News You Can Wear by dp on Aug 07, 2007
We often get requests to do T-Shirts. Its been a while, but we've got a new design in stock as of this week. You can get your own here.
Aero Monday by erik on Aug 06, 2007
Dan found a way to reduce the drag caused by a full inbox this Monday morning. I wonder how many watts his fingers are generating on the keyboard?
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24 Hours of 9 Mile by dp on Aug 02, 2007
It’s officially mountain bike season around Planet Bike HQ, so last Friday we loaded up the Planet Bike Sprinter Van and pointed it northward to the 24 Hour National Championships. Once again this year, the 24 Hours of 9 Mile was the arena where solo riders and teams met to duke it out for the coveted stars and stripes jerseys. Once again this year, temps were high, and laps were fast. Unlike last year, the rains came before the event, in fact before we got there.
We loaded up the van around 6am and were on the road by 9am Friday morning with full bellies of donuts and coffee. The idea this year was to score a big campsite, make it the Planet Bike compound and have it become the temporary home to seventeen Madison area racers and their support crew of three. By mid afternoon, that goal was accomplished, and it was time to pre-ride the course and stay out of the sun as the other racers trickled in.
Not being official sponsors of the event, we tried to keep a low profile, but by the time we erected three jolly roger flags, three 10x10 EZ-ups, ten tents, and not one, but two disco balls hung, it was hard for anyone to not know where we were. After we rolled out a fleet of bikes, built a campfire, and got all of the coolers in the mess tent, The Disco-Pirate Camp looked less like a “camp” and more like a Forward Operating Base. But hey, we were comfortable.
*As an aside, sure it’s hard core to do a 24 hour race out of a pup tent and the trunk of your car, but it’s WAY more fun to camp and eat with nineteen of your closest friends in comfort. After some good fireside conversation on Friday, we all turned in relatively late, considering the task ahead.
Saturday morning started slowly for most of us, but we continued the Planet Bike tradition of bacon wrapped donuts and coffee to kick off the day. At 10am, a representative from all four of our teams and all three of our solo riders toed the line for the Le Mans start under beautiful sunny, blue skies, and we were off in a cloud of fat tires and dust. The hot lap of the day was laid down by Madison’s very own Marko Lalonde riding for Gary Fisher at about 56 minutes on the 14.5 mile course. My own time was quite a bit off the pace, at about 1:19 after not running hard to my bike, and getting stacked up in each single track section.
Most of the folks in our camp turned lap times that ranged consistently between an hour and 5 to an hour and 15 minutes. The course was twisty, rocky and genuinely fun to hammer thru again and again. It got pretty hot in the middle of the day, so the name of the game, as always was to stay hydrated. I took quite a bit of time off my second lap, even though I was slow and stiff when it started, I warmed up about half way into the loop.
When I finished I rode back to camp, got into some dry clothes, grabbed a bite to eat and headed out to get some good vantage points in the woods to cheer on the other Disco-Pirate campers. I saw Planet Bike/Van Dessel solo-24 rider Lee Unwin who was still smiling and looking good, Djonn from the BKB racing on a two man 12 hour team, still going strong, and my wife Jen who told me her back hurt, but otherwise was having the time of her life.
By dinner time, it was unclear if I’d have time to turn a third lap before our 12 hours were up, so I got ready for either scenario. In the end, our fourth rider Meghan came in just after 10pm, so I went out to ride the last lap in the dark with my old buddy Ron. We flipped on our lights and took off into the woods for a night lap. The moon was bright, and the racers were pretty spread out, so we spent most of the time chasing our own shadows, and stopping at all the aid stations.
Back at the Disco-Pirate camp, our two 24 hours teams and our one solo rider Ben were still going strong. After a night cap at the Trek tent, Djonn and I tended the fire for a while before turning in around 2:30. Not long after that, Planet Bike product manager Erik Olson returned from a lap only to find his team mates still asleep, so he sucked it up and headed out for another lap, rolling back in from lap 5 as the sun was rising, and the bacon was starting to sizzle.
It didn’t take long for the morning sun and some strong coffee to warm us up and bring our camp to its feet. Finally at 10am the race was finished and dozens limped across the line past a gauntlet of fans. After some frosty adult beverages made the 10am rounds (hey, it’s Sunday afternoon somewhere?), we decided to break camp and head south towards home. As we loaded up much more slowly than we unpacked, it was pretty obvious that we were all pretty beat, and the drive home was pretty brutal, but in retrospect, it was tons of fun, and totally worth the lost sleep. Congrats to the 24 hours solo winners Chris Eatough, Monique Pua-Sawicki who turned in mind numbing 20 and 18 lap efforts, respectively, and to the Gary-Fisher/Trek Team who won the men’s event, and the Skirtz-N-Dirt team who topped the podium in the women’s division.
And thanks to all the Disco-Pirate camp racers, to Djonn for the photos and to Amy and Kathryn for keeping us fed and happy. Next year, same place, same time?
Pic #1 the ride to Red Bud Road, the North Woods, and buddies.
