Ahearne Cycles | Thoughts and Words

2010-12-18T11:04:00.000-08:00

I took John L's Cycle Truck over to the shipping office today. It's kind of interesting watching people's reactions when they see me ride past with a load like this on the front of my bike. Lot's of double-takes. Especially kids -- they seem to get all squealy and excited, pointing and yelling. Kids are cool like that, they don't hold back.

There's been a stiff wind blowing all day, and I had to ride directly into it for a few blocks. It felt like I was climbing a mountain. I was tempted to turn around and ride the other way just to have that giant sail pulling me along, but I needed to get this bike shipped. This will be the first Cycle Truck in Ohio, which is exciting.

Have fun with it John!

2010-12-14T09:54:00.001-08:00

Spaceman Bicycle Flask Holsters Available!

It's getting down to the wire now. For anyone who is looking for that last minute gift for their bikey loved one, there are plenty of flasks and flask holsters available. I'll be shipping orders every day this week, so if you're in the continental US, you'll get yours in time to wrap it and put it under the tree!

Cheers, and best of holidays to everyone!

2010-11-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

Medium Cycle Truck Frame Set For Sale

Medium sized Green Cycle Truck frame set for sale. This one is brand new, and ready to build up. It was supposed to go to a trade show, and plans changed, so it hasn't yet been assembled with parts. The color is metallic grass green. It's very striking, and looks awesome with black parts.

It's got the Work Truck upgrade, which means it's extra stable, and ready to haul. It has an oversized head tube, a large diameter down tube, and slightly longer chain stays. The bottom bracket is an eccentric, so it will work with an internally geared hub, or the NuVinci hub.

The cost:

Cycle Truck Frame, fork & rack: $1730

Work Truck Upgrade: $270

Total: $2000

I will include an FSA sealed bearing head set, and the eccentric bottom bracket for no added cost. Also, if you live within the continental US, we will ship the frame set to you for free (frame set only, regular ground shipping). This is a one-time deal.

This one is ready to go. Just think, you could have your very own Cycle Truck without any wait at all!

If you need to put together a parts kit and would like our help, just ask. Take a look at the website and check out some of the options.

Send an e-mail or give us a call with inquiries.

Happy commuting!

2010-10-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

New Small Cycle Trucks Now Available!

Check it out, new small size Cycle Trucks have arrived! The top tube is shorter, and as you can see, it has more pronounced slope, so the bike will fit riders with shorter legs.

There is also a new color, Soft Yellow, that competes with the Grass Green as my new favorite. The pictures don't do the color justice, but I can assure you it's very soothing. I'll try and get better pictures soon.

This Cycle Truck is shown with the flat DiBond base on the rack, but I think one of these would look awesome with a giant basket up front.

The first Small was shown at the Oregon Hand Made Bicycle Show. If you want to take one for a test ride, head over to Splendid Cycles. They've got one ready to go. Try it out, see what it has to offer.

In this picture my friend Chiara is giving it a try. She's about 5'2" tall, and fits the bike quite well. As you can see, she's seated in an upright riding position. When stopped she still had plenty of room to stand over it.

I'll be making these available through the website soon. Until then, if you are interested, contact me with questions, or stop by Splendid Cycles and talk with Joel and Barb. While there test one out and ask them anything you need to know. They'll help you out with a smile.

2010-09-24T07:09:00.000-07:00

Coastal Bike Trip

Part 2

Out of Seaside

So, we were at the Seaside hostel eating waffles and eggs. The sun burned off the ocean fog and it turned into a perfect, cloudless day. Chris, Ian and I packed up and rolled out.

A while ago I bought a GPS, the Garmin Edge 605, and have played with it some, but haven’t totally figured it out. This trip was the first time that I found it to be really useful. All down the coast I watched for side roads that would detour off the busy 101 into coastal neighborhoods, scenic routes, anything that might be quieter and that would link back into the highway. There were a surprising number of these short detours, so we were able to stay off the 101 for quite a few miles, and see some of the less touristy coastal neighborhoods.

The whole day of riding was awesome, and even on the 101 traffic wasn’t too heavy. The shoulder was plenty wide for most of the way, and a constant wind blew out of the north, gently pushing us along.

At one point, a long way into a climb, traffic was stopped, and a long line of cars waited as we slowly made our way past. At the front of the line a road worker in an orange vest held a stop sign. We asked what was going on and he said there was a film crew taping a commercial. It would be a few minutes. The road had ascended a long way off the water and the view was phenomenal. These are the famous curves on which all sorts of car companies have filmed commercials.

We got off our bikes, had a snack and some water while taking in the view. Not too much time passed before three motorized tricycles came around the corner with a black car following. The trikes were obviously the stars of the filming. The black car had a giant mechanical contraption attached to the roof with a camera on a sort of robotic arm that moved around for dramatic action shots. Their whole crew pulled off the road and the Sign Man gave the signal for cars to go. The tricycles u-turned beside us and one of the women riders smiled through her face shield as she went past. They stopped not far up the road to wait for the line of cars.

We quickly packed our bikes and started up the road. As we went past the trikes I stopped and asked the woman about what they were doing. She didn’t answer me, but said instead that we really shouldn’t be riding on this road. They were going to be filming for the next hour or two, and we shouldn’t be out there because it would be dangerous. I kind of laughed and told her that we ride pretty fast, and it wouldn’t take long for us to be out of the way. She shook her head and said that we really ought to turn around and go the other way. Did we have any idea how much money it cost to block the road and film this? It would be a waste of thousands and thousands of dollars for them to have to wait for us.

I looked at her funny and started riding up the hill. I didn’t even know where to begin to argue with that. She must have been riding on motorized adrenaline, not thinking very clearly. I heard her call after me to wait, but the tail wind quickly washed her voice away. I glanced back and saw that Ian and Chris were with me, pushing up the hill.

Less than a quarter mile up and around a bend was a turn-off for cars to stop and take in the view. There were a couple of full length touring busses, the kind that rich bands travel in. Under a pop-up tent there were a couple of people in white shirts serving catered food. It looked like the nominal headquarters for the commercial crew. People milled around, milking the trike cow. I thought about checking on what they were serving.

A hip, young crew member with big sideburns ran out into the road as we approached. He had his hands up for us to stop, acting like we were going a lot faster than our 6 mph climbing speed. In one hand he held a 2-way radio. He must have gotten word from the trike lady that we weren’t following her orders.Mr. Sideburns peeled open a big fake smile, “Hey fellows, we’re filming a commercial here. You’ll have to stop and wait for a few minutes.” He acted like he was our buddy, doing us a favor. “The camera crew is going to be racing up and down the road, going really fast. It’s going to be really dangerous."

I rode on past him. At the far end of the parking area was another, smaller turn-out. And here was a guy who looked like the younger brother of the Mr. Sideburns. He held his 2-way radio in up-raised hands, in the same signal of distress. I stopped. Ian and Chris pulled up and we watched as three trikes roared past like caricatures of something cool. The tricycle bearing my new-found lady friend went past and she gave us a thumbs up. The black car with the robot camera followed in a big hurry. I thought of grabbing my crotch, but I restrained myself.

