2 Years Ago...

...at this very moment, my wife, Tiffany, and I packed our dogs and a backpack with a couple of t-shirts and shorts and , before I climbed inside the truck, I looked back at the house and thought "This may have been the last night we spend in this house". We met our friend, Alfred, at the bike shop, I parked my truck on high ground (haha) and we were gone, two cars into the contra-flow jam that was the exodus high-tailing it out of New Orleans.
Twelve hours later, we pulled into my mother-in-law's driveway in Mesquite, TX. and, after listening to news reports of how big and dangerous a cat 5 storm would be when it hit the city, I knew our lives would change. Dramatically.
I wasn't going to write this but it was floating around up here and I thought what the heck.

Era-Crafting

I thought up a term to describe what is going on these days in the area of design that features artisinal craftsmanship, high-quaility materials, and a vision for the traditional. The term is "era-crafting" - the process of making a new object that evokes another time, utilising craftsmanship and materials from both past and present technologies.
There is a whole host of individuals out there, framebuilders and visionaries, who capture this style perfectly - Grant Peterson, Tony Pereira, and Chris Kulczycki just to name a few.
Outside of the bicycle kingdom, the style is prevalent in watches, motorcycles, and architechture. An interesting parrallel is what the SyCip brothers are doing with their boardtracker and Paul Brodie's motorcycle project.
My favorite motorcycle designer, builder, visionary whatever is Shinya Kimura. I would like to think if Shinya put his efforts into a bicycle, it would look like this -
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My Mirella, 60's vintage Italian, brush-painted flat black, re-purposed fixed gear. Signature detailed pieces include misc bronze plated bits, powder coated components, exposed bearings


This reflector bracket exemplifies the style - simple, mechanical, elegant


Threaded inserts on Campy seatpost bronze plated


Re-worked MAFAC Racer brake. Bronze plated hardware and springs. Also shows brass valve liberated from rubber coating and elegant cap.


Mixing old with new, ultra high-end with cheap. Ibis Ti stem with Wald steel Northroad bars and Nitto stainless thrown in for good measure
(click photos to zooomify)

Bronze plated locknut with wording highlighted


Exposed bearings in rear hub, flame-tarnished QR handle

This Blog Thing...

(click to zoomify)

I like to write and express my views on things and show people what my bikes look like. There'll be lots of photos, and lots of trivia. I love useless information. In my future posts, you will be exposed to my humor and my subtle way of letting you into my life. You'll see how, two years ago, my wife, three dogs, and I (and Alfred) evacuated New Orleans to Dallas and how most of our stuff was "lost in the flood" (LIF). How now I work for a huge bicycle retailer and spend my idle hours putting my quirky spin on bikes that I have. I'll tell stories of people I've met in the cycling world, rides I've done, a planned bike business, and crap that annoys me.

Inspiration

When I first started cycling, not at 6 but at about 23, I fell in with a group of riders, the Crescent City Cyclists, who laid the foundation of my life's bicycling jounrney. You know, when you're new to something, you soak up the info like a sponge. You admire people, their bikes, interesting things they do in life. One guy I thought was the Guru was a rider named Steve Brown. He wove a romantic web of the love of cycling. His was the first Brooks saddle I ever saw, the first bottom bracket cutout (Masi "M"), first fixed-gear training bike, first guy I saw riding rollers. He knew he had an audience in me and I was rapt. As the miles went on, I was tought the art of riding in a pace line, marking a century with Don Henry arrows, and how a thin layer of lycra can keep you warm in the winter. I held my first CD in his new Isuzu Trooper, heard OingoBoingo and Echo and the Bunnymen, got my first set of touring wheels, handbuilt by him. He had this funky wooden abstract thingy on his dashboard, the word "BYKYAK" written in sort of a '70s love-in style. He said it's what we do - talk about bikes - "Bike Yak".


That's what this blog is going to be about - talking about bikes, my so-called life, my penchant for stylizing my rides, the bike industry and my adventures thru the years.


It is sure to be the most boring stuff you'll ever read in your life.