What:  July 3rd Alley Kat

Where:  The bell tower in Baker Park, Frederick City MD.  Afterparty at Krugs Place, on east street.

When: 6:30 PM

How much?  8 dollars.

Prizes?  Hell yes.  Crappy Prizes?  only for the losers.

What to bring:  A cell phone, a blinky light, a messenger bag.

Last November’s Alley Cat brought people from DC, B-more and of course Frederick out to race around the streets of Frederick, doing log pulls, making up raps on the spot, getting porn clerk signatures, and betting on virtual horses at 7-11.  We have more mad ‘nanigans planned for this summer ‘kat, so head on out, bring your bling, and see what the back streets of Frederick are about.

Prizes for: Overall Winner, Mens.  Overall, Womens, Skid Comp, Track Stand Comp, and DFL.

Questions: ask in the comments, suckers.

Kolelinia Lets You Ride Your Bicycle Over the Air – Kolelinia – Gizmodo

the what what:

frederick city alley cat, w/ checkpoints, contests, challenges, scavenger hunting, and rad urban cyclist prizes.

Where: meet at the big bell tower in baker park downtown frederick.  you know it.  MAP HERE
all the normal crap too: skid competion, track stand comp, rapping comp.

do we all know what an alley cat is?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleycat_races

the saturday after halloween, as in nov 7th.  meet at the baker park bell tower….

extra points for rad post halloween costumes.

other stuff:
bring a cell camera or a camera
a sharpie
tail light
beer bucks
messenger bag or basket
$6.66 entrance fee

sand videos, originally uploaded by scott_clark.

Scott Clark on Flickr posted some shots of a cross race that had two interesting alternatives to mud that I liked (I mean ideally cross races should be rainy, muddy, perhaps icey, and generally awful, but baring that, alteratives need to be found. racing on grass is not super exciting to watch) . I can think of a few more: log piles, rock gardens. Got any other ideas?

bicycle design is hosting a design competition. a good one. one to design a better human powered commuting machine. so, be it a commuter bike, freakcumbant, or trike…it’s probably gonna have wheels and pedals, and is definitely gonna have a person on or in it. or under it. or next to it. my point is this is wide open. a great opportunity to share some good ideas, ask some good questions, and possibly find some opportunities to make commuting better.

there are some legitimate judges, and if you’re not james–a legitimate prize.

strictly speaking, CAD isn’t required. do it.

On the ethics side of the wooden nickle, Carbon bikes can be lugged.  Aluminum bikes can be lugged.  Aluminum can be bonded to carbon via lugs.  If we were DJs, this would be called a mash-up, culling what some might consider the best attributes of various construction techniques into a unified whole, while retaining distinctive parts of said whole.  However!  We are not DJs, we are serious investigators on a serious path.  Thus-for, we must coin a new word.  A bike that employes a variety (not a hybrid, we will approach these monsters later, big stick in hand) of construction techniques and materials (must be both) is an example of the mash-fab technique, phrase whose etymology resides in the hands of two artists and a number of rail shots of tequila.  Further reading on said etymology found here.

Mash-fab bikes differentiate from bikes where the lug is aesthetically hinted at, or visually aped, the express purpose of such being to (as Walter Benjamin would put it) cull some of the Aura of the lug.  Hybrid (Morphologically speaking) bikes generally employ tig welded tube junctures with carbon tubes bonded inside of the tig welded tubes.  The most extravagant example of this is the Titus Exogrid.

Faux lug shore lines seek to capitalize on the collective value theory based consciousness, as well as the collective notion of beauty and craft.  Lemond perhaps started said trend when he sought to bond carbon OCLV half triangles to Reynolds Steel.  The juncture was mildly stylized, resulting in a highly bland lug inspired shore-line.  Consumers were very drawn to this brutish juncture, even though it offered none of the advantages of the lug construction method.   Nor, as far as I can tell, do the Titus or Jamis versions, to name a few.  Indeed, lest we forget:  ‘A lug is a socket that forms the junction between two or more frame tubes.’  So speaketh Sheldon Brown, God Rest His Immortal Soul.  Ethically we cannot even refer to these designs as lug-like.  They are luggish! Joan Miro painted Child-like paintings.

A fourth grader paints childish paintings:

Ergo, lug stylings are not to be regarded on the same ethical plane as lugs.  Luggish bikes are an ethical affront to the contemporary lug master.  The engraving, tube cutting, and painting of lug inspired graphics cheapens the original work.  For example:  every commercialized copy of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa erodes the intent of the original.

And now that beaded curtain from that show Dharma and Greg:

Some one’s candle:

And an asinine T-shirt:

What does this do FOR the original work?

Ethical lugs = real lugs.  Impostors need a new word to describe their ‘inspired’ erosion of a traditional, yet highly evolved artistic industrial craft socket.

