Herds of kids riding to school.
My morning ride put me right into the middle of the school run. I rode with packs of kids pedaling to school. It was fun and a few of them wanted to race me. We rode together for probably 4 miles before they turned off towards their school. I gotta say it seems like a better life with kids riding bikes to school. My route jumped around a bit but I finally got myself back to the coast.
Odawara Castle was amazing. This building is enormous, you could drive a semi truck through that front door.
I checked my map and saw that there was a castle near my hotel. Out pedaling by 6am I rode up to the Odawara castle. It was really amazing. Not like a stone castle you’d find in Europe, but a big beautiful and ornate temple looking place. Huge walls and gates and a feeling of oldness that made it seem almost holy. Perhaps it was, but the spacious and tranquil grounds sure were a nice change from the traffic. My route had me cutting across a peninsula today and I really didn’t know what to expect. It appeared I would be going over a mountain range but I had no idea how big or how far it was. I mapped out some back roads to cut down on traffic and headed inland. Immediately I started climbing and the little roads I was on were so steep! Honestly they were the steepest roads I have ever seen. I think you could probably fall down these roads they were so steep. Every pedal took a stand-up, gut-busting effort. I climbed something like 1400 feet in less than a mile. When I finally reached the top I felt like a super hero and encountered a confusing sign with highway 11 shooting off in 3 different directions. I rested there for a while and spent some time figuring out which of the “11’s” I should take. Luckily choosing correctly I was rewarded with a long decent where I was able to cruise at about 30 mph sitting completely upright letting the wind cool me down. I stayed at the speed of traffic and had a wonderful coasting cruise for a few miles.
Stava map Day 1 Part 1 , Day 1 Part 2
Wide awake at 4am I spent a while stretching and catching up on emails on my tablet. At 7am breakfast started and I was first in line. I started with the “Traditional Western” buffet and had a completely non-traditional western breakfast consisting of french fries, miso soup, iceberg lettuce and white rice. Being vegetarian in Japan can be challenging for sure! I felt a million times better then I did the day before and was excited to get out on my bike. My plan was to ride from Tokyo along the coast to my destination in Nagoya. The company that imports Fairdale into Japan was having their 35th anniversary and they had brought me over to be part of the celebration. Rather than flying over for just the few days of the event I flew in a bit early so I’d have time to do the ride. I had planned absolutely nothing for my trip and barely even looked at a map. Over planning can kill a trip. Instead I was just going to work it out on the fly.
It had been a busy month leading up to this trip. Fairdale displayed it’s 2015 bikes at the Interbike Tradeshow just days before I left on my Japan trip. I had been so busy getting ready for and working at the tradeshow that I had done almost no riding to prepare myself. I hadn’t even planned out what bike I would ride or gotten gear together for myself. This all kind of hit me as I flew back from Las Vegas realizing I was heading to Japan in only 2 days. Typically I also had managed to get very sick at the tradeshow and was feeling like hustling to get myself ready for a big trip was going to be a huge pain. I borrowed some Blackburn bags and a front rack from Fairdale team rider (and neighbor) Leif. He also helped me set up a Weekender Archer bar bike for the trip. It was a sample bike we made in the Electro-Silver color and happened to be a large (which was my size). With only a short around-the-block test ride I packed up the bike into a cardboard bike box along with all my bags and gear. The $200 bike fee United charges each way was painful but at least I had a direct flight from Denver straight to Tokyo.
Sandy posted some really amazing photos of his Tour De LoLorado. For sure click the link to see some epic-ness.
Sandy also designed a cool back pack you should check out: Sandy’s Betabrand back pack design. A handful more votes and it will go into production.
Here’s a flipbook of a bunch of sort of recent drawings from Taj.
A surprise summer shipment of a small number of Taj bikes in the coveted Military Blue colorway arrive next week. Hit up our in-house distributor Full Factory to order one (or tell your favorite bike shop to)!
When we are ready to show new bikes to bike shops we send out something like above. It’s just a preview of what is coming and a way for a bike shop to predict which models they will order from us. We usually include some plea for them to keep the new bikes secret and not share the images. I’m not really sure what we’re so worried about… I think we worry that no one will buy the “older” bikes if they see the new ones. Personally I think it’s more likely to drum up some excitement for the brand and hopefully get folks interested in trying our bikes. So, this year we are letting you all see the very same preview we sent to bike shops. Keep in mind these bikes won’t be out until November. Also, there’s no specs or geo listings in this preview… that will all come later once I get it all organized and fit for print (in our consumer catalog).
So check out the COMING SOON bikes!
We got kits in! Limited numbers available (because making custom kits is rather expensive). The cool thing is not a lot of people will look like you dressed up in a Fairdale kit. Made for us by Castelli you can be sure of the quality and fit (Castelli kits are our favorites). Check ’em out…
We gave away a Coaster set up with a skaterack to the winner of the “Hipster” hip competition at the Denver stop of Volcom Wild In the Parks event a couple weeks ago. The winner must now grow a mustache, wear decorative scarves and go everywhere with a messenger bag cinched up extra tight. Volcom does a really great job with this fun and free skate event. Top 15 dudes get invited to a $15,000 purse event at Volcom’s private skatepark later this year! Congrats to Devin for winning the bike and cheers to Volcom for having us be a part of things.