I wonder if they captured the romantic vision they were looking for, that marketable sensation that would make someone want to buy a motorized trike? They definitely had the scene right, the only problem was the subject. The trikes appeared somehow out of place, like a wiry hair on a toilet rim, or a booger on a clean shirt. They look a little too plastic and space-age, a little too childish, like an expensive toy for someone too inept to ride on two wheels, or a transformer that doesn’t do anything cool, but makes the rider seem more ridiculous than they already are. I’m sure they’re fun, giving a sensation similar to riding a motorcycle without any of the skill involved.

We waited for a while, but not too long. The next wave of cars came past which was our signal. As the last car passed we crested the hill, so we had the entire road to ourselves as we made the long descent.

The rest of the afternoon was wonderful. We continued exploring detours and side roads that the GPS opened up for us. We ate fish burgers at a bar in Manzanita and stopped at all the viewpoints. Before this trip I’d never ridden on highway 101. I wasn’t all that interested because of heavy traffic. I’ve been up and down the coast by car quite a few times, and when I think about doing it by bike I can’t help think of the constant stream of cars. But on this trip I realized that heading from north to south is not too bad. I don’t know about the rest of the year, but in late summer the tail wind kicks you along. I noticed as well that the shoulder on the west side of the road is, in many places, much wider than the shoulder on the east. I’m not sure why that is, but it was welcome.

On this particular day of the trip my heart was won over to the 101. It has so many side roads paralleling it, and the scenery was amazing. Like I said, I’ve been down the coast many times by car, but this trip was the first time that I really feel like I got to know the coastline. Usually when going to the coast I travel from Portland to a specific beach or coastal town. When I’ve had to go from one town to another the distance blows past so quickly in a car that it’s pretty unmemorable. But on the bike I was able to take in every curve and every hill. We pulled off at most every turn-out, at least to take a look.

Anyway, Chris Ian and I pedaled a total of about 70 miles that day. In the late evening we got a little turned around in the hills beyond Tillamook. We looked for a campground that was vaguely printed on one of our paper maps, but that wasn’t really there. We ended up pulling into the campground at Cape Lookout State Park right around dusk. I’d never been to this campground, but it turned out to be really nice. The hiker/biker campground was off in the trees, and we could hear the ocean while we slept.

By the time we set up camp it was late, and we had to wear headlamps to get our tents together. We made a hearty dinner of refried beans and some sort of Indian sauce (Tasty Bite), flat bread, avocado, tomato, a little left-over cheese. When the flat bread was gone we used the empty avocado halves as bowls. We basically put together all the food each of us had and made a “fusion” meal. It was one of those meals that couldn’t have been planned, but was welcome and delicious.

The next morning we packed up and Chris and I said goodbye to Ian. He had to get back to Portland for work. Chris and I continued heading south. Almost immediately out of the campground was a long, fairly steep climb. Not a bad way to start the day, to get the blood flowing. On the latter part of the descent we came across a vast field of sand dunes at Sand Lake, a place neither of us had ever seen. It’s a recreation area for all sorts of fat-tire vehicles, but there weren’t too many out at the moment.

There were a few big climbs that day. By the time we came into Pacific City we were hungry. Pacific City has two small sections of town, one with a gas station and a couple of hotels, the other with the Pelican Pub & Brewery, a market/gift & sweets shop, a surf shop and a taco bar. We stopped at the taco bar, which had a walk up window.

After eating French fries and fish tacos we went across the road to the market for ice cream. They serve local Tillamook ice cream. I don’t consume too much dairy, but it was hot and ice cream sounded good. I ordered two scoops, one of peanut butter & chocolate, and one of hazelnut. One scoop of ice cream is almost never enough, especially if you’re riding a lot of miles. The large woman behind the counter had her own ideas about what two scoops of ice cream looks like. I asked for my scoops on a cone and in a cup. I watched as she dug the scoop in, rolling up a ball the size of my fist, then the size of a grapefruit. She dug it out and dropped it into a cup as large as a pint glass, forcing it down with the scoop. Then she dug out an equivalent portion of the other flavor and stuck that on top. For a moment I thought she was kidding, the ice cream was way over the rim of the cup. It was massive! I knew it wasn’t a joke when she capped the cup with an overturned cone. Then she planted a useless little spoon in it, and I thought proportionally about planting a flag on the moon.

Chris ordered his two giant scoops and we sat out in the sun to eat. There was a little boy dressed in a long-sleeve pajama top, under ware and rubber boots. He had a cup of ice cream in his hands but was so charged up on the sugar that he couldn’t eat anymore for the activity. He was running around in circles like an overly excited dog, squealing and sloshing the melted remains of his ice cream all over the place. He had chocolate all over his face and front and sleeves.

An older couple came up with their giant dog. The dog looked like a white-furred wookie; like a snow wookie. It was obviously very uncomfortable in the hot sun. It lay down on the cool cement in the shade. The man went into the store and in a few minutes returned with two massive ice cream cones. He handed one to his wife and then lowered the other to the dog. The dog licked at the cone, kind of timidly at first. After a few moments you could tell he was getting into it because he sat up and began licking more vigorously, drips of melting ice cream flipping off his tongue. I thought at first that the owner was just sharing with the dog, and after a bit would take it away and begin eating it himself. I mean, it was a giant ice cream cone, and some people are that close to their dogs, they don’t mind swapping spit. But no, this dog got his very own ice cream cone. He lapped at it until it got down to the cone and then he nipped pieces off. It didn’t take long before he was chewing up the last of it.

A few people gathered to watch. There were some young Australian surfers who had clearly been reading the same fashion magazine for beach ware. They were dressed identically, all the way down to the butt crack they each showed. The sugar-spastic little boy had paused to watch the dog, but he just couldn’t stand it, and started squealing again. When he saw the dog lapping at the cone it must have reminded him about his own ice cream. He was doing a sort of jig and tipped the cup at his mouth. He shook the upturned cup over himself and little splatterings of liquid chocolate rained down on his face and hair.

I rode out of Pacific City feeling bloated, and wondered if I would be sick. I didn’t eat all the ice cream, but it was so good I ate most. Chris seemed to be revitalized, so I followed and didn’t say much.

A few miles down the road, just past Neskowin, was a turn off for the Old Scenic 101 route. Someone at the Cape Lookout campground had told us to take this route because it was quiet, and it would avoid a huge climb on the main highway. The old 101 was very quiet, and started with a gradual climb past farm houses and a school. As the road started into the forest the climb steepened, to the point that we were in our granny gears, pushing each pedal stroke. The trees were huge, and a thick unworldly green moss covered all the lower branches and undergrowth.

