So an early morning Mtb ride turns quasi epic. Luckly for the C-note it turns out to
be a A/C joint and or rotator cuff injury.

Ok, so there's a pretty heated discussion going on over at New West about an article regarding some off-trail protesting of a mountain bike ride. John, Greg, and a few others from MMBA were the subjects of said protest. Anyway, read John's post on the Trail Report and the article at New West.
Then the fun starts. They provided a picture of the three of them protesting. In the spirit of FARK's very irreverent Photoshop contests, I'm going to do something similar. Get the original picture here, do with it what you will to, uh, 'improve' it (nothing obscene, keep it rated R-ish), and send it to me at bozeman.bike@gmail.com. I'll resize and post them, then we'll vote for the winner. Winner gets a pair of Native Triumph sunglasses (ret. value $100), Courtesy of Stan with Native (I know, you said use 'em for an alleycat. I thought this would be fun).
If you don't have Photoshop and can't afford it (or don't want to steal it) you can get GIMP for free here. I've been using it for a couple of years now and I'm a fan.

Okay? GO! The contest ends Sunday. This Sunday. Get them mouses working!

p.s. if the image gets pulled I saved it on my compy. No worries.

-DNA

Old bikes, cruisers, anything but modern mountain bikes. This Sunday afternoon, probably Moser in Hyalite.
A few of us are going to get together for a nice Mt. Tam style clunker downhill. We'll shuttle via truck and send someone down first with a walkie-talkie to make sure the path is clear. Then we'll drink some cheap beer. So get your ratty old jeans and flannel (unless it's hot) and an old cruiser and stay tuned for the details. Nothing competitive, no prizes- just fun.


-DNA

Last week good. This week GREAT! Even with the Bite of Bozeman going on, it was flat out awesome.

POLO IS ON IN FULL EFFECT!!!!

Thirteen fellas and some Hella good games. That's right, Hella Good. Wednsday nights. 7:30pm ish Hawthorne School playground. Be there 'cause we're all squares.

Here are the pics of the Curly Lake ride. I posted a meager description on the Trail Report. Go ride it. It's fun.

After an interlude last Tuesday, due to me nearly getting blown to Oz in a thunderstorm, the Bike Kitchen will be up and running this evening at, or around, six pm. The Kitchen is located just north of the bleachers, which are just north of the field north of the high school...bring a compass. We get bicycles in the hands of people who need them, and we rely on you to help us do that.

Polo happens tomorrow at the Hawthorn school, somewhere between the Great Lakes and the Midwest. I'll be there with the mallets around 7:30. If you're going to drink, keep it discreet!

C

I won't lie to you. I had some fun this last weekend. I wish I had it in me to discuss it in detail. But, frankly, a gentleman doesn't speak. Suffice to say that word on the street is that something of this nature will happen regularly. For those of you that missed out...you missed out

Here are the pictures. Buy the way, Ruben fell into a pothole the size of a kiddy pool and then laughed about it and asked me to take a picture. He was either drunk (likely) or just thought it awesome (also very likely as Ruben is awesome).

Shit might be off the hook next weekend, keep your ear(s) to the ground.

100

Booooo "No Trick Riding"

Hooray Beer!

Is the Apocalypse Nigh?

If you read BSNYC, and if you are reading this chances are that you do, then you are likely familiar with Snob's rants about the impending fided gear apocalypse. Well I put it to you that an impending sign of the coming rapture is the "Zumiez" like "Fixies". Clearly this type of store is approaching our reality like a recession in our econmy. As a hick boy in the big city it takes very short amount of time to notice how things are vastly ahead of our own town. Hipsters are everywhere. Everywhere you look; tight and I mean jumped into tight, jeans are pedaling bikes. More often than not they are fixies. I see the day when the local mall has a "Fixies" store for all the up and coming hipsters get there garb. Everything from ironic t-shirts and CHIPS sunglasses to tightpants and bowler hats, all comercialized and marginalized the way of punk rock in the 90's. America, is that really
you?

Ok, so alot of people do ride bikes here. But there are over a million people in the city limits. My question is simply, how many people per capita ride bikes here in the Rose city? Threre is no doubt that Portland has superior infrastucture for cycling. You cant cross the street here without tripping over a bike lane! To boot, all of the mass transit systems, trains and busses acomidate bicycles. Easy to get on the train and take your bike, get off the train and keep riding. Fantastic.

Tonight's (7/25/08) pubride will include a barbecue at an undisclosed location. But, much like an alleycat, you have to be at the beginning to find out where the end is. So be at Chalet at eight, with bells on (not literal bells, you'll get laughed at downtown).

