bikes

The 19th annual I Care Classic ride (presented by the Almaden Super Lions Club) was on May 15th, 2010.

registration:

Paramit corporation hosted the staging area and registration. They love microwaves. or hot food.

wall of microwaves

The ride was really well supported with plentiful sugary home-baked rest stops. I ate a lot of m&ms and cookies that day. yum.

great homebaked food

The ride was a little foggy in the morning, especially once you got up in the hills a bit:

foggy gilroy hot springs

and sometimes sunny

sunny gilroy hot springs

the fog was wonderful though:

beautiful fog

more beautiful fog

there was an accident somewhere on the route where a car apparently hit a telephone pole, requiring that the road be closed while PG&E conduct repairs. we lost about 30 miles of our ride but we were able to make up 20 miles of it elsewhere on uvas rd.

detour!

Brook hooked me up with some flashy handlebar tape:

rockin the gold handlebar tape

el toro brewing company was nearby, so beers were in order:

beer to cap it off

2010 I Care Classic South County Century & Bicycle Tour

June 9th, 2010
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged beer, bikes, century, gf1, morgan hill
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This is part 4 of the bike and coffee tour.

(part 1 of the tour and part 2 and part 3)

Abraco (86 East 7th Street New York) is a small space with a strong smell of coffee and a distinctive neon sign that is featured prominently as their logo on their website. The beans are from counter culture, and the guy apparently has Bay Area roots and had previous experience at blue bottle. For more information, there’s a good writeup in New York magazine.

Abraco’s website pushes some delicious looking pastries, but I only ended up getting an espresso:

abraco: espresso

The espresso, a ristretto, had a very “traditional” taste to me.

As claimed, the place was tiny and crowded. Nothing wrong with that.

abraco: crowded inside

abraco: baristas

abraco: from the sidewalk

Sam and I continued walking in the east village, headed towards brooklyn but in search of food.

no love for BNE

We stopped by Dumpling Man for a snack:

dumpling man: bathroom

I only ended up with a shot of the bathroom. “Please be good”

We took a little stroll through Tompkins Square Park and then came across Busy Bee Bikes (437 East 6th Street, New York, NY)

busy bee bikes

Nothing too crazy here. You can see a pretty big used part selection behind the glass on the right and a pretty bright paint job outside where some of the people from the shop were working on repairs.

busy bee bikes: sunny sidewalk shot

Our next stop was Bike Works (106 Ridge Street, New York), just on the manhattan side of the Williamsburg bridge. they had a decent selection of cycling caps here, so I picked a couple up as souvenirs.

bike works: storefront

Also in front of Bike works:

bike works: that's a big chainring

big ring riding.

The city was painting new bike lanes on Rivington St as we approached the Williamsburg bridge. Fresh green paint!

new bike lines on rivington st! (or at least I think it was rivington)

Williamsburg bridge photos:

williamsburg bridge

Heavily covered with graffiti good and bad:

williamsburg bridge: I don't think this needed to be covered up

aand plenty crowded with cyclists and pedestrians. It was cool to see the variety of styles. There were old beater bikes, fixies with chopped bars, cheapo mountain bikes and nice road bikes.

williamsburg bridge: a cyclist, eyeing me suspiciously

We took a break to sit down and rest our legs in Williamsburg. There was some group ride going on that looked more instructional than anything else:

back in brooklyn

we started walking in the general direction of park slope, feet and legs starting to get tired. I happened to spot Bicycle Station (171 Park Avenue, Brooklyn, NY). I went in for a bit. The shop seemed small, and relatively sparse possibly due to the fact that they had moved to this location not too long ago. A family came in with a bunch of bikes needing attention and they were starting the repair as I left.

I believe this is bicycle station

I stopped into La Bagel Delight for some food and then took a quick peek into Bespoke Bicycles (64-B Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn) before meeting Sam for a beer at Mullanes across the street. It was well-lit with some beautiful signage.

bespoke bicycles

replenished and rested, we continued towards park slope.

Saw this on Atlantic Ave:

prizes! (trash)

worst prizes ever. but cool tape job.

This little amendment to the BNE sticker took some planning. I got a kick out of it:

"big nut eater". seriously, no love for BNE.

we had some time to spare before meeting up with Sam’s friend for dinner, so naturally we walked up and down 5th and 7th avenues.

Stopped into R&A Cycles (105 5th Avenue Brooklyn) for a second:

R&A Cycles: storefront

R&A has a big shop with many fancy road/tri/whatever bikes.

passed by Dixon’s (792 Union Street Brooklyn), so I stepped in for a second too:

dixon's bike shop wall. But this wasn't actually dixon's

Dixon’s is also a pretty large shop but their focus seemed to be used bikes and repairs:

dixon's bike shop: interior

We walked on to Tea Lounge (837 Union Street Brooklyn) where I didn’t get more coffee because I was already 2 espressos in for the day. Instead, we sat on a comfy couch and rested.

chalkboard outside of tea lounge

I tried making a google map of all of the places visited but am having a hard time embedding that onto this site. So, here’s a list of places that I visited (thanks again to Brooklyn by Bike and the New York Times Interactive Coffee Map! and the people who helped me along the way)

Part 1:

recycleabicycle
cafe grumpy
b’s bike shop
king kog
blue bottle coffee

Part 2:

oslo coffee
nycbikes
gimme! coffee
affinity cycles
velo brooklyn (bushwick bike shop)
lit fuse cyclery

Part 3:

recycleabicycle
stumptown roasters
conrad’s bike shop

Part 4:

abraco
busy bee bikes
bike works
bicycle station
bespoke bicycles
dixon’s bike shop
tea lounge

bike and coffee shops in new york (part 4)

May 31st, 2010
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 5d, bikes, brooklyn, coffee, iso50, manhattan, new york, park slope, photos
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This is part 3 of the bike and coffee tour.

