a shower and watched my knee swell up for the rest of the afternoon. Later that night, inadvertent bending and flexing jolted me out of sleep, as did sleeping on the deep bruise on my pelvis.

Sunday dawned cold and snowy and blowing, never quite getting above 25F. Desperate to get out of the house, I went for a quick burrito coffee mailbox run on the big dummy, but was underdressed and my knee was not quite feeling it. Did some chores and such and finally decided, right before dark, to see about finishing the ride I started yesterday. I bundled up, grabbed some lights, hopped on the nimble bike and headed out into an increasingly strong blowing snowstorm. I meant to do a quick 3 mile loop from the house, just to get the knee moving, but despite the cold and the snow covered rocks and the inability to see any of the ice in the shadows due to the fresh coverage, I had a great ride. Cleaning some stuff I rarely clean, completely failing on others. Coming off the bike sideways and watching it skitter on ice down to the bottom of a wash a few times, but no stem induced carnage.

I felt good enough to keep going and dropped down into the canyons on fresh snow over old crusty ice and snow as the light left the sky. My way shown by a couple of inadequate LED's and sense of smell. I cleaned the whole damn canyon loop, well, maybe a dab here or there, but no carnage, no bruising, no gurgling. I felt good. I had not eaten enough to go too much further, my water bottle was completely frozen, temp was dropping and it was getting hard to see due to blowing snow. I climbed hard out of the canyon and sprinted up the road to home. Tossed the bike into the bike hole and ate the heck out of some dinner.

I will sleep well tonight. There was a good ride, there was a bad ride. My knee still hurts, but it will hurt less tomorrow. Onward we roll.

Couple of things Saturday, Bike wheels and Cyclocross...

Hey loyal reader, check it out! A couple things Saturday!

Look at this awesome OK Go video:

Inside Brilliant: The Wheel Factory from Brilliant Bicycle Co. on Vimeo.

Or maybe it is just an awesome bike wheel building factory in Taiwan. Found via Spencer Wright who is an interesting dude with a really strong bike background and the co creator of the Public Radio and creator of the prepared newsletter, where I found the link to the above, and which you should subscribe to. Really.

Also,

I should have given him his own blog post, but CXHairs is just killing it with the cross videos this year, distilling world cup and other races down to 20 minutes of race coverage and analysis. Check out his coverage of the Womens world cup in Milton Keyes below, and three years worth of excellent coverage over on his website. I suggest binge watching them all with a side of whiskey and chocolate tonight, so you are ready for the world cup tomorrow and worlds next weekend. I met Bill last year at cross Vegas and he is a solid guy, he even took it well when I blurted out "I love your videos but man do I hate the music". Anyhow I still hate all the music as I am a twisted old man set in my ways (where is the Van Halen maaaannnnnnnn) but the videos and analysis more than make up for it, I love them. Videos are arranged sequentially on his Vimeo channel if you want to binge watch more efficiently, CX Hairs Vimeo

Fatbikes at Interbike!

So despite being in Las Vegas for other reasons entirely, and thanks to a cancelled meeting, I was able to attend interbike for the first time in more than 12 years. I walked up to the registration table on Friday, the consumer day, paid $20 and got a badge and in I walked.

And as I walked in, this was the very first bike I saw.

That is an Atlas Cargo Trike with 4" tires and a ebike front hub. There. That is Interbike 2014 in a single bike. Read no further.

Wha? Still here? OK, there was actually lots of good stuff at interbike, but lets go through a small fraction of the fatbikes I saw. I decided to take pictures of all of them, but got a bit tired of the whole project. I pretty much skipped all the carbon fat bikes, and I don't really care about fat bike suspension, so no photos there, but lamentably, I did not document the really nice Surly Ice Cream Truck, nor the nice looking new fat offerings from Swobo and Twin Six. I am sure there were more, but you can google around and see what else was there and I missed.

Ritchy had a very nice looking "Commando" fatbike. Steel. No camo paint, but still looked pretty good.

Then there were the kids fat bikes.

Pirannah 20" fattie

with these 20" 406 Chao Yang Tires

If that was not enough, German brand S'Cool had both 20" and 24" fat bikes

QBP had an enormous amount of floorspace dedicated to a (QBP centric) History of Fat Bikes. There was no exhibit guide, or collectors book though. Get on that QBP.