Whoever had told us that this route would avoid the big climb on the main highway must have been joking. We went up and up for about 6 or 7 miles before cresting the hill. The forest was awesome, exuding the lushness of rainy northwest plant life, so thick you could feel it. While we climbed, Chris went into a monologue about the giant ferns, how they were eaten by dinosaurs and how the ferns compacted over millions of years helped create oil. It was very illuminating.

The descent was awesome. Not incredibly steep, but it was long, full of lazy curves through the trees. Better still, we didn’t see but 2 or 3 cars on this entire detour.

We arrived at Devil’s Lake just before Lincoln City in the late afternoon. Because of the evening rush hour, we turned off to take the side roads around the lake rather than deal with the line of speeding cars and trucks on the main road. The lake detour turned out to be kind of long, with a lot of short steep hills to climb. No rhythm was possible, it was: Climb hard, coast down; climb hard, coast down.

On the far side of the lake we stopped at a park and boat launch to rest and snack. I had hoped there would be camping somewhere around the lake, but it was all residential. While Chris and I ate we watched a couple of yahoos on the lake with a jet boat. They both had long hair that stuck straight out behind them as they blasted back and forth across the water. The boat was so loud that it echoed for miles, like a hot rod without a muffler. They raced up and back, bringing the boat up to speed and then turning sharply to skip sideways across the water. This stalled the motor, sometimes killing it. They sat there and idled for a moment, or restarted the motor, then jammed the throttle and with a thunderous roar took off, often spinning in a couple of tight circles, doing donuts, before shooting off in another direction.

I almost felt sorry for them. They looked like they really wanted to have fun, but there wasn’t anywhere to go, and no point to what they were doing. They had this expensive toy that they had to do something with, and I’m sure it was fun for about 15 minutes the first time out. But after that?

Maybe I’m wrong and they loved every moment of it. They kept at it for a good long while. The most disturbing part of it was the immense noise. Devil’s Lake is fairly large, and it was clear that from any point on the lake the noise from this one boat would be loud. Lakes hint at serenity, and this jet boat was diametrically opposed to the silence of nature. It would be one thing if the boat had any sort of purpose other than making noise and going fast. But really, that’s all this kind of boat does. Chris and I talked about how strange humans are, with their constant search for entertainment, and how the combustion engine has played into that. ATVs and monster trucks; boats like this one and giant Winnebagos. What would happen if gas were $10 per gallon? Or $50?

We didn’t find a campgroung around the lake. As we rolled into Lincoln City we happened across Trillium Natural Foods Grocery. It’s a great little co-op grocery, in what used to be a house. Wood floors, good smells, packed wall to wall with healthy organic foods. Chris and I stocked up for dinner and breakfast, and found out there is a campground in Lincoln City, we just hadn’t gotten that far. The entrance to the campground is right off the 101, and the woman at the grocery told us it is the only campground anywhere in a both a state park and within city limits.

At the campground the hiker/ biker camping is off to the side near the entrance. Chris and I climbed a small hill to set up our tent. It was kind of strange because we were setting up in a small grassy field right by a road in a neighborhood. We felt like we were in somebody’s yard. There was one other tent in the yard with us, but nobody else around.

As we set up camp Chris and I looked sideways at each other when we heard cackling from the other tent. The tent was set up beside a picnic table. It looked like someone had just cooked a big meal, ate some of it, and had left the mess. There was a catsup and mustard bottle, an empty chip bag and various wrappers and empty bags. Clothes were strewn around the perimeter of the tent, and a burnt ear of corn lay on the grate over the fire pit. There was a cat carrier and an open back pack with it’s contents thrown everywhere. All that was needed to complete the picture was a couple of small filthy children naked from the waist down sitting in the dirt and eating bugs.

The cackling continued while Chris and I set up. At one point a cheap radio came on in the tent, blaring static between stations. This continued the whole evening. Every now and then we saw the tent shake as somebody moved around. There was muttering, and I couldn’t tell if one person talked, or two. Cackling and singing, periodic blasts of radio static. But for the entire evening nobody came out of the tent.

The next morning Chris and I made breakfast. Our tents were damp with dew and the sun was just getting high enough to warm up the air, so we hung our rain covers and took our time making breakfast. The cackling started again in the late morning. The tent jostled and the zippered door opened. A woman stepped out of the tent, dressed in what looked like full rain gear. Her hair was dirty blond and nappy with tangles. In her arms she had a very young kitten. She kicked around at the clothes outside her tent, and then sat at the picnic table. Using one arm she swiped an area clear and put the kitten on the table. It was very young, brown and white. She held the kitten down and tried putting a harness on it, but the kitten protested and cried and mewled and it sounded like she was torturing it. After a few minutes without success with the harness the kitten really went wild. We stared at her and I was about to say something. She was becoming flustered and finally, suddenly, gave up and walked away carrying the kitten. I heard her muttering profanities as she left, and I envisioned her going down to the lake and holding the kitten underwater until it stopped moving. A few minutes later we saw her at the camp entrance, probably paying for another night.

There were fewer than 30 miles to go from Lincoln City to Newport, so we took our time. Newport was the end of this trip for me. I was meeting Maggie for yoga and surfing. Chris was going to head on down the coast into northern California, ultimately to Arcata.

We pulled into Newport in the afternoon. There were more sea lions on the docks and on the jetty than I’d ever seen. They barked and bickered and slept, while crowds of people stood around photographing them.

Chris and I ate fish and chips in the old part of town. We climbed the hill back up to the 101 and then said our goodbyes. Chris headed south, and I turned back north into the wind and pedaled the 6 or so miles to Beverly Beach campground where I met Maggie.

This was such an amazing trip, and part of me really wanted to continue south with Chris. The weather was perfect and the tail wind was dreamy. Each day as we started riding I had a feeling of warmth and excitement, anticipating seeing new places and things. As I said, I never was very tempted by riding down the coast just because of the road and the traffic. But now, having ridden some of it, I will definitely do it again. There are enough detours on side roads, and the shoulder is mostly wide enough. But, I can only imagine how amazing this trip would be were the coastal rail line turned into pathways like the Banks-Vernonia trail. That would make this trip exponentially more amazing. And it would get used, a lot. People from all over the world already come just to ride the coast. Imagine how many more would come if there were a bike path separate from the roadway. Wow!

We’ve been riding to Astoria every summer for the past few years. This year is the first time we’ve extended the trip. Next year we may actually spend some time organizing, and invite more people to join us. So far it’s been very loosely organized and the invitations have been very casual. No announcements or anything like that. I’m thinking more like a seven or eight day loop, with options for people who don’t have that much time. But anyway, we’ll see. If you’ve made it all the way through this long missive and you’re interested in the possibility of going next year, send me an e-mail. I’ll save your address and if we do put something bigger together I’ll send you an invite.

2010-09-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

Astoria Bike Trip 2010

part I

This past week was our annual bike trip to Astoria. It’s not an official event, but several friends and I have been doing this for the past couple of years, and the number of us going each year has increased, so it almost feels like it’s official. This year there were ten of us riding. To see the route we take, mostly, click here.

