From Liz: Today was a hot one. The first half of the day Emily and I spent on our own. Unlike most days, we did not have longer than a 9 mile stretch on any road. The area we were in felt very desolate. We would go miles without seeing another car or person. It felt like a movie desert.
We rode past a number of crawfish ponds and ended up on another dirt road today. It was the roughest we’ve been on yet and was mostly gravel for 3 miles or so.
From Phil: Going down the frontage road on I-10 in Louisiana is like going down one big, long bike path. Today’s ride was pretty straight forward. Not a lot of twists and turns just one long quiet frontage road. It’s pretty nice. You can really ride your bike a long way without having to get on a real highway. Lots of people are nervous to ride their bikes, but you can really find a bike-friendly route. I think only one car has honked in anger (jealousy?) this entire time.
From the campsite, we passed through Lake Charles, Louisiana. I split off from the girls for a few hours to check out what the city has to offer and visited the only bike shop in town.
From Phil: The day started out sunny with lots of twist and turns in the road.
Within the first 5 miles, Emily wrapped her chain around her sprocket. I’m sure someone reading this has gotten chain suck. That’s when your chain gets wrapped around the front chain rings and wedged all in the bottom bracket. It was a mess but lucky it didn’t break. After fixing that we moved on. More
From Phil: Sleeping in the tent last night was tough. It was warm and humid from all the rain. Luckily bugs didn’t really get bad until we woke up and started packing up the van. I ate candy for breakfast and the girls made healthy hummus wraps for themselves.
We headed out and it began raining again. Luckily it was just a light drizzling mist, with overcast skies. The national park continued to grace us with its tall green trees as we continued east.
The rain died down and I stopped by a donut shop to grab the girls some treats for the road ahead. The most consistent thing about all the towns we have gone through in East Texas is that there is always some sort of breakfast donut spot. They all offered the same plain, chocolate and sprinkle options, and terrible drip coffee (fine for dipping donuts in). We stopped on the side of a quiet road and ate the sandwiches I picked up from the same donut place. More
From Phil: After all the rain and the end of Day 1’s ride we decide to check-in to a hotel so the girls could shower and sleep in a warm bed. We woke up in the morning refreshed with the sun shining. The day ahead was looking up. Weather was warm and steamy as the water dried up.
If you happened to work in a bike shop and have ever ordered a Fairdale there’s a good chance you spoke with Phil Bailey. He works at our in house distributor Full Factory Distro. Over the next 8 days or so he is leading a bike ride from Austin to New Orleans. Liz Mckibbon and Emily Ermer will be doing the pedaling while Phil drives the Fairdale van as a support vehicle. Having a support vehicle is such a rad addition to a trip like this. Someone who can carry the food and camping gear and of course be there if anything should go wrong. Also, Phil will be able to race ahead and visit some bike shops along the way spreading Fairdale, Sunday Bikes, Odyssey and G-sport everywhere he goes!
From the beginning we have used Linear Slic Kables® made for us by Odyssey BMX on all of our disc brake equipped bikes. It’s a detail you can’t see from the outside but makes a big difference. We’ve found that the combination of mechanical disc brakes paired with the tough, compression-less Linear cable housing provides superior braking. Traditional coiled brake housing can feel especially mushy when used with disc brakes. The stiffer Linear housing applies much more of your brake force to the disc and feels much more solid.
We also keep the cable housing un-broken from the brake lever all the way to the brakes. This helps keep any weather you might encounter from corroding the inner cable wire. This keeps your brakes running smoothly with less maintenance.
Our friends from PNT Magazine took their Weekenders for a tour through the Bieszczady mountains on the edge of Poland. They came back with some of the most amazing photos! Thanks so much for sharing guys! You can download the latest PNT Magazine free from their website too. Read on to check out their adventure…
It was early autumn 2013 when the three of us decided to switch to bike touring. Bart and Dodo, avid fixie riders, were ready to move on to a different kind of biking (less taxing on the joints), I wanted to get out of the city and its immediate surroundings and start doing longer rides. Thus, an idea was born, a common goal which would see us debate, plan, map out, and finally set off on our first big journey. More
Check out Sandy Carson‘s great photo gallery over on ESPN’s X-Games page. You might notice Leif and a Weekender too! Check it out here.
Our friends from Poland, PNT, have just released a new issue of their online mag. There’s some great photography and a few Weekender shots. Really stoked on what these folks are doing. Well worth checking out:
http://pntmagazine.com/post/86715828798/download-the-magazine