(part 1 of the tour and part 2)

the cruiser, parked across the street from lit fuse

my time for the rental was running out and I was meeting friends at pacifico for dinner. I left lit fuse and rode through downtown brooklyn to get back to recycle a bicycle.

there were a lot of bike lanes going on here nder the manhattan bridge (sands st and jay st)

happyface sadface

chris at recycleabicycle invited me in to take more pictures.

ridiculous amount of used bikes and parts.

left crank arms

forks

lots and lots

crates of brakes

right crank arms

I took the subway back to my sister’s place in manhattan. It was kind of sad to leave the cruiser behind.

I caught this before the end of the night:

chop

your brake levers overlap! but I suppose it’s good to at least have brakes.

I had to work the next day but continued the bike shop and coffee tour the day after that, on foot with my friend sam.

first stop: stumptown.

I was debating whether to post this. ok shepard fairey, you win.

stumptown barista

I was really impressed with stumptown (18 West 27th Street New York, NY). It’s a really well done little spot attached to the swank ace hotel.

stumptown: menu

the line was about 8-10 deep, which was a bit long but manageable.

stumptown: grinding and brewing

there was lots of fun stuff, coffee and not coffee related on the walls.

stumptown: espresso

stumptown’s espresso was my favorite of the tour by far.

saw this guy parked outside stumptown:

is this comfortable? I kind of wanted to hop on and try it out.

has anyone ridden a no-nose saddle before?

next stop: conrad’s in tudor city.

conrad's store front

conrad’s bike shop (25 Tudor City Place New York, NY) looked like they got pretty serious with the bike fitting:

conrad's interior. bike fit setup is the 2nd bike in

conrad's interior

there was a decent selection of apparel and accessories as well as many fancy bikes on the floor.

sam and I walked down to the east village next, to hit abraco.

this guy had a good look:

riding a strida? on 10th st

and this note, hilarious:

nobikes, bike, note

“Don’t come crying when we cut your chain and remove your bicycle from the fence! THAT’S A BIG SIGN!”

one more to go. part 4 comes next.

bike and coffee shops in new york (part 3)

May 25th, 2010
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 5d, bikes, brooklyn, coffee, iso50, manhattan, new york, photos
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(part 1 of the tour is here)

This is part 2 of my brooklyn bike and coffee tour.

My next stop after Blue Bottle was Oslo coffee (133 Roebling St, Brooklyn).

I took some shots along the way:

williamsburg pasteup

GATS gets around

I couldn’t handle much more caffeine by the time I got to Oslo, so I skipped another espresso and had a cookie instead.

oslo coffee: storefront

eddie at oslo coffee

I told Eddie about the bike and coffee tour idea and he recommended a few places to check out in Manhattan. I was surprised that it was empty there, but I think it was mid-afternoon at this point, which isn’t exactly a prime coffee hour.

I visited NYCbikes (spokes and strings? 140 Havemeyer St. Brooklyn, NY) next.

nycbikes (spokes & strings): storefront

nycbikes (spokes & strings): interior

I continued rolling around Williamsburg to Gimme! Coffee (495 Lorimer St, Brooklyn, NY)

gimme! coffee: storefront

It was pretty packed in here with quite a few people working on their laptops and it looked like some of the after-work crowd was coming in for a buzz. Friendly baristas.

gimme! coffee: transaction

I didn’t remember to take a picture of the espresso shot until I was almost done:

gimme! coffee: espresso, mostly finished.

affinity cycles (616 Grand Street Brooklyn, NY) was right around the corner.

affinity cycles: storefront

The guys in the shop were pretty busy with repairs and they were doing some renovations to the interior:

affinity cycles: interior

onward. Grand St. was being resurfaced but the fatty cruiser tires didn’t really care.

probably on grand st @ bushwick ave

I rode down to velo brooklyn (bushwick bike shop). (342 Dekalb Avenue, Brooklyn, NY) This shop wasn’t part of my originally-scheduled tour, but I happened to be riding by, so…

velo brooklyn (bushwick bike shop)

super-friendly and laid back people here. One guy recommeded that I check out the biker cafe, boneshakers – but alas, I didn’t have time this trip. maybe next time. I browsed through their cycling cap selection and was surprised to see that they carried hats by local lady alloneword. She had graciously donated caps to my girlfriend and friends who are doing AIDS lifecycle this year.

velo brooklyn (bushwick bike shop): shop talk

velo brooklyn (bushwick bike shop): pretty sweet walls

I headed towards Lit fuse cyclery (409 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, NY) next.

dekalb ave

dekalb ave: cruisin bed-stuy

lit fuse cyclery: entrance

lit fuse cyclery: interior, with klein

I was taking interior shots at every shop, but I had to get one from this angle because I have a soft spot for kleins. this Klein Rascal had the mission control integrated handlebars. (Side note: I’m happy someone put together www.oldklein.com – the official klein page is just a product registration form. boo trek.)