Albe's commercial

No need for words!

Bike Update

I just got a pair of 700x35c tires for my Gangsta.



They just clear the seat stays. Hopefully they'll suck up a lot more of the impact from jumping off shit. So far they feel great, and gave me a lot more clearance on turns, which I needed due to riding BMX pedals.

I also started riding S&M 101 BMX pedals, with some new SAG double straps.



Track pedals don't like pedal grinds, so I decided it was time to ride BMX pedals. I recently cracked a set of MG-1 wellgo BMX pedals, and decided I should go with something more solid. These new SAG sample straps are more improved than the last sample. They are much thicker and feel a lot more stiff. The under side of them resembles Toshi's, while the outside is smooth leather. We'll see how they hold up in the long run.



You can't tell how large these tires actually are by the photos. These things are massive.

Spots

I went riding with a bunch of kids in Indy last night and happened across one of the best spots I have ever ridden. Here is a really, really bad phone pic of it...



The blurry figure in the center on the bike is Shawn Wolf.

The spot was perfectly flat, had a surface that was grippy but not too rough, was well lit, and most importantly was enclosed on three sides which provided protection from the 40 mph (seriously) winds that we get in Indy in the spring.

After about 20 minutes, however, a security guard came out and booted us. Why? I mean, I could understand it if we were grinding stuff or flying around and slamming into pedestrians, but both Shawn and I were just doing trackstand crapola. Stupid. On to the next spot...

Free zines = awesome.

I've always been into magazines. I don't know why. Probably because I remember how excited I would get when I would receive a new issue of Freestylin' in the mail, back in those dark ages before the internet when the only way to find out what the hell was going on was through print.

I recently found out that Vapors Magazine, which usually contains pretty good content, puts a digital copy of each issue online. I have spent the last week at work reading all of the archives during my lunch hour. Check it out here...

http://www.vaporsmagazine.com/

And for those who don't know, Urban Velo also posts all of their stuff online...

http://www.urbanvelo.org/

If you know of any other decent mags or zines that drop their content on teh internetz, post 'em up!

If you're into street art (stickers/stencils)...

...then there is a new book out that you absolutely MUST have. It's called PEEL: The Art of the Sticker. This book contains the best of the first eight issues of PEEL Magazine, which are virtually impossible to get now because they were so @#$%ing popular. The only issue I was ever able to find was issue #6, so when I saw that all of them had been combined into a single, beautiful, hardback book, I was pretty damned excited.

Maybe a little too excited.

The authors, Holly and Dave Combs, had a book signing at the Alias Gallery in Indy last Friday, and I went to pick up an autographed copy. Someone apparently caught me in a compromising position with the book and has subsequently posted it on PEEL's Flickr account...



Yes, the book and I are now going steady. My wife is crushed, but I think she understands.

Sneaks Peek

I was in Marshall's the other day and discovered that they had gotten in a pile of my favorite shoes... the Adidas Super Skate slip-ons. Not only that, they had several of them in size 14, which is extremely difficult to find, and they were selling them for $15 a pair!

I went a little bit crazy and stocked the f*** up.



Yeah that's right, I even got the green ones. These are the perfect riding shoes for me because...

1) The soles are thin enough that I can feel the pedals/cranks/tires, but not so thin that my feet start hurting after 10 minutes, and they are soft enough that I can twist on the pedals without them sticking.

2) They have much better padding around the opening than other slip-ons which saves my ankles a bit.

3) They fit more like real shoes than other slip-ons.

4) Most importantly, no shoestrings to get caught in my bars/stem/pedals/cranks/chainring/every other part of my bike you can possibly imagine. Many of my worst falls have come from my shoestrings getting hung up.

If you have a Marshall's by your house, you should check these things out. Fifteen bills for a good riding shoe that you don't mind tearing up is nothing to sneeze at.

Bikes 'n Boards

My three-year-old kid loves those little Tech Deck toy skateboards, so I was checking them out the other day at the store and came across this one...



The Almost Chris Haslam Fitness board. He's riding fixed, and brakeless of course. The connection between skating and FGs continues...