C Note

Being in a very cycling friendly city such as I am, I wonder why more Portlanders dont ride. I am currently sitting near the heart of the beast and honestly, where are all the bikes? I am doubtful that per capita, more people ride bikes in Portland than Bozeman.

Who Makes the Coolest Stuff?

Hint: "Pretty and Strong"

Chris King Precision Components are located in NW Portland along the "dirty 30"hwy. Hard to find? kinda. Worth the hassle? oh yeah! Factory Tours? Sadly, no. Not Yet anyway.

Thanks to Cameron for giving a few minutes to chat with a hick Montanan. He told me that even after four years in there new location they are still working on getting the place sorted out. Obviously mfg. is up and running but they are still working on a lot of stuff around the place. For example, the building is still unsigned. Unless you count the outline of the former occupant's sign "River City Textiles". The previous occupant to the textile mfg. was a coffee roaster. Cameron told me the they were building a bistro in the old roaster area. Sounds cool. Hopefully in the near future, factory tours will be on the list.
Thanks Chris King for Making fantastically durable and beautiful stuff......

Next stop.....OREGON BREW FEST!!!

NEXT STOP....KING CYCLE

I'm not really posting this, well I mean I am, but this is our own Captain Entropy corresponding from Portland Or this week. You can check his twitter feed for updates in real time these internets are wonderful. --->

Truly Portland Oregon is the most cycling affluent city in the world. A city where one can find, in the same block, a bakfiets, a pizza joint, and a huffy clad in fur. From the looks of things this bike is the Portland equivalent of the Aspen fox fur boots. Unfortunately I was unable to see the owner of this animabike anywhere. Of course it was early in the morning, perhaps this bike had been left after a raucous night at the bar. It couldn't be that hard to find your fur bedazzled bike outside the bar at 2am, unless this really is a Portland trend and everyone who's anyone is sporting a furbike. Its a good thing I brought my passport cause I am definitely not in America anymore.

We hears things on the streets. And one of the things we hears is that there's a pubride comin yer way. Friday (7/25), meet at Chalet at eight pm (although it would be novel to start a pubride at eight am one of these days) for some booze cruzin'.

Bring yer bike and yer liver.

I'll try not to pull a hamstring playing cricket this time.

C Note

At long last, we had some real games tonight! About eight people (8.5 if you include Ryan, who stayed for two (2) games) showed up. What made me happy: two were new folks, never played polo with us. What made me a little sad: we're a long way from the 25+ we had showing up last year.
I wonder if those missing have a fever....
See you next week: 7:30, Hawthorne School, North Rouse.

-DNA

Bike Kitchen tonight. Polo tomorrow at the Hawthorn school. For those people who don't check timestamps that's Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. We're gonna try to get some teams going so bring yer ringers (to polo I mean, the kitchen is all the same team).

Here at The Bozeman Fix, we are not only bike nerds, but plain old nerds in general.
(Disclaimer: I am writing this on Sunday Morning, kind of recovering from drinking Schlitz and PBR with C-Note last night. My syntax skillz are still asleep.)

Anyway, if your life is monotonous and you need something else on the internets to distract you, I've started a Twitter stream and it gets repeated over there --->
Or go to twitter.com/ChunkStyle.

-DNA (aka ChunkStyle)

Bozeman has this thing called Music on Main, and it's basically evolved into an excuse to drink while walking through the middle of main street. In order to keep everything all benignly American, local bars hand out bright pink wrist bands after people show an ID at the door, and then serve drinks in an 'inconspicuous' plastic cup so people don't have to be alarmed by seeing a bunch of twenty somethings walking around with 'gasp' alcohol. It's amazing how four years of high school so completely dictate everything about how people behave in every single facet of their lives.

Sorry I digress...how does this pertain to bikes? These wristbands have emblazoned on them an admonishment against Montana's second favorite pass-time.



(For those of you not savvy enough with the internets to click on the above picture, it says "DUI, you can't afford it. Be Smart. Ride the Bus" (Not-so-cleverly edited by yours truely)

Me being me, I felt the need to alter it a bit to turn it from a rather preposterous suggestion to a far more practical alternative to something powered by fossil fuels. Seriously, what would you rather do; sit on an odd smelling bus full of strangers (that you waited twenty minutes for), or have a pleasant midsummer evening ride on the most efficient form of transportation yet devised by man?

