bike racin', bike buildin', funding drive!

Howdy!

In case you haven't heard yet, it's almost funding drive time - and the soapbox derby is building a bike, that will be won by one lucky pledger during our funding drive show on October 29th. Details on the bike and how you win it will follow, but here are a couple of pics to show you how it has progressed so far:

I'm building this bike at Bike Root - the community bike shop located on UofC campus - from old abandoned bikes and bike parts. Pictured above is the birthplace of all the Bike Root's bikey goodness. Go by, join the Root, and build you own bike!

I started with an empty (almost) unisex frame - I wanted to get a picture at the very beginning, but forgot my camera until I got the bottom bracket and handlebars installed - here's what it looked like then (note the nifty "Nova" decals):
The next step was a custom soapbox derby paint job, courtesy of my pal Matt aka Uncle Lijiah, host of Wednesday late night's Blue Collar Bravado and all-around awesome fella. The highlight of the paint job is shown in the first pic above - flying cjsw logo with lightning bolts!

I spent last Saturday cleaning and breathing new life into old parts, and assembling bits of brakes and drive train - here's what it looks like now:
Looka that paint job - dig the shine on that chrome! My favourite part of the bike so far is definitely the wicked, diamond-detailed rear fender - here's a close-up:

Chrome-a-lishus! Stay tuned to the blog - I hope to have most of the bike built by the end of this weekend, and I'll post pics as the project moves along. Someone is gonna get one sweet ride!

And now, a couple of set lists to keep you in the music loop.

September 17th - talkin' Bow 80 blues.

Bob from Bow Cycle came by to get my mind right in advance of the Bow 80 bike race, and to tell us all about Bike racing and trail advocacy in Alberta. If you want to help build trails or stand up for cyclists' right to recreate, check out the cmba or mmbts. Roll on! Tunes:

slow down - bullfrog
anagrama - os mutantes feat. tom ze*
sounds & pressure - hopeton lewis*
garbage to the showglass - sierra leone's refugee allstars
lift off - twilight circus sound system
boom or bust - mahogany public
rain dance - the very best feat. mia*
sabotage - penelope(s)*
word up - wet cookies*
trance fat - looptroop rockers feat rakaa*
war - dilated peoples
new people - blue scholars*
d-e-f - dragonfli empire
give it to the people - noah23*
mountain man - meisha & the spanks*
pakowki - lazy mk's*
ohio - dojo workhorse*
oh my god (it still means a lot to me) - the wooden sky*
santiago - valleys*
life's like canadian football - cfl sessions*

How did the race go, you ask? Well, not as smoothly as I would have hoped. I called it a day at about halfway around the 80km loop, when I was up on jumpingpound ridge on the brink of a 7km technical descent, there was about 4-5cm's of snow on the ground, it was blizzarding horizontally, I was getting rather chilled, and my bike didn't really work any more on account of being covered in mud and slush. If you don't believe me, check out the post-race analysis here, or here.

I'll take another crack at it next year...

October 1 - Bow Bottoms!

I tried to line up a couple of guests, but nothing really panned out. I did air an interview at the end of the show that Ola did though, with her friend Reuben Bullock. Here are the platters that spun:

bell bottoms remix - jon spencer blues explosion vs. u.n.k.l.e.
bell bottoms - jon spencer blues explosion
tears of love - tommy mccook
sheppard & his flock - up bustle & out feat. andy sheppard
strugglers dub - black seeds*
nahwia's dream - baka beyond*
i'm gonna assemble a city - these united states*
uke puke - black mold*
caracas - georgia anne muldrow*
insight remix - fort knox 5 vs. the nextmen*
deep marsh - 5ivestyle
straw man - lou reed
people - hank pine & lily fawn
rewind - olympic symphonium
aiwa - emmanuel jal & abdel gadir salim
i am sound - secret broadcast*
grownups never lie - wax mannequin*
transmission part 1 - the lower 48*
phillipians 3:20-21 - the mountain goats*
then ola's interview with reuben.

K, I gotta roll out, and get ready for tomorrow's show. It's gonna be a good one, featuring interviews with some yarn bombers, and folks organizing this year's gulu walk.

Be nice, and don't forget to give'er some,

Flashing Hallways from Cody Townsend on Vimeo.

g