We all met at the Forestry Center on Sunday, and rode about 65 miles to Big Eddy campground, which is just a few miles north of Vernonia. It's only as we got out past North Plains that it started to feel like we were away from town. As always, the Banks- Vernonia trail is such a great part of the day – no cars and totally off in the trees for a good portion of the way. It’s the first rails-to-trails project in Oregon, and spans 21 miles, a lot of which is in the forest.

Throughout this trip I kept seeing old rusty train tracks parallel the roadways, and it really makes me wonder how we (as a state) could put together the funding to transform some of these. They are there, waiting to be used. 21 miles between two rural towns it very cool, but there’s a whole huge network waiting to be put in place.

Anyway, we rode our 21 miles from Banks to Vernonia. Much of the trail is paved, but there is a section of about 6 miles that is gravel. I’ve heard rumors that it’s all going to be paved within the next year, but even the wide gravel and hard packed path is nice.

Where the trail ends in Vernonia there is a campground and RV park, but I’ve never stayed there. It would be a good overnight trip from Portland, to ride the trail and stop right at the end. But we always push on to Big Eddy campground because it’s more away from things, and it’s only another 6 or 7 miles up the road. There is a grocery store in Vernonia where it’s good to pick up the heavier food and beer that you wouldn’t want to pack all that way. Also, you ought to pick up a gallon of water, since the water at Big Eddy smells sulfuric.

At Big Eddy we set up camp. Mike was on Yeti patrol by the river, can in hand. We compared gear, figured out who was the biggest gear nerd, and the award went fairly unanimously to Nick, although we all had our claims to the title. Maybe I’ll go into all the things I learned about sleeping pads and tents and stoves and sleeping bags in another post. Suffice it to say that the technology that’s been put into gear is awesome, but some of it borders on the ridiculous. It’s like anything, I guess; some of it is genuinely good and useful, some of it is questionable, and some of it is crap. Things keep getting lighter and more compact, and if you want to keep up on it, and if you have the money, you can travel pretty light these days.

The next day we rode on to Astoria, another 55 or so miles. All of us who went last year had been talking about the climb over the coastal range, making it out to be this big tiresome haul. The people who hadn’t gone last year were expecting a monster climb that would go on for miles and miles. Maybe it was the freshly paved road, or maybe we’d had a head wind, or maybe we were just weaker, whinier humans last year, but this year the climb didn’t seem all that difficult, so that by the time we got to the top, the newbies were asking, “Is that it?”

One of the highlights for this leg of the trip is the country store at Birkenfeld, where you can pick up some low-budget energy food and refill your water bottle, and if you want to, you can get a fifth of Jack Daniels. The folks there are always friendly, although it looks like they wouldn't ride a bike unless it had at least a 750 cc motor on it. A couple of young guys pulled up while we were there. They wore head to toe camouflage. They had just been out bow hunting and had a deer in the truck that one of them had shot. Apparently he’d put an arrow right through the eyes, and the deer had still run off. They said they’d had to chase it for over a mile before it fell. They were very proud, slapping each other on the backs, talking loud and laughing big.

The rest of this leg of the trip is really good. It’s low trafficand not too many hills, lazy winding country road. There is a big elk reserve, but this year there were none to be seen. We arrived inAstoria early in the evening and met up with Chris’ friend, Jess. We ate dinner with her at a brew pub, then went back to her enormous apartment. From the front window of her place you looked out at the 101 bridge to Washington. She was very generous in letting us stay at her place, especially since she was leaving that night to drive to Portland to catch a plane. Her home could have slept 20 of us comfortably, and as it was several of us had rooms to ourselves.

The next morning we woke to rain and wind. Because we had a big warm dry apartment to stay in, none of us were in a hurry to head off into the next part of our adventure. We went to breakfast at the delicious Blue Scorcher Café, and milled around town for a quite a while. Astoria was where our group of ten split up, many folks needing to get back to Portland for work, etc. As the afternoon rolled around the rain seemed to let up, so Chris, Ian and I packed up, said our goodbyes, got on our bikes and and headed south.

As soon as we rounded the bend that makes up the tip of the peninsula on which Astoria sits, the wind hit us full force in the face. There are two bridges across the bay south of Astoria, but the shorter and lesser traveled of the two was closed. That left us with one option; taking the 101 bridge, a long, narrow floating bridge that is very heavily traveled, and completely exposed to the heavy winds off the sea.

We rode for about 50 feet onto the bridge, but it was clear that riding was totally unsafe. The wind pushed us toward traffic, and the big trucks blowing past pushed us toward the low guardrail over which was a drop into the water. This was one of the scariest miles I’ve ever traveled. Off our bikes, we stayed as far onto the small shoulder and against the guardrail as we could go. Putting our heads down we walked for the full length of the bridge. The bridge spans almost two miles of water, and most of it is too narrow to even safely walk on, let alone walking with a bike. The stream of traffic was constant, and the rain fell sideways. It was a very unpleasant crossing, but we made it without any real incident. On the other side we pulled under an awning and stopped to breathe.

From this point we took off on a small country road that wound into the trees. The wind died down, as did the traffic. The rain fell lightly and the day was relatively warm, so the riding was pleasant, even if wet. We followed this around through state forest and nature reserve, farmland and riverbed. The rain picked up on the final climb back over the hills. As we came down the other side the ocean wind picked up again, and the rain fell heavily, causing us to have to pedal to maintain speed on the descent. By the time we rolled into the small town of Seaside we were soaked through.

That night we took a room at the Seaside Hostel, which turned out to be a blessing. There was a quarter-fed dryer for our clothes, and a hot shower. That night we watched Aliens in the common room. Three young German women were trying to eat dinner while on the TV a slimy alien baby burst out of Sigourney Weaver’s chest, screeching and gnashing teeth. The German women didn’t last long at the table.

The next morning the hostel offered eggs to cook and waffle mix to make, which we heartily did. We packed our bags as the sun burned off the morning fog, and we were met with a clear cloudless sky.

End of part I

2010-07-08T08:09:00.000-07:00

We're going to be in San Francisco this coming weekend for the Sunday Streets. The city is closing some of the streets in the Mission to cars, and opening them for cyclists, pedestrians, roller-skaters, whatever you want. We're bringing a few Cycle Trucks to show and to let people test ride.

The Sunday Streets is the same concept as the Portland Sunday Parkways. Lot's of people get out on their bikes, there are vendors, music. It's quite a celebration. Funny how excited people get when they're given the chance to ride their bikes in a car-free environment. Maybe we should take note of that.

We'll be there through Tuesday the 13th. If you're in the area and interested in trying out a Cycle Truck, please contact me at info@ahearnecycles.com to set up an appointment to meet. We'll be out and about, checking out some of the bike shops, so you may bump into us.

Hope to see you there!

