Stocking stuffers.

OH yea! Here's a brief suggestion for something to stuff in your fanboy's (and girl) stocking this holiday season.

I love a good colab!

Retailing for $58 and only through select dealers in the US.

Inner peace behind bars.

I'm a sucker for a good two minute piece on Vimeo. Maybe that's because my brain can only stay focused for that long? 

It takes a business owner a few years of working for free as the sole employee of the shop; wrenching, selling, leading group rides. (If you have friends willing to help for free, that's a bonus too.) Don't forget cleaning the bathroom! All of this needs to be done before the IBD should consider hiring its first full time employee. I call this organically growing the business.

Yes there are instances when a business can prove this process wrong. Most of the time, the independent bicycle retailer who toils for their first few years with very lean overhead, maintains focus on community outreach to other cyclists through events and group rides-- ends up paying their bills on time with their bike companies and 'growing their tribe' faster than those who unlock the front door and just flip over the Open sign. I've found that this is the formula for a sustainable business-- the 3Cs.

Speaking of organic growth and nailing it with community outreach, the guys in Raleigh, North Carolina-- Oak City Cycling Project have put together my favorite shop video of 2013.



If you're in the central NC region, hit them up either late on Wednesday nights or during First Night Fridays. You will find a cold beverage and good discussion is waiting there for you.

Event: Giro d'Italia Gran Fondo Miami recap.

Sometimes it's easy to take for granted the things that go on outside of my little world of being a bike rep, family guy and weekend bike racer. Professional team sponsorships are organized in the off season. Product is passed out to Vacansoleil and Androni in the form of Oltre and Sempre frames. Advertising budgets are sharpened and material is submitted to the magazines and online publications for testing and review. With a kiss of the Cornicello, nod of the head and a brief pointing to the sky, the company waits for a response from the masses in the form of annual sales and event turn out.

Looking to get the best spot at the Gran Fondo Miami bike expo, I consulted our independent rep as to which booth location/ number would be best for us. Across from the VIP tent is where we pitched our tents. 

On Saturday, the riders of the Gran Fondo Miami strolled in to pick up their packets for Sunday's ride. Surrounding their exit from the sign in tent, were us bike companies offering up a peek at the latest cycling technology and a chance to speak with factory reps.

Having a celeste bikes at the booth is always a sure fire way to bring out fans of the brand. Not having Campagnolo on every single bike can also bring out the worst in some people. But let's face it. If you're buying a bike that's over $2200 and it's made of carbon fiber, Bianchi has you covered. There's no need to go home and kick a puppy.

Saturday's booth traffic was defined by a large number of visits from Bianchi owners. A small chunk of passer-bys were generally curious cyclists. If the conversations on Saturday were any sort of a groundswell for what we'd see people riding on Sunday, we'd be very busy that day. And that we were.

Sunday. Ride day. Carbon clincher wheel day. Oltre day? Yes, Oltre day.

Being across from the VIP tent had paid off. As people racked their bikes, enjoyed the food and then departed with a full belly, they strolled over for a chat, some swag and a handshake.

You can spout out gobs of metrics about who attends a gran fondo in Miami, Florida. Some of it might be exaggerated, speculated and methodically formulated. One thing was for sure, the majority of the carbon bikes and their owners that stopped by after the ride to show me their pride and joy, rode an Oltre. Those not on an Oltre-- it was some other model of carbon fiber, Bianchi road bike. Absent were the classic steel bikes like the Imola, Vigorelli and Volpe like I saw endlessly at RAGBRAI 2013. 

I saw every size Oltre from a woman on a 50cm Super Record with EPS, on up to a 61cm frame size with FFW celeste colored deep dish wheels like the Vacansoleil team rode. 

I believe Aldo from Canada gets the super fan award of the weekend. Tri-color helmet, Oltre with Campagnolo Super Record, Bianchi branded sunglasses and.....

....ink. I thought he was showing off is guns until he rolled his arm over revealing this. Edoardo would be proud.

Another event goes down for me and much like RAGBRAI, people felt entitled to tell you their story of how and why they have a celeste colored bike. So much enthusiasm, so much passion and excitement these Bianchi owners have; it's more than any brand I've seen from 20 years of working retail. 

It's difficult at best create a brand's culture, buy culture or force a culture to last over a century like Bianchi. It has to marinade for a long time. Culture creates itself and after 128 years of it, I'm proud to be a part of Bianchi's culture because once you throw a leg over their bicycle, the world is that much smaller. 