There was a nice Remolino prototype fatbike in the exhibit, which I did not photograph, google it, first modern looking fatbike (as opposed to stiched together rims or double tires or smaller hanebrink type fat tires). As well as a variety of QBP bikes, Older Surly Fatbikes and newer Salsa's and the neat looking Cogburn hunting and fishing bikes.

There were so many new fatbike tires out there, from lower end tires to high end light weight tires. Schwalbe had a sub 1000g 4" fatbike tire, the Jumbo Jim. Which sounds great, until you realize that each tire is a Kilogram. But then you think, how much do my fatbike tires weigh? The answer is your tires, Tarik, weigh 1.6 kg each. Oh! Well then, sign me up for 1000g tires!

Blackburn had a really impressive array of racks and bikepacking gear, notable in this context, they had a nice looking fatbike rear rack, the Outpost

Like I said before, the Surly Ice Cream Truck looked fabulous what with its through axles and 4.8" tires, I am sad I did not photograph it. It was sparkly! 4.8" tires make sense if you ride in loose or deep snow and or sand at all. But I did photograph the even more fantastic, and my pick for the Moscaline Fatbike of Interbike 2014, the Curtis Inglis made Retrotech curvy 4.8" through axle love

Look at those stays!

Finally, there was a nice lot of demi fat stuff all over the place, from 29+ to 27.5+ to 26+, I think outside of snowy lands, this might be the ticket for a good fun as hell all purpose trail bikes. I regret not making it over to see the WTB 27.5x2.8" tires which might fit in the space of 29x2.4" tires, like on my singlespeed. My personal favorite not quite fat bike was the Surly SNS coupled World Troller. Sporting some 26x2.6" meats and couplings, this would be a great travel single speed/ all terrain travel touring frame, etc. etc. Bordering on too useful. I have lots of potential bike projects coming up, but a single speed just like this would slot right into my burgeoning quiver quite nicely.

OK, I have a couple more posts of interbike excellence if I get to em. Stay tuned.

New TSBC pins - Vegas

Hey! New pins!

Four packs of a pink, glow in the dark, hologram sparkle and white pins are available for purchase.
Check it at http://tariksaleh.com/tsbc/

I am also lurking on the periphery of interbike this week, if you see me at underbike or cross vegas and ask nicely I will give you some. Or trade you some, or something.

Speaking of Vegas. I really like going out to red rocks. I have done two rides out there and one run. Weather ranged from 100F and brutal, to raining and kind of chilly to a sparkling cool morning run. Photogenic too.

In the shimmering heat

Sunday in the storms

Another sunday storm view

After the storm passed Sunday night

Full moon set this morning.

Big Dummy Redo

After riding the Big Dummy all over the place, with the bare minimum maintenance straight into the ground since I built it up in 2008, it was high time to give it the overhaul it deserved. I want to thank my buddy Steve Pickle at 30th century bike in Iowa for helping me with some advice and sourcing some xtracycle bits for the rebuild, and old friends Mellow Velo for helping me get the bike in the first round of Big Dummies way back in twenty-ought-eight

Pre redo, I think all I have replaced is the disc brake pads 3 or 4 times over since I built it the first time

The original snap deck had seen better days

Stripping it down, time for that ancient bluemels metal fender to go

Down to the frame, re frame savered, new rings, shifters, cables, chain, matching planet bike fenders

Holy Roller Tires to replace the well worn big apples

Flight Deck and Hooptie added, new xtracycle bags as well, also new glowing green grips

Neighborhood kids aboard

Aida Likes it, me too

We can get along pretty well on and off road, and use it for establishing hiking basecamp

She can't nap on the back, but a towel and some shade is all we needed

Still does the hauling

With the addition of the magic carpet seat pad, we can do some reasonable mountain style bicycling

But it carries the recycling nonetheless

All and all I still love this bike, it has now entered its new life as even better family adventure hauling mobile. I am soon to add a dyno hub and a special front hauling addition. Stay tuned.

Ubikequitous 12,Trammell Whitaker Tandem

Trammell's in my Hall of Fame. Get your own Hall of Fame. There's a statue with him on a tandem bike with Lou Whitaker, and it's near the food court.