2010-06-23T06:18:00.000-07:00

Last week I finished up teaching my first ever frame building class at UBI. The United Bicycle Institute opened a campus here in Portland a few month back, and I was invited to be a guest instructor for the most recent steel brazing class.

For the past two weeks I’ve been with a group of 8 people, most of whom had little or no experience with a torch. Over this two-week period they learned the basics of how to build a bicycle frame, including everything from tubing selection, designing, filing, brazing, and everything else you need to know to get started. By the last day of class, each person had a frame they had constructed with little to no hands on help from me.

It was a good experience, for myself, and hopefully for the students as well. The first week was definitely more difficult for me than the second, mainly because I was, for a large part, standing there talking about basic mechanics of bike design and giving demonstrations. There is a lot of information to present, and the trick is doing it without putting everyone to sleep. I don't know how successful I was with this. Nobody fell out of their chair snoring, but still, there were times it seemed to go on and on.

The demos are more engaging, and students start out the first day with practice sessions for brazing. This seemed to get people excited. Firing up the torch and gluing steel together with molten brass or silver is more fun than listening to me talk about the differences between oval and round chain stays, or round oval round. Oval round.

The latter part of the first week is when the fun really starts. By this time everyone has had several sessions of brazing practice, and has a full-sized drawing of the bicycle they intend to build. From this point we really start into the set-up and construction of the frame and fork. I talk less, and the students work more at their benches. And once everyone gets going they seem eager to continue.

This class has forced me to step back from my usual ways of doing things and to think critically about the processes. How is a bicycle frame constructed? If you've never built one you might look carefully at a frame and have no idea where to begin. It may seem like a huge undertaking. There is so much going on in a bicycle, and there are so many styles and types of bikes available. What do I build; where do I start; how do I make it ride well? If you back up a little and think about it, each type of bike has a certain set of processes that went into its construction. It's not rocket science. There are some tricks, and there are a lot of little things to know, but really, the process to build a basic frame is not incredibly difficult. It's a series of steps, one after another. Really, you do one thing and move onto the next. And you keep doing that until you have a complete frame. Once you've learned how to build a basic bike, then you can spend the next hundred years learning how to build a "great" bike, and a "beautiful" bike. But with this, like with everything, you have to start at the beginning.

So it was my job in this class to give people the basics, and to show one fairly intuitive set of processes to take people from the beginning to the end. I wasn't trying to show the 'fast' way or the 'right' way to build a frame, I was just showing one way it could be done, a way that seems pretty logical based on the knowledge of the students, and also based on the type of equipment we had available to use in class. I feel like I did an alright job, especially for my first class. There's always room for improvement, but a good sign is that nobody tried to punch me, and everyone came out with a bicycle frame that they'd built themselves. And, equally important to me, is that I had a good time.

I will be teaching more frame building classes in the future. If you're interested in attending one of my classes, keep an eye on the UBI schedule for details. We're in the process of figuring it out now.

Here are the graduates from my first class. See how they smile? That might be because they were squinting at the sun. Or it might be because they're each holding a frame they built. You'll have to ask them.

2010-05-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

There’s a new bike shop that has opened here in town. Splendid Cycles is a couple of doors up from 14^th and Belmont, and specializes in cargo bikes.

http://www.splendidcycles.com/

Joel, the owner, has a vision of supplying the world with useful pedal powered machines that can help people drive less and ride more. Cargo bikes are his focus. He has a great vision, which you can read about HERE.

He and I had a long conversation a while back, and we’re in agreement that the number of cars on the road is completely unacceptable, unsustainable, and is generally insane. There are a lot of factors that cause this, and there’s no one way to go about addressing it. But, Joel and I are both tackling the issue the best way we know how, which is by trying to get more people excited about bikes, and to offer them viable alternatives to driving.

Splendid Cycles is offering a variety of cargo bike options. One is the Ahearne Cycle Truck. Because people have a range of transport needs, it’s good to see all these options under one roof. If you would like to take one for a test ride, please stop in to Splendid. At the moment he only has a medium Cycle Truck in the house. Both a medium and a large are on the way, and should be in his shop within the next few weeks. Splendid will be selling the Cycle Truck for the same price that is listed on the Ahearne website. Another great option is, if you’ve been thinking about a Cycle Truck, but money is an issue, Splendid Cycles offers financing. You can read more about this HERE.

Also, don’t forget to mark your calendars: Splendid Cycles is having a grand opening party on Thursday the 10^th of June, starting at 5 pm.

To read more about Splendid, check out the post on bikeportland.org.

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Also, I want to mention that I’m lucky enough to have some great new help for the Cycle Truck project. Nick Sande, former long time employee of Surly Bikes, has recently moved to Portland. He’s been working with me, helping out with the cause, and bringing to it a lot of great ideas. He and I have known each other for quite a few years; basically since I walked up to the Surly booth at Interbike, and I showed Nick the first Spaceman Flask Holster and asked if I could mount it on one of their bikes. He was really excited to see it, and was immediately supportive.

Nick and I kept in touch, and since moving here a few months back, the stars have aligned in such a way that he and I are now working together. Between the two of us we’ve got a lot of skills and a range of perspectives on the industry of bicycles. And I think it’s a complementary meeting of ideas. The great thing about it – and this is similar to the way Joel of Splendid Cycles and I work – is that Nick (and Joel) and I are really cooperating in our ideas about how to get more people on bikes. The momentum for this attitude about bikes has been increasing dramatically over the past few years. It’s awesome to see the nation-wide push to incorporate alternative forms of transportation into the lives of more people. I’m very grateful to be a part of this movement. Pun fully intended.

Look for more soon…

2010-04-09T17:27:00.000-07:00

The Ahearne Cycle Truck is here!

This is a very exciting time. The long-awaited introduction of the Cycle Truck is now at hand. This is a project we've been working on for the past several months. It's been a long process of dialing in the design, picking out the most functional features, and making, basically, the best overall commuter bike we could possibly make. You can read all about it on the website:

ahearnecycles.com/cycletruck

If you happen to be in Portland, Oregon this weekend of the 10th and 11th of April, you can see the Cycle Truck for yourself at the Pedal Nation bicycle show going on at the convention center. It's here that the Cycle Truck will make its big debut.

The Cycle Truck is now available to order. There is an 8 week wait time from order to delivery, so if you order soon, you can have yours by the beginning of summer. All the details are on the website.

Of course I'm biased, and I believe the Cycle Truck is a great bike. But it's not only that. I really do think that the Cycle Truck will help people stay out of their cars. If one more person were able to leave the car at home and do everything they needed to because of this bike, I would feel like I'd succeeded in my mission. Of all the commuter bikes I've ridden and built, this one pushes the bar a notch higher. If you ride a Cycle Truck, you'll see what I'm saying. It's a good one.

