Volunteer Human Society Cat Trapper/ Fairdale Team rider Sandy Carson spotted this amazing Cat 1 rider yesterday cruising the streets of Austin.

Follow the man himself on Instagram at Sandy_Carson or follow this link.

Yeah, I’m done! It’s obviously nothing too deep here but it gave me a good laugh painting it.

…and it was very boring for Monty.

So the idea is that each rabbit is one of the Empire team riders.

Here’s Tina, Tom and Owen; the Empire family.

Joel Moody is look suave.

Chris Doyle stands with his arm around Joe Rich and Aaron Ross has got his phone out.

George Boyd has his Mutiny bike up in the air and Kevin Porter is holding a coffee cup full of Integencia or whatever it is he likes so much.

Chase Hawk has his white Cult bike with Blue Odyssey parts, and Tommy Dugan is hanging loose lounging out at the bottom.

Morgan Wade is doing a bar ride on a red bike which doesn’t really make any sense because his bike is apparently army green. Tom Smith is standing next to him with arms wide open.

I decided Tony Cardona should be jumping around so he’s the guy on the left side there over Sergio Layos shoulder.

Dylan Smith has his arm around Sergio and Danny Hickerson towers above both of them.

So there’s Dylan and Danny again on the left side, Hanson Little’s rabbit sort of has a beard and then Sean Sexton is chilling out at the bottom in the curve of the ramp.

And then holding up the banner up top our are lost buds Empire’s Bonnie and my old pup Roscoe. I’m pretty sure they are both happy to be looking over everyone.

I’m pretty stoked to have taken this little project from this ratty rained on sketch and blank wall to….

This ratty sketch and base paint on the wall to…

this final (?) Empire team wall.

Things are starting to come into focus over at Empire. Got a good solid day of detail work at least, but making headway….

Somedays riding my bike is quiet and peaceful and refreshing. Other days it feels like I’m riding through a battle field and every single car on the road is trying to kill me. I don’t usually think it’s intentional… it’s usually from cars simply not paying attention. Being on a bike in traffic you are afforded a slightly elevated view into cars and can see what is distracting drivers so much. This is especially true when stuck at a light waiting to turn left. As cars drive past you can see everything going on in cars. I reckon that one in every five cars that passes me holds a driver ignoring the road completely, instead poking their phone.

This got me thinking and so I have prepared some statistics for you based on my experiences around Austin.

1 out of every 2 drivers are on the phone.

1 out of every 5 drivers are texting.

1 out of every 25 drivers has an open beer in their cup holder.

1 out of every 6 drivers will make a right turn through a red light or stop sign faster then would seem safe on a green light.

1 out of 20 cars smells like weed as it drives by. 

1 out of 6 drivers doesn’t use their turn signals while changing lanes.

100% of drivers who don’t use their turn signals annoy me. 

50% more drivers will drive in the bike lane oblivious to the fact that they are not in a auto lane on the Eastside then on the Westside of town.

1 car has passed me with every occupant texting, and not one single person driving. 

Can anyone out there provide me with some more useful stats?

Sandy Carson was in a Slideshow Potluck art show the other night. Here’s his segment from the show. Always such awesome photos from Mr. Carson. Watch the show on  Vimeo Here

You can sort of see the shadows starting to take shape today. I feel like I need to spend a whole day up there to really knock this out.

The Empire folks found this old photo of me from 12 years ago in a German BMX mag. Always likes this picture because I never really knew what trick it was. One-footed X? Some kind of vertical Nac Nac Xup? Or almost sort of 1 footed look down?

Well, to be honest I didn’t accomplish a whole lot on the Empire mural today… or at least it doesn’t really look any different. So here instead is a picture of Monty getting ready to head home from last night.

We rode the bike path home along Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin and saw this pretty sweet moon lit skyline.

Today at Empire I pretty much just sketched in the details of the dudes.

Tomorrow I’ll get to start putting in some shading and lead up to the final outlining.

Today I showed up to empire and just started drawing on the wall. Didn’t really have too much of a plan but knew I needed to fit 19 people on there (Empire team and Empire family).

Don’t think I’ll be able to make it up there again until tuesday so I’ll have a few days to think about how to handle the next phase.