Pic #2 Olson flies his true colors: Bruce Willis.
Pic #3 a view from inside Disco-Pirate camp HQ..
Pic #4 the calm before the storm.
New Swag For Your Feet by dp on Jul 23, 2007
We just got a shipment of new red wool socks from Sock Guy today. I'm pretty stoked about how they turned out. You can buy a pair for yourself, or for the feet of someone you love here.
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The Lion King Video Test by erik on Jul 10, 2007
None of us at Planet Bike is what you'd call a genius when it comes to computers, so it took us a long time to figure out how to post videos on our blog. As a test, I'm posting a video of sprinting legend Mario Cipollini, who was apparently the object of a candid-camera style practical joke in the late 1990's. Although it's in Italian, his team manager clearly informs him that his world championship bike has been stolen. On cue, the culprits drive by with the bike on the back of their camper and Cipo gives chase. Hilarity ensues. Definitely worth watching 'til the end.
Roadie Pump Review by erik on Jul 05, 2007
Our product design philosophy consists of two main tenets. We realize that sometimes it's hard to get up the motivation to ride, so the first rule is that our stuff should be easy to use in order to make riding more simple and enjoyable, never more complicated. The second is that everything should be rebuildable in order to keep our products on your bike and out of the landfill.
The New York Times reviewed our Roadie Frame Pump today and reported that the pumps are both a "cinch to figure out" and "easily rebuildable." It makes us happy to be recognized for the very things we strive for.
Second City, first rate by dp on Jun 19, 2007
About a week ago, we got a call here at Planet Bike HQ informing us that we were winning some type of award. We were all pretty perplexed, but after a few hours of phone tag, we figured out that indeed, we had been tapped to receive an award from the City of Chicago. Mayor Daley's Bicycle Advisory Council 2007 award for the corporation most supporting bicycling in Chicago, to be exact. So the crew loaded up in our Sprinter Van, and made the trip down to the Windy City last Thursday.
We checked into our hotel, dumped the van and pedaled up to a really cool bicycle themed bar on North Ave. called The Handlebar for some food and drinks. There we met up with a few members from the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation: Nick Jackson, Ethan Spotts and Rebekah Broussard. They bought us dinner and some cold beverages on a hot night before showing us some cool routes around the city to check out by bike.
We set off after dinner and pedaled a few more miles, tried to have a peek at the city lights from the 95 floor of the John Hancock building, and pedaled around some more before hitting the hotel for some sleep at around midnight.
After some early morning chow, we headed out for Daley Plaza to take part in Chicago’s Bike to Work Rally. We had a minor issue of not being able to find the van to drop our bags, got fooled by multiple level roadways twice, but still got there on time.
We enjoyed some more breakfast treats (sadly no bacon) and met some new friends before we were bestowed the hardware.
Mayor Daley is very active in making Chicago a bike friendly city, and the Council wanted to recognize us for our work with the Chicago Bicycle Ambassadors program. Previous winners of the BAC award are SRAM, Chase and Bank One, so we feel very proud to be recognized with such an honor amongst such corporate giants.
After the rally, we followed Nick back to the Bike Fed office where he showed us several of the projects completed, planned and currently being undertaken by the Bike Fed and the City. We headed out to see some ourselves, and also check out some sites on a pretty beautiful Friday afternoon. You can see some photos here:Planet Bike goes to Chicago Gallery Yes indeed, as a cyclist, Chicago is my kind of town!
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Busy busy busy by dp on May 25, 2007
It’s been a pretty busy time around Planet Bike World HQ the last month or so. It’s finally spring, well, now it’s almost summer and we’ve been riding, and working like crazy.
We hired a new member of our team, Chris Follmer, to handle our warehousing and shipping duties. Chris has a background in warehouse management and showed up one day on an Xtracycle to inquire about some work. We knew right away that he was the guy and that fate had intervened. A couple of weeks later he started, and it has made all the difference in the world. You can check out his profile and a glamour shot in the “About Us” section of the website.
In other news, our Advocacy Directory, Jay Ferm, has been elected to the Board of Directors for the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin. He has already spent most of the spring spearheading the Madison Platinum Committee. This group is working to make our city to a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community as defined by the League of American Bicyclists’ "Bicycle Friendly Community Campaign." Currently, the only city with such a distinction is Davis, California. Way to go Jay, keep up the good work.
Bike to Week was a success again this year in Madison. We tried to bookend the week’s events by setting up a tent at 7 am Monday morning to hand out breakfast treats and coffee to bike commuters on the city’s arterial bike path near the Monona Terrace. It was a ton of fun, and we were able to hand out all the coffee and bacon that we were able to bike in. Then on Friday afternoon, we sponsored the Final Fiesta at Vilas Park for all Bike to Work participants. Our thanks to everyone who rode, the Bike Fed of Wisconsin, and all the other sponsors who made this year’s Bike to Work Week a huge success.
Finally, we’ll be publishing our first Quarterly E-newsletter in the coming weeks. So stay tuned for an update on that, and how to subscribe.
Here's a picture of our Bike to Work Week feed zone.