It reminds me of King Solomon who said 'there is nothing new under the sun'. I've remarked many times to sEtOH, Captain E, DNA, and the Coyote that over the last eight weeks, more and more people have been riding bikes around Bozeman. Every day on my ride into work I see another middle-aged guy wearing a Bell helmet with a neon yellow nylon cover riding an old school touring bike down one of Bozeman's main drags.

What does this all mean? I have no idea. But clearly you are smarter than American Big-Business. Cuz some generic ad company is pushing riding a bus, and true blue patriots are naturally falling into the most spontaneous solution to the sloth of fossil fuel that there is. (OK, Miller isn't really the 'true blue patriot' I'm just as much of a slave to a clever ad campaign as the next idiot. But hey, they play to a certain crowd.)

Whatever. Share the stoke with the other riders you see. They get what so many others continue to refuse. They get what you've probably embraced for far longer than it was fashionable. But hey! They get it! And even if they don't get it, you should help and encourage them until they get it. Cuz the future looks bleak for American obesity and increased habitual cycling has all kinds of benefits. And, even if it weren't for any of those things I know for certain that there is something about riding a bike, and if we get everyone to get that then everything else will be ok.

Be safe out there! Make sure your family knows you care, and tell your friends that they kick ass!

--Hundred Dolla bill ya'll

The first part of this post is me being pissed and the last part is me being stoked, so if you'd rather read the good stuff, skip to the end.



I got the following email from youtube tonight.

Dear Member:

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by The Collective Films claiming that this material is infringing:

RockySprints - Seasons Premier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3MRcRM4vH0

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to prevent this from happening, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.

If you elect to send us a counter notice, please go to our Help Center to access the instructions.
Be aware that there may be adverse legal consequences in your country if you make a false or bad faith allegation of copyright infringement by using this process.

Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc.

Apparently The Collective thinks that me posting video of ya'll racing RockySprints somehow falls under the jurisprudence of their copyright. I was so irritated about it that I sent them an extremely inappropriately crabby email about it (sue me, it pisses me off when people suck at life).

Here's another example of me 'infringing' on the holy copyright of The Collective (who at this point, can officially kiss my ass). Watch it quick, The Collective's lawyers are probably huddled around computers as you read this waiting to pounce. For anyone from 'The Collective' (what are you, The Borg?) who reads this, it's all in good fun...oh, and get over yourselves, it's not like you're Metallica, actually since there isn't a shred of your intellectual property in anything I posted, you're worse than Metallica. Congratulations, that's hard-core douchebagdom.

I'm sure it's all a 'misunderstanding' just because I mention in the info that it's at the Seasons premier. But c'mon, what do you pay those lawyers all that money for?
>:(

On a happy note The Kitchen was flat out humming tonight. That place is really starting to develop a good vibe. Every week there are new people showing up with this look on their faces that I can't describe, but you can tell that they are stoked to get a bike running. It's a really addictive environment, and I walk out of there every night tired and happy. DNA dropped by and got a 24-inch-wheeled Giant running for a little girl whose parents couldn't really afford to buy her a bike, or get her to soccer practice, since gas is about 30 dollars a gallon now. That's what we get out of The Kitchen, we get to hand somebody something that will make their lives better. If you have the time, money, or spare parts, I promise there are worse places or ways to disseminate them than getting more bicycles on the road for people to get around.

So, I guess I got to see the good and the bad today. I s'pose they call that life and it's up to me to chose to take the good and leave the bad.

Ride safe out there!

C Note

Update:

I got an email reply from the collective. It went like this:


Relax dude. Your video was accidentally caught up in a bigger attempt to get
pieces of our complete film off of youtube so we don't have our material
ripped off. Sorry. You can put it back up if you want and I'll do my best to
make sure it doesn't happen again.

Take it easy.

Jamie - The Collective


I now of course must apologize for equating them with star trek villains and greedy rock stars...and the douche-bag comment may have been a quarter step too far...

I recieved the following in a Bike Kitchen email today.

...tonight the city commission will be working on the buget for 08-09; taylor told us that the streets department will be asking for a large budget increase, part of which will cover a new street sweeper to specifically focus on bike lanes. you can email the entire commission at agenda@bozeman.net

I know there are varied views on bike lanes, but clearly Bozeman is receptive to bikes as traffic. If you feel strongly about how the city spends your tax dollars, then weigh in. We are the practical cyclists in this area and the city commission is deciding on infrastructure for bicycles. What do we want to see happen in Bozeman?