Spent a little bit of time up at Empire and got to this point on day 2.

I guess if we take my sketch a little further its heading for something like this…

Going to basically paint the Empire family hanging out. I’ll keep the updates coming…-Taj

Over the next few days (or maybe weeks) I’m going to be spending some spare time up at Empire BMX working on a mural over the upstairs mini ramp. Should be lots of fun. Today was my first day and the results are pretty boring.

I arrived to the above blank wall armed only with this small pencil sketch. It was raining on the way up there so my sketch got soaked and is almost illegible. It still makes sense to me though so we’ll see where this ends up.

At the end of today’s short day this is all I have for you… a poorly primed wall. How exciting right? From grey to grey-ish white. This was not worth your time to read, sucker! Such is the internet I guess… tons of wasted time, we should all be out pedaling bikes somewhere… or eating pizza. However, from here things can only get more interesting right? More on this project soon hopefully.

I’ve been trying to think of a tag line for Fairdale… something like above… or “Every Pedal Moves You Closer”

… or every pedal makes you stronger… that kind of thing.

And I’ve been thinking about tacos.

Thanks to the internet being on vacation yesterday I spent some time doodling and trying to get my creative juices flowing. Fairdale needs some new t-shirt designs and I’m trying to get something going.

I figure cat butts are always pretty cool.

As well as nonsense.

Also got this picture of a sweet Fairdale Express frame and fork kit build. My buddy Chris is a mechanic over at Ozone Bikes in Austin and built his ride up with rad ole’ Dura-Ace center pull brakes.

Long time friend and all around great guy Sandy Carson is now a part of Fairdale’s team. It’s true that we don’t really have a team but starting right now we are going to begin putting together a small group of awesome folks who like to ride bikes.

Here is Sandy receiving his Fairdale kit. You guys didn’t even know we made those because I never told anyone.

Sandy signed his contract with me as witness. Unlike other companies who don’t want you to know the details of their rider’s contracts we at Fairdale believe in full disclosure. Take a look at what our legal team came up with above.

Next I started building up Sandy’s old parts into a Fairdale frame. I didn’t have one of those stupid “star-fangled-nut” things for the forks so I couldn’t really finish it.

Also, Sandy couldn’t figure out what bars he wanted on it so instead we went and rode mountain bikes.

Not many dudes can ride a Giant STP single speed dirt jumper on a long ass cross country ride, then shred the pump track at the end of the ride.

Check out Sandy all over the web:

Sandy Carson on: Facebook, Sandy Carson on: Twitter, Sandy Carson: Photo website , Sandy Carson onTumblr, and Sandy_Carson on Instagram (I can’t figure out how to link to Instagram).

Keep the watts pumping folks and have a good day!

And now here’s part 2 of Sandy Carson’s down under cycling tour adventure (you can catch Part 1 here)…

The 2 weeks flew by in Australia and I was already regretting only having a week to enjoy New Zealand’s South Island as I flew in. I’ve always wanted explore NZ and i’m sure it won’t be the last. Need. More. Time. ugh!

Flying over the glaciers and making a to do list. Hike, ride, explore, skydive? getting ADD already.

This was my route. Fuck. Who was I kidding? There was way I could do half of this on a bike in a week, so o I had to rent a car and stuff my bike in it. That still counts as touring, right? I could squeeze more in and use my bike to explore towns.

I flew into Christchurch, which had just been flattened by yet another earthquake tremor. It was pretty devastated had turned into ghost town, dead silent, even the grocery stores weren’t playing music. People thought I was nuts when I said I was flying into there to start my trip, but I didn’t mind. I’m actually used to it and find the beauty in documenting natural disasters in my line of work sometimes ( Paradise Has Relocated by Sandy Carson ). I ended up staying in town for 2 days in the only hostel that wasn’t destroyed, picking up some personal photo work interviewing people and making photographs the disaster. I felt really bad for the city, how do you rebuild knowing that It may strike again at any time?

A vitamin store’s shelves shook to the ground.

Wooster disaster shot.

Okay this driving isn’t so bad after all. The Mogwai soundtrack was made for this.