From Florida, back to the Mid-Atlantic weather.....brrrrrr!

Sit down and shut up.

Like a well worn pair of comfortable jeans, I installed this Selle Italia Flight saddle on the Bianchi Cavaria 'cross bike last season. This saddle was knocking around in the bottom of my tool box since the dismantling of my Voodoo Bokor (last of the US made ones) and once I realized that a Fizik Arione saddle is a poor choice of a saddle on a cx bike, this seat stepped up to bat.

Do the math. Started using this saddle back in '99 on the Voodoo. It's 2013. The plastic is bound to get a bit brittle and maybe weakened by sloppy remounts by my 6'5" self. DCCX was the end of the road for this saddle. I finished the last two laps with the broken saddle. RIP of friend.

Bianchi Bicycles Oltre Vaconsoleil frame review.

This is my second season riding an Oltre. Last year I had a stock Oltre frameset and this year decided to get the Vacansoleil livery edition. 61cm for my tall self.

The big thing I noticed about the Oltre last season was it's ability to rail a corner 10% beyond your comfort level, make mid-cornering steering changes and the bike remains stable until you exit the corner. Also, the steer dynamics are such that very little input at the handlebars is required to steer the bike. [Ed note: don't attempt to rail a corner at 'Oltre speeds' when you're on a Impulso back up bike on the last lap of a crit. It will get ugly and you might lose some skin.]

This was obvious to me at the end of last summer when I pulled the parts off the Oltre and installed the build group onto my Cavaria cyclocross frame. On my first shake down ride of the cx bike, I just about over-cooked a  corner because I was trying to steer it like in was on the Oltre... little steering effort. Wrong! Next corner, pretty much the same thing. And this time I realized that I was actually pulling on the inside-turn, of the handlebar to initiate the turn. Yes, the Oltre is that sensitive you can lightly steer it one handed. 

When you introduce a slacker head tube angle like the one you'll find on a cyclocross bike or one of the C2C bikes, you will need to use pressure from both sides of the handlebars to steer and push the bars through the corner and hold it there or the bike will try to 'stand up' through the corner. 

Second note. Last year's Oltre with the same part kit, minus the SL-K crank of this year, included a SRAM Red crank. When I built up the one in the photo below, ran the same winter wheels, tires, everything the same as 2012 except the FSA crank and brakes. This season, out of the saddle efforts were met with the rear wheel flexing and rubbing each side of the brake pads with every pedal stop over a climb. Yes the brakes are now FSA but their gap to the rim is the same. The spoke tension of the winter wheel is where it needs to be as well. 

So the question looming here is... 
-Is the SL-K crank is stiffer than the Red crank? Thus twisting the frame more due to the reduced flex at the arms? The Red crank was a 177.5mm length, the SL-K is 175mm. 
-Is the Vaconsoleil edition frame a bit stiffer in the bottom end of the frame? I need to dig a bit further for an answer when I see Angelo at Interbike.

So the summer rolls on and I'm still humbled by how amazing this bike rides; fast and quick, velvety steering, steer it with your hips thanks to the aero seat post's lateral stiffness or chase down the group

to the township line signs. You won't be disappointed! 

Here are some photos of the final build on the Oltre. I hope you enjoy them!

Final weight without accessories- 61cm.

Building up the cyclocross bike for another season.

It's about that time.

Time to pull up the cx frame from the basement, wash it, wax it and start hanging some bits on the frame. 

Now all that's left is a build kit for the season. 

From bike sharrows to shoofly pie.

It took a rainy day after Memorial Day to realize that I had a handful of photos that never made their way into a post over here. 

Last month, the owners of Proteus Bicycles in College Park, MD decided to play hookie on a sunny Friday and drive up to the land of shoofly pie and Amish buggies in order to test ride the latest Bianchi Infinito bikes. Laurie and Jeff have been super busy the past two seasons since taking on ownership of the shop; so given a chance to get away to ride some new bikes, I didn't have to ask twice.

Jeff rode the Ultegra Di2 Infinito. Quite the anomaly from his daily commuter. He is very active in the DC commuting world and you can follow along with Jeff at his Greenbelt Patch blog.... here!  We traveled pretty much the same route I did with the Bikenetic guys, earlier that month.