C Note

The next morning we awake, after a surprisingly pleasant fitful sleep. Groggily three of us stumble out of a tent, one out from under a poncho which, being tied to a Big Dummy, stayed up without complaint. The standard early-morning-after-backcountry-revelry thoughts and actions took place. Squint. Rub eyes. Dig in recesses of memory. Did we hang the food? Uhhh. Pretty. Mm. Need coffee. Coffee's in bag. Bag's in tree. *sigh*.
Eventually C-note and Capn. E did retrieve the food and foodstuffs while I sloshed through the marsh to get to the creek to filter some water. Filters work a lot better when they have little to filter.
Time for breakfast. Well, by this time we're pretty ready to get rolling. Oh, and there's that part about two of the six eggs being broken, handily gluing the remaining intact eggs to the container, the container to the inside of the bag. Pop Tarts, then.
We pack up, load the trailers and Xtracycles and head back towards town. We've got a bit of singletrack and the one creek crossing, followed by the eight or so miles of downhill fire road and then ten miles of downhill pavement. Easy.
With the BOB trailer, my bike is fairly stable at speed, requiring a bit more rear brake than normal. It did have a bit of wiggle in turns. I think that if I were to do any long-distance off road touring with a BOB, I'd definitely stick with a hardtail. I don't really like to think about all those lateral loads the swingarm bearings are withstanding. Plus, with half (or thereabouts) of the trailer weight borne by the axle the suspension is doing little for you anyway. Increased unsprung weight and all that.
The ride down goes like this: ride fast, wait. Ride fast, wait. Ride fast, wait. E was taking it easy- he was riding the least off-road capable bike and prairie schooners are not known for good high-speed handling characteristics.
I was a tiny bit concerned when, on the third or fourth time waiting, I noticed that one of the wheels on E's trailer was angled slightly. Positive camber? Interesting.
We take a Pop-Tart break at the bridge, and while E is busying himself bending his trailer axle back a racer-looking guy starts barging on through. We have a decidedly one-sided conversation with him:
"Good morning!"
"grunt ugh grunt" *angry glare*
"Hey, it looks like you're winning! Woohoo!"
*shakes head, mutters something*
"You don't lose any time if you say 'Hi!'"
"mumblegrumble"
I hope he won. I didn't even know there was a race.
Traveling northward, rolling downhill, catastrophe struck.
A smooth fire road, a home-built trailer, a bit of speed, and a single rock. One of the wheels of the trailer ever-so-slightly contacted the rock. The Conestoga pivoted up on the other tire. It kept going, now completely airborne until at 270 degrees the right wheel landed on the ground sort of on its side. The force of impact was too great for the 10mm axle, so it snapped cleanly off at the bearing. But that didn't keep the trailer from rotating about its hitch. Before long, the other wheel managed to snap off in the same way. The result: One wheel-less trailer, two 20" wheels laying on the trail, and about 12 1/4" bearings scattered about.
Unfortunately, I missed all this, as I was about a quarter mile ahead. I did have a passing cyclist say to me,
"Are you with some other guys with trailers?"
"yep."
"Well, I think they're having some problems- they're standing around in the trail and there's parts all over."
When I ride back up the wheels had already been retrieved. We discussed getting the trailer and gear out, settling on merely strapping the Conestoga (sans wheels) to the back of the Big Dummy. C-note took the wheels and we were, once again, off.The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. A nice, clear, speedy ride on smooth pavement back into town. Well, there was that instance where we were catching up to a guy on a bike on the road when Wiley mutters to me, "Think we can catch him?"
I reply masochistically, "Yeah, let's get him on the climb."
And we did. And he tried in vain to pass us. Hah! On bikes, sometimes, it always is a race. Try to do that with a car.

So we had our first real night of Bike Polo last night. 8-9 peeps showed up, we played some good hard polo. Nice, right? Yes, except that it was obvious that it was the first game in 9 months for all of us. Games were a bit slow, but wrecks hilariously frequent. It seems that there was a bit of a mad skillz disconnect between brain and bike and brain and mallet. And a fixed cog lockring that decided to pop off its hub. The results, directly involving a wall, were predictable and included a bent fork. As everyone got more fired up the incidents of contact became more frequent, until Captain E and I collided spectacularly. I sort of got thrown forward, landing on the side of my front wheel. No big deal, really. Except that when I got up, I had to extract a spoke from the skin on my shin. Yes, it was still attached to the hub and rim. Surprisingly, the wheel is still quite true.
In lieu of gory details and pictures, use this and your imagination:
Next time, I'm wearing pants.

By the way, we're still on next Wednesday for polo. 7:30.