About 8hrs later going West, I checked into the YHA hostel and got up early to hike the Franz Josef Glacier  despite having not much sleep. Drunk English people snoring. My worst nightmare or both accounts! Ear plugs and single dorms from then on. I’m too old for this shit, need beauty sleep!

This glacier is about 7.5 miles long, according to the Wiki page. It’s receding quite and I was eager to hike about on it before it melted, after all, I had my banana skin climbing shoes on and wanted to put them to use.

Here’s the Fox Glacier. It’s a bout 20k from the Franz Josef one. Are the mints  named after this? Sadly I had no time to hike around here because I figured it would look better from the sky…

I’ve always wanted to go Skydiving  so I figured if I was going to do it, might as well be over a Glacier!

I was thinking on the way up that it was worth it just for a close look at the Glaciers. I was probably just blocking out crapping my pants.

I felt safe flying tandem with Will Ferrel, he did Elf and Ron Burgundy quotes on the way down.

Her’s the video of me bricking my pants, sorry Mum. (watch the video of Sandy’s jump here with sweet techno!)

I’ll never forget the Royal Wedding of Prince Willie and Kate. I was in a bar in the Franz Josef Village celebrating a virgin Skydive.

It was full of backpackers playing some weird bungee game where you’d run your team mate for beers, then get catapulted backwards. Sounds like a drinking hazard and sure looked like one. I know you guys are outdoorsy in NZ but c’mon now!

This dude was dressed up as Kate Middleton in some mingin’ trash bags.

Insert Scottish velcro gloves joke here-

A lake on the road to Wanaka. New Zealand is like Scotland on steroids. Every corner you turn, you have to pull over.

Wanaka was a cool town sorta like a smaller version of Queenstown. Lots of hiking trails, biking and some excellent curry! Wish i had more time here. I had to get strict and get German on my schedule.

A lonely skatepark across the road from the Hostel. Of course, I had a few laps on the touring bike. Feels crazy hitting bowl corners.

Back on the road again and checking out some fall colours.

 

Classy hostel roach meal. Ed Docherty would be so proud. I forgot to mention how bloody expensive it is in NZ coming from the US. Pints are about $8 and a regular meal is about $20 with the exchange rate.

Does heaven have a ghetto? Is god a DJ? Is earth a dancefloor?

Jody Donnely’s unicycle?

This was the closest I came to seeing Chopper when I was down under.  Funnily enough this was my first bike as a kid!

For some reason, this reminds me of Leland Thurman on the left.

No trip would be complete without the brown water. Had to post one of these and i know how much my Taj loves to hate Coffee.

Was really looking forward this. Here I am taking the Ski lift up the Mountain to do some Downhill Mtb in Queenstown with vegemite sarnies. The guy who took my photo told me that they the American army captured and killed Osama Binladen.

Double Wooster shot with Queenstown in the background.

About to curvy swerve on the course. 8 inches of travel on the fork. that ought to about do it.

Camera n a tripod and hoping that I don’t tomahawk down the mountain at 45mph.  Friends don’t let their friends ride DH alone.

If they had curse word box at the bungee jump for every time someone jumped, I bet it would be rammed.

Slap up dinner for 2. Just me, a curry and a fat bird.

Back on the road to Christchurch for the next 6hrs at 100mph to drop the car off in time. That was a super quick crammed week of fun. Made it in time to drop my car off and ended up sleeping at the airport to catch an early flight, then took me 24hrs to get to LA.

till next time.

Till next time. Thanks to everyone who made this trip possible and let me be weird and crash at their house- Jamie & Meagan and the Moore family, Paul & Pauline, Craig Savage for the custom bike, Colin, Reggie, Peddler Bike Shop, Matty Alsberg in LA, Seth Holton & Ryan Worcester, Taj & Fairdale.

So let’s see… to be fair Sandy Carson’s bicycle tour of Australia/ New Zealand was before he was actually on the Fairdale team and he’s not actually on a Fairdale. Still, his bike does have a Fairdale sticker on it and he had a great adventure we want to show you. Plus, yes, he is almost officially on the Fairdale team that we are starting of awesome people who ride bikes. Once he signs his contract we’ll give you a good bunch of info on BMX legend/ Austin’s favorite photographer/ veggie powered cyclist Sandy Carson.