Bike for sale

What kind of bike? I don’t know, I’m not a bike scientist. What I am though is a manly guy looking to sell his bike. This bike is made out of metal and kick ass spokes. The back reflector was taken off, but if you think that deters me from riding at night, you’re way wrong. I practiced ninja training in Japan’s mount Fuji for 5 years and the first rule they teach about ninja biking is that back reflectors let the enemy know where you are. Not having a rear reflector is like saying “FUCK YOU CAR, JUST TRY AND FIND ME”.

The bike says Giant on the side because it’s referring to my junk, but rest assured even if you have tiny junk that Giant advertisement is going to remain right where it is. I bought this bike for 300 dollars from a retired mercenary that fought in both World War 1 and World War 2 and had his right arm bitten off by a shark in the Phillipines while stationed there as a shark handler. When he sold it to me I had to arm wrestle him for the honor to buy it. I broke his arm in 7 places when I did. He was so impressed with me he offered me to be his son but I thought that was sissy shit so I said no way.

The bike has some rusted screws, but that just shows how much of a bad ass you are. Everyone knows rusted screws on a bike means that you probably drove it underwater and that’s bad ass in itself. Those screws can be replaced with shiny new ones, but if you’re going to go to that trouble why not just punch yourself in the balls since you’re probably a dickless lizard who doesn’t like to look intimidating.

The bike is for men because the seat is flat or some shit and not shaped like a dildo. If you like flat seated bikes you’re going to love this thing because it doesn’t try to penetrate your ass or anything.

I’ve topped out at 75 miles per hour on this uphill but if you’re just a regular man you’ll probably top it out at 10 miles per hour. This thing is listed as a street bike which is man-code for bike tank. The bike has 7 speeds in total:

Gear 1 – Sissy Gear
Gear 2 – Less Sissy Gear
Gear 3 – Least Sissy Gear
Gear 4 – Boy Gear
Gear 5 – Pre-teen Boy Gear
Gear 6 – Manly Gear
Gear 7 – Big Muscles Gear

I only like gear 6 and 7 to be honest.

Additionally, this tool of all immense men comes with a gigantic lock to keep it secure. The lock is the size of a bull’s testicles and tells people you don’t fuck around with locking up your bike tank. It tells would-be-thieves “Hey asshole, touch this bike and I’ll appear from the bushes ready to club you with a two-by-four”.

Bike is for 150 OBO (and don’t give me no panzy prices)

* it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

I think this is the ugliest bike hack I’ve ever seen. Even hippies with a welder and a shopping cart can produce something that doesn’t make me wretch.

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so we had a super good turn out for the scramble.  dave got points for driving the furthest to get here.  phil got points for riding a bike that would give a cory townie a run for its money (crappynesswise).  way to many people showed up on fixed gears and kicked ass on them.  joe, jay, john (sort of) jason and phil were all punished the roads with their insanity.  there were, if i recall, 9 flats, 4 of which happened to Rob and two of which happened to Damien.  Is that right?  Or were there more?  We made it home before blinky lights were needed, but not by too much.

Dave took pictures, which he hasnt posted on Flickr yet, so did John (same thing) but Joe has some up here.

I hope everyone had as good of a time as I did, pain aside.  That said, I rode the next day and felt 90 percent OK.

I want to not feel OK next time.  I want to be groveling on the side of the road.  To that end, I propose a mega monster ride for october.  That gives you almost two months to lay off the sauce and ride a bunch.  We could split the ride over two days, but where’s the suffering in that proposal?

I’m thinking sort of an expanded dirty sugar ferry ride, to include much more dirt and plenty of more excuses to get flats.  there would be no singletrack, but just alot of farm roads and potholes.  120 miles.  It’s totally doable.  We’d have to start early, and we’d definately end after dark.

here’s a link to the proposed ride route.  

Go ahead and call me crazy.  There will mad amounts of dirt.  Or you will be mad about the amount of dirt.  Check it against the dirt road database.  There is more dirt than pavement, almost. I’d say at least 40 solid miles of dirt.  Let’s say October 26th for now.   Image from last year’s Ferry Ride here.

Maybe someone knows someone’s yard we can sleep in down that way.

so we need volunteers, and anyone who does so can get up to 50 dollars of parts at 15 percent over cost.  i think that’s a pretty good deal.   catch: you’ll have to give us money up front, cause we have none.  i mean, before we place the order.  not just in general.

we also need unique frederick city ideas of stuff to do at the check point.  rob and i have only JUST started to throw ideas around, and here are a few, some his, more mine, not because he hasnt thought about it, but because we only talked about it for a few minutes, and this is what i got.

-a ford (or small rickety boat) crossing of a nasty green part of carroll creek (away from all the noise and people and cops)

-a time trial around the dirt path at hood college

-having to purchase, and consume on camera, a tiny sample bottle of schnapps from the amber ghettos liquor store.

-something to do with boxing, at the place near giant eagle.  i dont know about this one

-something to do with a bowling alley, problly a white russian and a pinball score…

-bobbing for apples?

bonus points:  getting a romance novel out of the library

-getting a tiny tattoo

-renting porn from the porn shop.

we need ideas!  also a name!  also volunteers!  also word of mouth spreading!  also a date. i’m thinking second weekend in sept.

leave me you ideas!