2010-03-03T06:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday these fine gentlemen stopped in at the shop (I'm the pale one in the middle). They're here from Japan, and I gather that they came over mainly to go to the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. If you weren't aware, the show happened this past weekend in Richmond, Virginia. There are a lot of photos online, and it looks like there was a good turnout. The Japanese fellows had been to the show and saw that I didn't have a booth. They rolled up yesterday on rented bikes and wanted to see what I was working on, and to talk a little about what was what at the shop. My Japanese is a little rusty, as was their English, so the conversation didn't wax overly philosophical, which was just as well since it was late in the afternoon. I'm assuming that Portland was a stopover before returning to Japan, but I'm not sure.

One question they asked was why I didn't go to the hand made bicycle show this year. The short answer is, I needed a break from shows. The longer answer is: There are some big projects on the plate that are requiring a lot of time, and adding to my already crazy schedule the time and stress of a bike show was not something I wanted to do. The shows are great, and they have some very fun elements, but they are also a lot of stress, and are becoming more and more expensive to attend every year. It's not just the booth space, which is costly enough, but all the other expenses that really push it over the top -- plane ticket, hotel, shipping bikes to and from (a terrifying experience in itself), food, and so on. There comes a point where the stress and the expense outweighs the fun and usefulness of it. So, as much as I might have wanted to be there, it was deemed better to forego it this year around. I hope all those who did attend had a great show.

As for the big happenings in the shop, I'll be giving some updates soon. It's exciting stuff. Or, at least, I think it's exciting. You probably will, too. Any hints? Well, let's just say it's the commuter bike to beat all commuters. It's bad ass, and it's coming together now. More words to come.

2009-07-26T06:21:00.000-07:00

It's been an exceptionally busy summer. Since returning from my trip in May I've been working steadily at the shop. And too, I've been busy with some big projects outside the shop.

One of the big projects, or I should say, the main project outside the shop has been, Maggie and I built a yurt out in the side yard. It's awesome. Not only is it structurally a very clever design, but it's also just plain cool (literally and figuratively). Here are a few pictures of the process of construction.

Portland in the summertime is the place to be. It's when all the rain pays off -- everything is green (mostly), especially if you get out in the forest. It's been blazing hot for the past few days, but I'm not complaining. I'm soaking up the heat now and storing it away for all those cool rainy winter rides.

The next order of business is that I've got some things for sale. Big things. Beautiful things. I'm posting them here first, and they should all be posted on the "For Sale" page on the website soon. Please contact me if you have any questions.

Ahearne Cycles Travel Bicycle

Sale Price: $6205 (Original price $7300; 15% discount)

This is a great commuter/ around town bicycle that you can take anywhere. With a unique and interesting design it breaks down and fits in a case for travel, and the case meets airline regulations for size. It’s a 4 speed, fillet brazed steel frame made from True Temper OX Platinum tubing. It has clearance for 42c tires, or 35c tires with fenders. The bike is painted a dark root-beer brown, and has subtle box lining on the top tube and down tube. The subdued paint is to keep the bike from being too much of a target for bike thieves, but it still has a quiet elegance. It has a front generator hub and rack-mounted light, and the front bag was custom made by Lemolo Bags here in Portland. It attaches quickly, easily and securely to the front rack and has a shoulder strap for comfortable carrying. The front rack breaks down and fits in the case with the bicycle. This means the entire bicycle, including the frame, fork, rack and fenders, with the wheels and all the parts fits in the hard case. Comes with step by step photograph instructions for packing.

Details of sizing and parts are as follows:

Frame size:

Effective seat tube length 59 cm; Actual 57 cm

Top tube length 60.5 cm with a + or – 3 degree slope

Parts Include:

Custom Ahearne 5-piece fork, capped with Irish 20 pence coins

Paul “Racer” brakes front and rear

Chris King “Sotto Voce” 1” threaded head set

Salsa quill stem, 1” steel, removable face-plate, painted to match

Nitto “Jitensha” handlebar, anodized black

Paul “Cantilever” brake levers

Paul “Thumbie” thumb shifter with Shimano Dura Ace bar end shifter

Nitto S83 seatpost, anodized black

Traiter Cycles black saddle with quilted stitching

White Industries “Eno” cranks, 175 mm with a 42T chainring

Phil Wood Stainless Steel bottom bracket

FlyBikes “Ruben” pedals, sealed bearings, replaceable pins, light weight

Schmidt “Son20R” Front Generator hub, 32 hole

Chris King Single Speed rear hub, 32 hole, 130 mm spacing

Mavic “Open Pro” rims with a ceramic braking surface

DT Swiss “Competition” 14/15 double butted spokes, brass nipples

Hand built wheels

Shimano 105 short cage rear derailleur

Shimano Ultegra Cassette; 17-19-21-23

Panaracer “T-serve” tires, 38c

Accessories Include:

-Collapsable Front Porteur rack with integrated light mount, and with saddle bag rails

-Custom made Front bag by Lemolo which fits to the rack, has internal u-lock holder, shoulder strap

-Schmidt “Edelux” front LED light; very bright, and includes a 2 minute stand light

-Frame pump by Topeak, painted to match; mounts discreetly on the non-drive seat stay

-S & S Bicycle hard case with all packing material, head set wrench, coupler wrench and pedal wrench, (no allen wrenches included) and with instructional packing photos

-Also included with this bike are Berthoud Stainless Steel Fenders Painted to match the rest

Click here to see more pictures of the Travel Commuter Bike.

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Next on the list:

For Sale:
Hand Made Cyclo-cross Bicycle
frame, fork, stem, with headset ............. $3350

This is the bicycle that was on display at the Portland International Airport for nearly a year. It has so many hidden secrets they are almost too many to list. First, the size:

Top tube length ... 59 cm
Effective seat tube ... 60 cm
Actual seat tube ... 57 cm (there's about a 5 degree slope to the top tube)
Stem length ... 110 mm with a 10 degree rise, for an oversized 31.8 bar
Top of headset to stem top ... 110 mm (could be lowered by about 15 mm)

This frame has clearance for about 42c tires, and there's plenty of room for fenders. The tubing is Columbus Life; niobium tubing that is exceptionally light and stiff.
It has double chain stays, long horizontal, front opening dropouts, the Campy 1010A.

The head tube and lugs are a bilaminant construction, meaning that the head tube and head lugs appear to be one single piece -- it's an artistic method of joining tubes, and requires a lot of work hand shaping the "lugs." This leaves room for creativity, which you'll see in the long carved gussets under both the top and down tubes. The seat cluster also has a curvaceous hand carved lug.

The seat tube has polished stainless steel bands marking off the panel, and the down tube cable guides are also polished stainless.

The stem has a polished stainless steel lug holding the bar, with an inlaid silver outline of a heart.

One of the most obvious and striking features of this bicycle is the paint. The bike has a subdued dark blue powder coat that in the light fades into and out of a gold sheen. The whole thing is overlaid with a shadowed Celtic knot which can't be seen unless you're up close, but looks really amazing when you see it. The script logo and thin red lug lining makes the whole finish pop, and takes it to a higher level of classiness.