Check out Sandy’s trip through his photos and words below. Part 2 which covers his New Zealand leg will be here sometime next week- Taj

Australia/New Zealand bike tour 2011.

I had been sitting on a free ticket to Australia for 2 years and was trying to find a window to cash it in. It was a trade for shooting my good friends Jamie & Meagan’s wedding here in the States. I can’t think of a more epic barter, thanks guys! Besides, it got me off my ass to go back down under since the Federal Bike Bmx tour in 2003. This time I wanted to see the coast and cities on big wheels this time instead of BMX, put some miles in, camp out and be a weirdo with my camera. As It was the tail end of the summer down there and had a small window to do it in, so I booked up for a 3 week solo mission,( 2 in Australia and one in New Zealand). It’s a long trip there, so you might as well make the most of it.  Here are some point n shoot digi pics I shot along the way. My film stuff can be seen on my tumblr page.  Thanks for reading, Now get pedaling.

This is all the rubbish I took on the road for 3 weeks. Tent, sleeping pad, 2 panniers with some clothes, waterproofs,  2 cameras, film, some tools and a map, but no cell phone- Stoked! And a gallon of sunscreen cos you know the ozone is amazing down under.

Anxiety. That’s a long way over water from LA to OZ, luckily there were no plane crash movies as inflight entertainment.

…instead they featured one of my favorite photographers, Chris Jordan. He talked about carbon footprints which seemed ironic since it was shown on a plane.

It’s always a good sign to see your bike make it on the other side.

On arrival at Adelaide, South Australia, the first thing I did was put my bike together and test ride it against sand and salt water, since it had never seen either.

This is my host and good buddy Jamie ‘Chiv’ Moore who owns a killer BMX Distribution -Stowaway.

I dare say I would wear a helmet too if I had junk this big!

There is so much goin on here.  TheT1 Crew were staying at Jamie’s and parting down on their last night of their own OZ bmx tour. That rug is from a portrait I shot from of Jamie and Megs wedding. Ruben Alcantara is having a giggle fit about how funny It’d be to hilarious print another rug with this photo on it!. hahahaha

Yes, the secret is out, Ruben has magnetic teef.

Tom Dugan taking his tailwhip nibble stick skills to the streets.

Australia’s #1 food. I feel a curry coma coming on.

Another Austin Texas legend Eric ‘Wheelieman’ Mills was in town cruising the Adelaide promenade.

cryptic penis art in Adelaide.

Brighton Beach. Where are the Mods & Rockers?

I had no idea Chase hawk was so popular down under, or had some kind of fitness Cult with Taj’s Dog Roscoe, as a mascot! Bizarre.

I ran into my old Federal Bikes team mate Brad Grantham. Aint see that fool for years. I miss this  dude.

4.20 + Hungry Man man = Massive Meat Pie. Must be for Stoner rugby players?

I took the train trip to Melbourne from Adelaide across the southeast of the country to hang with my buddies and start my bike tour. Right off the bat I was immediately approached by some Japanese tourists who wanted to take photos with me as some sort of ginger tourist attraction!?!.  Sandy-tori time!

‘Then he took photos of us while we took photo of him!’

Melbourne view from the Shrine of remembrance.

This is Paul Robertson, an ole BMX pal of mine from Scotland, we go way back. His dog ‘Buddy’AKA ‘Dog Man’ like to munch on visitors socks and ‘poofy treats’. He also doubles as a briefcase. Pauline is on the computer here googling how long it takes for a dog to pass a sock.

whit a noggin on this dug. It’s like Spitnik!

Here’s Paul’s shop. Strictly BMX,  dialed set up. Granite city boy done good!

totes.

There was  an Etnies Skate Tour Demo goin off at Prahran skatepark where Ryan Sheckler was mobbed by a teenager. Spewin that I missed it, as I was too busy roaching this kid’s flashes for a badly times skate photo.

You need 3D specks for this one.

Some local art in the Brunswick district of Melbourne.

Pedaling around Melbourne’s version of Austin- St Kilda’s. Luna park has been scaring little kids for almost 100 years. that’s a Creepy mouth to enter if ever I saw one.

 

This place was splendid. Lentil As Anything, a non profit Vegan, pay as you feel buffet In Melbourne.