 Laurie, rode the 50cm Infinito Ultegra and was pretty excited by the speed and fluidity of the bike. Her daily rider is a Bianchi Zurigo which got the ball rolling for her love of the brand. She bought it back when Jill and Yo owned the bike shop. Such a great customer-to-owner story that she and Jeff share. 

A self portrait of Laurie and me. Next time out, Jeff swears he's bringing his Go-Pro camera to document the beauty of the Lancaster farm lands. I think he just wants to copy the design of the scooters he saw the Amish running around on that day. Ha!

Never the less, you guys are always welcomed up here!

#mockorangebikes @bianchibicycles demo

Demo time with the Sempre Pro and Infinito bikes!

A : See Details(Google Map)

Bianchi Impulso hop up parts kit.

The first crit of the year is this weekend and for the first time ever, I'm rushing to put together something that resembles a competitive bike. A handful of parts from the 'cross bike, another handful from last year's Oltre. 

I've resigned to the fact that I'll never run a stock, out of the box bike unless it's a town/market bike for getting groceries. That being said, I started the transformation this week of a stock Impulso 105 bike.

There are so many places you can get away with middle grade parts on your bike. Two places I never skimp, tires and the chain.

Dura-Ace 10 speed with a Connex quick link. Light, smooth and soon to be covered with a splash of Chain-L lube.

Something old, something new from the basement. I swapped the carbon/alu stock fork from the Impulso which uses a 45mm rake and installed this guy; full carbon 43mm rake, from back in the day... (`the bike fit in that link...geez things have changed since 2005.) Added branding on the inside of the fork legs courtesy of PG-13 Graphics.

More of the build up to come...

2013 Infinito Test Ride, get one now!

Arrhh, I'm slipping on my posts as we enter Spring of 2013. I made a mental note to post more but this month's bike demos have been keeping a wrench in my palm and shop visits, a steering wheel in my hand instead of time at the keyboard.

That being said, I've been working on getting more cyclists out to shop's for a bike demo or two. Or to at least bring a shop to me, along with any available employees, to ride the bikes through the farmlands near my house. 

Some shops are closed on Mondays and one of those is Bikenetic in Falls Church, VA. I phoned the owner, Jan (yahn) and ask if he wants to drive a couple of hours to central PA and ride the new batch of Infinito bikes I had just received for the season. Without hesitation he accepted and invited his service manager Brian and sales associate Jeremy.

Jan in yellow shoes!

It's funny how you get used to receiving riders (consumers) to test your bikes; set them up, swap out pedals and send them off. I sort of forgot that the three guys in my garage are 'shop ready' and upon dropping all their gear in my garage, grabbed some tools and immediately started installing their pedals and adjusting saddle height for themselves. That made my work easy!

Paceline, love the kits.

We rolled out on the blue bird day, slight winds out of the northwest, just cool enough for a long sleeve jersey. As we spin through the first 30 minutes of the ride, I could see the guys getting comfortable immediately. Corning a bit quicker, jumping for the top of the hills a bit sooner, all of this before we started the on-bike discussion about the how and why of the 2013 Infinito Ultegra. 

Bikenetic has sold a handful of Infinito bikes in the past 12 months, they know the product range very well and how to explain the use of this bike to the average rider without barfing macho data on the customer's shoes. Even still, there's still one missing detail... riding it, to experience it. 

Smooth, fast, steady, well balanced, were the words Jan, Brian and Jeremy used to describe the bikes they were operating. In a head wind and cross winds, the bike was "stable; you didn't fight the front wheel as much as you would on the B4P bikes". Much of this Jan realized because he owns a B4P Mono-Q from 2009. Jan likes the quickness of the B4P (Sempre) geometry but was very pleased by the refined ride the Infinito exhibited; along with the way Bianchi K-VID and B.A.T smoothed out the choppy, Amish buggy-gauged asphalt we traveled.

(l-r) Brian, Jan, Jeremy

At about 25 miles, we pulled back into the driveway, parked bikes and grabbed some lunch. 

More questions came from the guys over lunch as we gnawed on some pesto tortellini salad. Jan put it well by stating that, reading about the bike and listening to my clinics is fine but experiencing the 'real world application' is where it's at. 

Thanks guys!

Your next pair of winter gloves?

The temps are still in the 30s and merits a winter-type glove for riding. These beauts showed up this week. It's too late in the day to test their warmth on a ride so I tested them the next the best way I knew.

Yup, hands are still warm... More results coming once I get out over the weekend with them.