-DNA

Tomorrow we will have bike polo. Last week I dragged the mallets to the Hawthorne School to play, and ended up getting hammered with C-note and the Code Monkeys (also an excellent name for a band) out at the 19th Hole because not enough people showed up. Let's all pull together and do our part to keep this disgrace to our community from happening again.
Polo starts at (or around) 7:30 on Wednesdays, behind the Hawthorne school on Rouse, across from the old library. It's a SCHOOL so be sure to keep any drinking very discreet; dip into your bag of tricks from high school if you must.
For the uninitiated, we play the urban style of bike polo; 10 minute games of 3-on-3 played on pavement or concrete. We *used* to play in a concrete box coated on the inside with infectious diseases and a grotesque shape-shifting monster in the corner and sharpened rusty knives at shoulder height, insuring only the strong of will and skill would play. That is, until the cops came and kicked us out because they were worried about us. (it's my blog, I can tell the story any way I want).

But really, it's a whole lotta fun, you should come and play.

Ok? Tomorrow. 7:30. Polo. Hawthorne School playground.


-DNA

Late last week a few of us talked about a quick bike camping trip up to Mystic Lake. Considering the distance and time frame are relatively short (20 miles, less than 24 hours) we discussed the merits of packing to have fun and to be comfortable rather than to pack light. And since my small backpacking stove was damaged the last time I went on a bike camping trip (by dropping it out of a tree) I was forced- FORCED! to bring my hefty two-burner Coleman stove. Well, since I'm not going to be going light (and I'm not particularly light myself), then why not bring a cast iron frying pan? And a couple of coolers, so we can have nice cold beer. And we'll stop and get some steaks, too. Oh- and a couple (well, more like 4) boxes of wine. And stuff for breakfast.
We met at the shop on Saturday evening. Cap'n E and I had ridden our loaded bikes to work, mine a Specialized mountain bike and his a Redline Mono-Cog converted to an ersatz cyclocross bike with the addition of 27 speeds and drop bars (lovingly referred to as...The Brown Streak). E loaded his gear onto his homemade trailer, a two-wheeled device constructed out of a nordic ski flexing bench, some steel shelf units, two milk crates, self-tapping screws, and plenty of zip-ties. As loaded, with two folding wooden deck chairs jauntily placed on top, it bore a striking resemblance to a Conestoga Wagon,...or the Beverly Hillbillies' truck,
...here it is:
As we shove off, all the minutiae that I forgot to pack start coming back to me- things like food, matches, knife, and a bunch of other small but crucial things. So we take a ride down to Heebs grocery (yes, that's their real name, and no, they're not jewish) for some supplies. In the haze of rushing to get out and the sinus infection I was battling I forgot a few more things after we left Heebs. A quick stop at Joe's Parkway solved that.

Finally, we start heading south (and up). Ten miles of uninteresting asphalt pass. We reach the Sourdough Canyon (aka Bozeman Creek) trailhead and pause for some stretching and airletting from the tires for more traction and coosh. The four of us start out all together, but gradually drift apart the way a slowly-pulled slinky would, with Wiley (fresh off a weeklong Great Divide trip) at the front, followed by C-Note on his road/mountain/city bike/xtracycle mixed-breed, me on the inappropriately fully-suspended Specialized FSR XC and BOB trailer, with Cap'n E navigating the bumps with his trailer. Plenty of sun and a slight breeze made for a quite enjoyable ride.
Once you get to the 5 mile mark, you have a choice of routes to take to the lake. Five more miles of pleasant fire road or two miles of fun (yet challenging- with a long bike) singletrack. Since one of us had a trailer that was wider than the trail, we chose to take the longer route. It was an easy ride until we got to within a half-mile of our campsite. There's remnants of an old earthen dam, and a swift yet small creek that needs to be forded. From there on it's narrow singletrack.
For the final half-mile, I decided to ride behind the Conestoga, thinking that there might be a bit of excitement. For the most part I merely giggled as the thing merrily bounced along, one wheel on the trail and the other trying to mow down some brush. Well, until he encountered a sizable rock:Thankfully, there were no injuries.
We did find a pretty nice spot,and after setting up camp we cracked open some beers and cooked up our dinner,...and drank some more beer and wine,"Guys, close yer eyes sho I don't get anny redeye, kay?"
"uhh, but that will make me look drunk, ride?"
*click*
The rest of the night was campfire, wine, an amazingly clear sky (itsa satellite! no it's the Space Station!), and blissful moments of sleep punctuated by an idling chainsaw sitting next to my head. We all snored, according to Wiley. But he was sleeping under a poncho tied to his bike, so take what he says with a grain of salt.

Later- the return trip.

Polo Tonight!
7pm, Hawthorne School. Across Rouse from the old Library.
Drinking must be discreet.