The T1 crew, doing their best Metal Bikes road trip push start impersonation on a full belly of lentils. Where’s Jimmy?

Taking the train from Melbourne to Geelong to avoid the highway and start the Great Ocean Road ride. First of many photos of my bike in front of anything memorable. This is known as a “Wooster shot” coined from the great epic mentor Ryan Worcester who started placing his bike in many of his epic landscapes.

das route.

 

Getting ready to work on my tan.

Here we go again. “Can we take a photo with group photo with you, are you Scottish?” What makes you think that?

Duh.

Some ugly beach I had lunch at.

Is he Ruben? Is he Cuban?

This is Colin, we met somewhere near Lorne. He was such a road warrior and on his last leg of an entire loop of Australia. He had some cool stories and made me feel like such a pussy. That rig is awesome.

Wye River sunrise.

Pfft, single rainbows are so over, didn’t you know.

I hitchhiked with this nutty family from Apollo Bay to The 12 Apostles through the rain forest. I was a white knuckle rollercoaster through some hairpin turns. The ‘Joe Mangle’ look a like Dad, was chugging stubbies (beers) while his 4 kids were asking me wild questions all the way there. That’s my bike on the roof of the yute, minus my waterbottles that went flying. Blimey!

Pulled it to the anti climactic 12 apostles, for a tourist shot as it started raining. There was only 8 apostles left standing and the whole scene was really rammed with tourists. Ho hum.

token night shot.

 

quality digs.

 

My one and only wild Kangaroo sighting of the whole trip, heading back through the forest towards to Apollo bay.

Jeaous Koala.

Crimson Rosella.

for real, no it’s a meal!

Got to Apollo bay after a pretty intense hill bomb from Layers Hill. Was looking for a good retro hostel to break out the Hasselblad. Woop there it is.

The hostel was full but the Landlord, Reggie let me set up in his yard for a tenner!  Here’s how to put a tent up in lycra (Benny Hill style). Note to self-Please remember to check grass for dog logs next time.

Breakfast at Apollo Bay Backpackers. Time to CARB!

This is Rocky, the Hostel’s house cat. He was a bad ass and had cancer, poor we guy. All the backpackers were scared to touch him.

Hope he’s still around. Dude was a lap hog.

Bit of Aussie humor. Canny beat it. What next, more Penis Drawings?

Okay this surfing lark looks like fun, never tried it, but when in Rome. Might as well give it a go before i hit the road.

Surfing cherry popped. This shit looks easy but it’s way hard and i can see how you could get hooked.

I was happy to be back in Melbourne for a coupe of days to eat something other than peanut butter and roadie nibbles.

This is Boinga Bob’s temple. The P’s took me here right before I left Oz for Nz. A cosmic wood carving artist- Boinga Bob created this settlement and lives in it. It reminded me of Austin’s cathedral of Junk.  I can see a retirement home for Taj here.

that’s wot she said.

Went to a wildlife refuge to see some critters. I thought Tasmanian Devils were just fictional flash tattoos you get when you are wasted?

Crapman vs curry man. Who would win?

Quality graffiti at Northcote skatepark.

Paul getting his nose picked by Mr Whippy.

My token BMX riding snapshot for the trip. Thanks for the photo, Paul!

More Brunswick art.

There she is!  Australia’s finest. No trip to OZ would be complete without a Kylie sighting.

Part 2: New Zealand coming sometime next week!

In an effort to test our new Weekender model as much as possible before full production I lent my personal steed out for the weekend. This gave the Weekender a chance to live up to its name and prove its stuff. Full Factory’s Logan and his pup Hershal took the bike and my Bob trailer for a 100+ mile ride to a camp ground up north of Austin (Upper Colorado Bend State Park). They traveled with everything they needed for a camping weekend. Logan said the ride was good except that the loaded trailer with dog on board made standing hill climbs difficult. Since his route went through the thick of Texas hill country he spent a lot of time grinding away in the small gears. The ride proved to be quite an adventure and he managed to spend a relaxing weekend with his dog camping and then head back to Austin. Not bad!

Sounds like a lot of fun… I think I might be doing something very similar very soon.