This bicycle can be built as a single speed or fully geared. As shown in the pictures it's built as a single speed, and weighs in just over 18 pounds. It's light, nimble and fast, and would make a great muddy race machine.

This bicycle has fewer than 300 miles on it. Because it has been ridden some, there are a few dings in the paint, but nothing major. All in all it's in excellent condition. I'm selling the frame fork and stem, with a Chris King headset, for $3350. That's over 40% below what this would sell for outright, and if you consider all of the features included and the time spent on carving and polishing you'll realize what a good deal this is.

Also, if you need any parts, we can discuss what you need and the costs.

C l i c k h e r e t o see more pictures of the Airport Cross Bike.

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And last but very far from being the least:

Classic Lugged Road Frame and Fork
with polished stainless steel lugs and Chris King head set

For sale ... $2750
(includes shipping to anywhere within the continental US!)

This is a very classy comfortable road bike with a lot of shine:
Polished stainless steel lugs; stainless dropouts front and rear; stainless fork crown and down tube cable guides; and stainless water bottle bosses on both the seat and down tube. All of this is polished to a mirror shine, and contrasted with the black finish the bike looks almost too beautiful to ride. Almost...

Specs:

Top tube length ... 56 cm
Seat tube length ...55 cm

This bike is for 700 X 23c tires only. Because of the tight curves of the seat stays it is necessary to use a system wheel (ie. Rolfe or Ksyrium wheels would work just fine). Traditional wheels will not work because of the wider spoke profile -- this bicycle was built to accommodate narrow spoke profile of system wheels only. And it's super sexy.

t

The frame is made from True Temper OX platinum tubing, and uses the classic Henry James stainless steel lugs and fork crown. The double chain stays are subtle, and add to the classiness. All in all this is a really beautiful bike, and it is definitely meant to be ridden. You will never again see a deal like this on a bike with so much style.

This bicycle does not include a stem -- the stem that was on this one found another home.

If you need a wheel set and other parts, ask me, and we can discuss what you need. I'll be happy to help you with this.

C l i c k h e r e t o see more pictures of the Classic Road Bike.

2009-05-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

I recently returned from my vacation to Bali, Indonesia. I'd hoped to post something while there, but the computers to be found were mostly old, very slow, the connections were often poor, and there were no ports to link my camera in and upload photos. Without photos I just don't think I could have done it justice. Bali is a very photogenic place. The people are beautiful and they always smiling. In fact, when I first arrived it was somewhat disconcerting. They have nothing to hide, they look you directly in the eyes and their mouth peels wide into a big warm grin. It's very endearing, inviting and infectious. After a little time being there it made me wish people everywhere were so friendly. If people could so easily smile and share such warmth the world would certainly be a better, happier place to live.

I spent most of my time in the town of Ubud, which is considered to be the "cultural center" of Bali. There are artists everywhere -- painters; wood carvers; silver smiths; textile weavers and batik artists; stone carvers; musicians and instrument makers; dancers. The roads in and all around Ubud are lined with shops selling all sorts of arts and crafts. Whole families learn one or another art form and practice it relentlessly. It's amazing to see all the shops, the wares, the varieties of what people do.

I spent my days walking a lot, reading a lot, practicing yoga at an amazing studio, lounging and napping in the hottest part of the day. I checked out museums and ate at a variety of restaurants looking for the best food. Everything in Bali is inexpensive. My hotel room was $10 a night, which included a big breakfast. Meals were anywhere from 90 cents to $4, the latter being on the expensive side. I rented a scooter for $4 a day and spent about a week touring around the northern volcanoes and the north coast. I could have rented a beat-up and badly maintained mountain bike -- a very cheap Chinese trap -- for $1 a day, but the roads around town were way too crowded and there were basically no regulations. It was better just to walk.

But, on my scooter trip north I realized that Bali would actually be a great place to have a touring bike and do some exploring. I had purchased a fairly detailed road map before setting off to the north, but I really wanted to take the small roads and realized that most of them weren't listed on the map. After a couple of days I began choosing little roads that looked interesting and by the third day I was no longer referencing the map at all. It was much nicer just exploring. Bali is an island, and a fairly small one at that, so really, how lost could I possibly get? The countryside was absolutely amazing, green and lush jungle, tiered rice fields, sprawling farmland, tiny old villages, and temple after temple along the way. There was almost no traffic on the small country roads, the views were excellent, and as I came down the backside of the mountains the ocean showed itself. I travelled around the north coast for a few days, swam, scuba dived around a shipwreck near Amed, and continued reading and relaxing, just as if that's all I had to do in the world.

Instead of talking about all of this, click here to see a bunch of pictures to give you a better idea of what I saw.

2009-03-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

It's a very busy time at the shop. I'm going on vacation on the 26th of March, and will be out of the shop for most of the month of April. It's been a long time coming. I'm headed to the warmth, sunshine and blue seas of Bali in Indonesia. I don't really know what to expect, except that when I get off the plane, the nearly translucent white skin that I've been cultivating over the past few months of Portland's cloud covered winter season will make me the whitest white-boy on the island. I'm sure I'll quickly turn pink, and then a deep lobster red, and I will love every moment of it.

For anyone trying to get ahold of me, Mike (my mechanic and helper) will be checking e-mails and filling orders for flask holders and flasks. I will be checking e-mails intermittently, but most things will have to wait until I return. I'll do what I can, but I want to thank everyone in advance for being patient. But now, moving on...

This years' North American Hand Made Bicycle Show came to a close a couple of weeks ago. All in all it was a success. There were a lot of people in attendance, and quite a local buzz about the bikes. It looks like the show really helped rally the bike community of Indianapolis, and the midwest in general. I talked with many people who had travelled anywhere from 2 to 12 hours to come to the show. There were people from Ann Arbor, Cincinnati, Chicago, Kansas City and St. Louis, and quite a few other cities. It was great that people were willing to come from so far to see what was going on.

Also, a huge congratulations goes out to Mitch of MAP Bicycles for his receiving this years award for Best City Bike. It was definitely deserved.

I've fished around on the internet some, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures from the show. There wasn't a lot of time for me to look everything over, but I did see some great things. I particularly liked the cargo bike by ZR Cycles; the crazy snow bike/commuter monster by Retrotec, and just about everything in the Bilenky booth. Some of the best photos I've seen of the show were taken by Brad Quartuccio of Urban Velo, and can be seen at: http://urbanvelo.org/nahbs-2009-friday-part-1/

There are several galleries of photos that you can find through this link.

I'll try and post something while on my trip about how things are going. I won't have a computer with me, so I'll be depending on internet cafes. And know that, for all of you who are enjoying the tail end of the winter months, I'll have you in my thoughts. Please reserve your sympathy for all those sun-burns I'll have to suffer through. Suckers!

Buon viage!

2009-02-28T09:51:00.001-08:00

It's been a very long time since I've added any words to this blog. So much has happened that it would take a couple of volumes of words to even scratch the surface. I can be pretty wordy, and the longer I wait to write and the more events that take place, the more daunting the prospect feels.