From a Grant Brisbee Sb Nation article, "Renaming the 'Ultimate Grand Slam'"

TSBC caps in production

Update 6/3/14, production is complete, caps will be shipping this weekend (6/6/14) to preorderers! There will be some extras, email me at hats at tariksaleh dot com to get on the waiting list, price will go up, but they will not last long.

Sneak peak of the exceeding all expectations crazy hats from Randi Jo

Yee haw...

Picking stuff up

Had a good month of finding stuff on the wheel.
I found a nice 14mm Made in USA Craftsman Socket over near work (3/31/14):

Then I grabbed a couple big rounds from a Chinese Elm tree off the curbside on my way home. It was a reasonably smooth ride home from there all loaded up on the big dummy (4/2/14):

I found this excellent Hairy creature jaw on a run in the canyon near the house. I stashed it nearby in a somewhat relocatable place hoping the insects clean the bones for me by the fall. Or I will forget about it and never see it again (4/18/14):

Then I had one of the best single road find days of my life on Tuesday April 29th, 2014. I found a big honking 4xl reflecty safety jacket in the middle of the road at 7am on my way down to white rock for training. Then I took a lunch break out at the overlook and found a lacrosse ball on the way back to class. Lacrosse balls are excellent to juggle with and really satisfying to hit with a baseball bat, but I don't really endorse that activity in a neighborhood or in close quarters...
Scene from lunch at the overlook

Then after an afternoon of unsatisfying training activities, I took the long way home from White Rock, around the bandelier loop, and while climbing slowly out of a canyon somewhere, I looked over to the side of the road and saw this gleaming out at me amid the detritus of some recently removed trees:

I stashed it in my musette and kept on riding.

Then at the top of the long climb before the back gate, I saw an excellent pink Pedro's tire lever waiting for me on the side of the road. I picked it up as it began snowing reasonably hard. I took a break, put on my jacket and rode on home through the snow flurries.
4/28/14, the dubious collection of the road find day of infamy

It was a good day.

A couple things Saturday, TV time

With any luck I am off at the races this morning. Please enjoy a selection of my favorite TV introductions of my childhood for no other reason than they all came up recently in discussions. In chronological order of time wasted.

Someday the mountain might get em, but the law never will

of a man... who does not exist

Too dangerous to be left in unenlightened hands!

TSBC cap order window closing 4/15

Hey!, cap preorder is closing soon. 4/15/2014 at midnightish, just like your taxes. Three styles, all the sizes, details here!...

you get these four pins with each cap order

Hey Hey Cobblyass Hills

Zoiks, The Ronde van Vlaanderen is nigh, and I am remiss if I have forgotten to tell you I explored some of the mighty cobbled climbs for you, dear readers, back in November of Ought-12. Yep, the same trip that yielded Jonathan Page cheer you! also yielded a quick trip to Oudenaard for a quick run through the cobbled climbs with long lost pal Jeff. Quickly speaking, we drove from Gent to Oudenaard. Checked out the RVV mueseum, got Aida a Freddy Maertens shirt and me a commemerative RVV beer from the 2012 edition, and then we rode around a selection of fine cobbled helligen. And then we had beers at the bar at the Ronde Museum.

It was a great day

It was in harvest season, so much of the roads and climbs were slightly muddy to super greasy (koppenberg). As you probably note from the race coverage, the roads into and out of the climbs are pretty much bike paths. I was on a borrowed bike from Jeff, with 23mm tires and did not have too much trouble with the cobbles, except for the super greasy koppenberg climb. Not knowing the roads and being slightly cautious anyway, I can't say I ripped up any of the descents, especially some of the dirty ones. But the wheels were definitely pretty much toast in the trueness department. Sorry Jeff.

Anyhow, no time for a hazy memories, but here are some photos of the ride back in Novemeber 2012. I am totally rooting for a Taylor Phinney/Tyler Farrar 1-2 finish tomorrow, or something. Full flickr set from Belgium here.

Ronde Van Vlaanderen Museum was small, but fantastic

Jeff and the giant turnip, or organic cobble...

Greasy up there in the trees on the Koppenberg

The country

Oude Kwaremont, beginning, end? Who knows

Most of the way up the Paterberg, there is a little smooth line over the steepest bit...

Alo' my name is Koppenberg

End of the ride road beers atop the Koppenberg

The other end of the ride beers at the bar at the Ronde Museum