Thanks to Andrew Brady for the pic!

Found this beauty on the internet. Carbon fiber bikes with leather seats and carbon fiber couches with leather seats. You’re life could be complete! Actually pretty interesting construction techniques if you find this kind of thing interesting like I do : http://cncrouting.co.uk/projects/carbon-fibre-sofa/

Our wonderful little Skaterack  just got a little easier to get. QBP the world’s largest seller of bicycle parts to bike shops just added it to their inventory. Just search out Fairdale. If you’re just a person (and not a whole bike shop) this means that pretty much any bike shop you might walk into can order you a Skaterack at a moments notice.

Of course you can still buy the Skaterack from our in house distributor Full Factory Distribution. Also, Full Factory continues to be the exclusive distributor for the rest of Fairdale’s line of bikes and products.

As often happens at Fairdale today’s morning began with one of my co-workers researching the origins of the jock strap. According to the “Bike” Athletic company which has sold over 300 million jock straps the athletic supporter was invented  by them 1874. The purpose was so that “bicycle jockeys” could endure the bone-shaking ball-breaking abuse from riding on cobblestone streets. Bike’s enlightening history is here.

Prior to the invention of the jock strap there was a lot of numbness “down there” and riders would often have to resort to visual inspection while riding to make sure things were properly “organized”. Not at all unlike BMX’s JSIF trick (ie: Jock Strap Inspector Flip).

If you have too much dignity to do it yourself but are interested in having your jock strap inspected these guys are apparently licensed and always waiting around in a locker room to help you. Now you know why “Bike” makes gear for sports with locker rooms.

Of course, jock straps are not for everyone.

So next time you are getting ready for a bicycle ride don’t feel bad about being a “jock”.

Explained!

For Christmas I got Monty a new Bob trailer. 10 Miles to and from work is a bit much for those stumpy legs and unfortunately the Dograck didn’t really work that well. I made the above christmas card to you all inspired by how we’re about to ride home.

Have a good one everyone!

Just had a little meeting across town and had to clip on my fenders for some rain riding. On my way home a car ran a stop sign and almost got me. I instinctively death gripped both brake levers when I saw what was about to happen. Before the brakes had even engaged it flashed through my mind that it was raining and my brakes weren’t going to work. Luckily, as fast as I thought that they did start working. So stoked on disc brakes in the rain! Those things stopped so well! Almost never rains here in Austin so I don’t really get to see that other benefit of disc brakes. Fairdale Weekender above coming early next year.

The other good thing to do with rainy days is make mischief with photoshop! Made this Fairdale ad as a joke on Prolly is Not Probably. Like as if we had the ad space above him this is what our ad would look like.  We did actually send in our first ad to Urban Velo and so you can check us out in print in january. Not sure if it will be so urine focused.

Prolly is Not Probably sent us over some awesome photos of our buddy Hern riding a Fairdale. He’s not riding it the usual way though as he’s converted his Parser Express into a single-speed fixed-gear cyclo-cross bike.

I guess he took part in the first annual Trackocross race. Hit up Prolly’s blog for the full story. The photos we were sent are awesome so can’t wait to see the rest of them.

By the way, I don’t really think the Parser makes a good Tracklosaurus bike or whatever… I think it’s more like Hern is a really good bike rider would make a tricycle look good.

If you happen to be near Buffalo NY on Dec 21 Jim Cielencki is throwing the “Shred Before Christmas” jam at X-Wheels skatepark. Hit up Sunday Bikes for more info.

Here’s a Fairdale ad from our distributor in Japan. It ran in Pedal Speed magazine. No idea what it says but stoked on it nonetheless.

Need a Fairdale in Japan? Hit up Motocross International at Ride2Rock.jp

Our frame and fork kits have been added to our online store and are available now for only $375.00.

To sweeten the deal we are including a FREE Odyssey sealed headset (normally $27).

We have 3 sizes for sale in 2 colors. Our butted full Chromoly frame and forks are durable and very functional with rack/ fender mounts. Check out all the specs here.

This Fairdale Parser Frame and Fork and FREE Odyssey Headset special deal is for a limited time only.

Pick one up while they last!

Note: Complete bikes will continue to only be available through our authorized dealers.