howies®

This Weeks T-Shirt of the Week is ‘No Gears’ by 45rpm

No Gears is a group of like-minded cyclists who live and ride in Bristol.

From premiering some of the best cycle films in the world, to curating bike-based
art shows, they have a love for anything with two wheels.

45rpm is an artist and member of the collective. He has designed this t-shirt
to commemorate the 2010 Bristol Bike Week.

Click Here for the Men’s
Click Here for the Women’s

I’ve been running since last year.

Well, I  say ‘running’ … I mean going out with a specific route in mind, and aiming for a speed at least a couple of times a month, usually a couple of times a week.

This weekend I will be running in my first organised race, the Bristol Half Marathon.

With 4 days to go, it’s playing on my mind, I can’t stop thinking about it.

Have I done enough training? (probably not.)
Can I pace myself for the first half? (maybe…)
Will I be able to finish? (yeeeah.)
Will I be fast? (Don’t be stupid.)

I’m aiming to finish in under 1 hour 40. With my own absurd target being 1 hour 30.

I figure there are three key points that will help me in the race as opposed to training on my own.

1 – Bristol is flat. A lot flatter than Pembrokeshire.
2 – There will be well organised and regular drink stops. I often dehydrate half way through my run and finish with a headache.
3 – I will be running in a pack and will be able to tune out easier once I find someone to pace myself with.

The nervous energy is building in my legs.

It can’t start soon enough.

On bank holiday Sunday, little old Cardigan hosted it’s first ever Criterium bike race.

While the pros rolled up with their swish carbon bikes & shaved legs and set up their turbo trainers along the sides of the back roads, the focus of the day for us was the traders race. A 15 minutes +2 lap race, open to any local business people, shopkeepers, delivery drivers, barkeepers and the like.

Ade and I joined Jon Heslop of the Do Lectures on the motleyest of motley start lines.

Ade and Jon were sporting fixed wheels, I was on a borrowed road bike with gears and a freewheel. Also in the mix were a few classic town bikes, a couple of more serious looking racing frames and at least one 26″ MTB’er.

The flag fell and off we went. A leading pack quickly took charge of the race and built a lead over the rest of the field, with Ade and I trading places in our own race behind them.

I kept in touch until the final lap, when he made his break and my tired legs capitulated.

The real hero of the day was Josh, though. Who shot off with the lead pack and went on to win the race (but only by a whisker) on the carbon Look he borrowed from the bike shop, wearing jeans with a pair of flat pedals and a 15mm spanner in his back pocket to swap them back onto his BMX for the ride home.

Many thanks to Carl, Tom and the rest of Velo Teifi who laid on a great event. We hope to take part in many more Cardigan Street races in years to come.

This week’s T-shirt of the Week is ‘Multitasker’

Modern life has its demands.
So much to do, so little time.
Work, play, family, money and updating your Facebook page.
That’s why modern man (but primarily woman)
has become so good at juggling.
It seems it’s now the only way we can function.
Just don’t drop the ball.

Click Here for the Men’s
Click Here for the Women’s

The internet died a few hours before the Autumn site was due to go live.
Turns out it’s hard to run a website when you can’t get online.
So Plan B was a 6am start in the Cardigan shop to do the final bits and pieces.
Two sprints across town to HQ to get some files (my best time for the 1GB is 10 minutes)
A rebuilt SQL database and a jury-rigged XML upload.
And we’re live. The Autumn clothes are online and you can see the catalogue here.
Hope you like it, it’s been fun getting it ready.

School starts
Early sunsets
Picking berries
Trees transforming
Eerie mists
Migrating birds
Bonfires burning
Evenings snuggling
Rustling leaves

Autumn is on its way. And so is our new catalogue.

A copy of our full catalogue, or one of our cut-down newspaper versions
should be landing on your doormat any day now.
New jackets, jeans, dresses and knitwear. And the story of our surf team’s
trip across Ireland in an old Winnebago.

Alternatively, you can go look at all that stuff on our website, where youíll also find a downloadable PDF version of the catalogue.

Click here for men’s
Click here for women’s

Just found this on Vimeo.

A day in the life of New York City, in beautiful tilt-shift miniature.

Winner of Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction 2010

Love it. Tilt-shift makes the world look so cool.

(From Chris Jackson @ Kingdom Bike)

Part 2 – The Riding.

After the incredibly slow drive to Åre in Northern Sweden for the 3rd round of the Maxi avalanche enduro cup, we were more than happy to wake up to sunshine and fresh mountain air. After the official morning coffee we’re back on our bikes and stuck into some epic riding.

The area around Åre is by no means the highest mountain range, with it’s peak at only 1420 metres it’s a mere blip compare to say the Alps, but don’t be fooled by this lack of altitude as it’s part of some of the most epic ‘big country’ in Europe.

When the sun shines the light and the expanse of sky become overpowering on top of any of the local peaks your view is uninterrupted for miles as the mountains just roll and roll only stopping to be punctuated by mountain lakes and more mountains. Riding in mountains you find yourself surrounded by huge house-sized boulders that dwarf the trails and make Northern Scandinavia so distinctive.

The riding here is simply Åresome (sorry!). There are so many trails littering the mountains it’s difficult to know which to start riding first with all of them keeping you grinning all day, and riding late into the evenings.

Even the light is epic, which also happens to last from 5am to about 10pm this time of year, it’s pretty much 24/7 daylight in June so if you fancy taking some taking epic nightrides, head north.

What do top mountain bike riders do when they are not racing or riding? They go on Facebook of course! James McKnight relaxing after a days riding…. And pre race training for the Maxi race.
More coming up in Part 3 when we cover the Maxi race, it might not be sunny so wear something waterproof.

Desirable riverside location with striking views.
Easy access by foot or bike (no tubes or busses, sorry).
Large conference room*
Mooring point.
Adjacent to pub.
Otters and herons.
Many Sq Feet.

*field

Just had this cool little link pop up in my twitter feed (thanks to @CliveAndrews)

This video is made up of screen shots from Oliver O’Brien’s London cycle hire station status map (oobrien.com/vis/bikes/).
Each second of video is 1 hour in real life and the video starts midnight Tuesday 10th August and ends midnight Wednesday the 11th.

It really shows all the bikes flooding into central London in the morning and then leaving in the evening!

Blue circles represent bike stations that are less than half full, red circles are over half full.