To put the last several months in summary, I've been in the shop a lot. I've built quite a number of bikes, some elaborate and decorative, some simple and straight-forward, all utilitarian to one degree or another. While working away, filing/brazing/grinding/polishing/inventing/deconstructing and so on, quite a few major events have taken place. It's a good thing there is NPR, and that Maggie keeps me somewhat up-to-date on current affairs, or I'd be lost in the land of steel. We have a new president. In my eyes, it's not so important that he's African American, although I understand that this is a huge cultural step for America. What's even more important is that he's intelligent, and he seems to have a system of values that include (rather than preclude) making peoples lives better. He's not war-mongering. He's interested in helping us, as a nation, to take responsibility for our future rather than living like a narcissistic, muddled adolescent, full of trash and anger and apathy. It's been so long since I've had any faith in our government stepping up to the role of acting "for the people" that I find myself ambivalent, untrusting, and generally hesitant about giving in to having faith in the new administration. Obama has been put into a huge mess of difficulties, and it will probably take much longer than he has in office to make any sort of real dent in the problems that are here now, but we all have hope that we can at least get started in a better direction. I, for one, would much rather build bikes than be in his shoes. But I wish him a lot of luck, nonetheless.

One of the factors that's been haunting us all is the sour economy. I've had a lot of people ask me if I've seen the effects of this in my orders. It's hard for me to say. We're well into the slowest season for bikes, in which I usually don't receive too many orders anyway. My lead time is pretty long, as well. I think that, as far as the economy goes, the bike world has been fairly stable. I've had quite a lot of people interested in my bikes, and have gotten several orders over the past months. We'll have to see how things go as we get closer to this next cycling season.

One difference that I am noticing is the type of bicycles that people are interested in getting from me. There is definitely a lot more interest in the general purpose, utilitarian bikes, including commuters, Randonneuse, light touring, and fully loaded touring bikes. This is a direction that I've always leaned, which is why I got into building custom bikes and especially custom racks in the first place. I really love a good mountain bike, but I consider this a second bike. The first bike, or the bike I would want to have if I could only have one, would definitely be a general purpose touring bike that would accommodate racks, fat tires and fenders. It's a bike I could ride all year, it would carry anything I'd need it to carry, and could be stripped down for faster, lighter day trips, or could be taken on the trails for some non-technical and quiet out-of-town riding.

With this in mind, I move on to this years' North American Hand Made Bicycle Show in Indianapolis, Indiana, from 27 February through 1 March. That's at the end of this week, in case you weren't paying attention. Because of it's location, and some of the politics that revolve around the show, there are quite a few of the west coast builders who won't be in attendance. It was very lucky for me this past year that the show was here in Portland, within about 10 blocks from my shop. I do think it's a good thing that the show goes on the road, so that builders can present their wares to a different audience each year. I look forward to seeing the work of builders from the midwest and the east. Now that I've gone through the process of getting everything in order for the show, and working out the details of shipping, travel and accommodations, I fully understand why many of the builders from the midwest and east were unable or unwilling to travel across the country to show their bikes. It's expensive. It's requires a lot of time. There are so many worries involved in having bikes shipped; hoping they arrive undamaged; hoping they arrive at all.

Thanks to the initiative and organization of Sacha and Scott at Vanilla Bicycles, some of the local Portland builders have gone in on having our bikes shipped on pallets in the back of a truck. This past Friday the truck came by the shop to pick up our pallet, and there was quite a scare involved. The driver showed up and, within the first minute of being there got his finger lodged in a latch at the back of the truck. It nearly tore off the end of his finger, and as it was it looked like he would need quite a few stitches. We gave him some bandages and some time to clean it up and asked him several times if he needed to call someone else so that he could go to the hospital, but he declined each time, saying he'd be alright. He said he'd called to chew-out his boss for giving him a defective truck, something about the lift not working properly.

When it was time to load the pallet, three of us helped him, and it's a very good thing we did. He pulled the pallet onto the lift with a pallet jack and I noticed that the truck was parked on a slant so that it was listing heavily to one side, but thought that he know what he was doing so didn't say anything. Once the pallet was on the lift he started raising it and the whole thing shifted precariously. As the lift came even with the truck bed he started pulling on the jack and the whole lift suddenly dropped about 6 inches. There was only a small part of the pallet on the truck bed so the entire load tipped and nearly fell on top of Mitch, Mike and I, who were standing on the ground trying to keep the thing upright. We stood there physically holding our pallet upright, while Mike grabbed a couple of pry bars, which we wedged under the pallet to support it. The driver started cussing at the lift and tried to raise it again and the wheels on the pallet jack got lodged between the lift and the truck, so the lift couldn't go up anymore. Only after grabbing a cro-bar and prying the wheels of the jack free we were able to raise the lift and get the pallet on the truck. It was all very bad, and very scary. He very nearly dumped our pallet on our heads, or in the street, which would have destroyed at least 2 of our bikes. Then he joked about how it looked like he gave us a scare, and that we must at least have a couple or 3 thousand dollars worth of stuff on the pallet. When I told him it was more like 25 thousand he became quiet. I don't wish ill will on the driver, but I do think there were some bad judgement-calls made on his part.

As you can imagine, this did nothing to instill any confidence in me that our bikes are going to arrive in Indianapolis undamaged. My only hope is that this is the worst that any of our bikes are going to see for the entire trip. I'll be relieved only when I get there and see the condition of things.

I am excited for the show. I've been to quite a few of these, and it's always good to see what other builders come up with, and to talk with people about what I do. I've not built a bike for anyone within 500 miles (at least) of Indianapolis, so I'm excited to have a whole new group of people see what I can do. I really enjoyed attending the show in Portland, but I felt like most people here knew who I was, and what sort of work I do, and many had surely seen a bike or two that I'd built. It'll be good to have something tangible, something more than pictures on the internet, that people can experience and touch and walk around and ask about. I also feel it's important for people to be able to talk with the builders, discuss the possibilities, and see how great a custom bicycle can be. This is how bicycle dreams really get rolling. It can be very inspirational.

I'm not showing any pictures of what I'll be taking to the show at this time. It's something of a surprise. But I do have to say that I'm excited about the bikes I'm taking. I've incorporated a couple of elements that I've not yet tried, and I think they came out really well. If you're in the area and are able to attend the show, you really ought to stop by. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I intended to keep this blog entry fairly short, but I see that I've run on for quite a while. There is a lot more to say, but I've got to finish getting ready to go. I'll try and get another post up soon, so that I don't have to ramble quite so long.

2008-06-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

Hello! I'm going to be in Virginia from the 4th to the 14th of June. There's a vintage bicycle show there, the Cirque du Cyclisme, from June 6th through the 8th. After the show I'll be going for a short tour (about a week) to experience some of the beautiful countryside by bicycle. I'll be back in my shop on the 16th. Cheers! Joseph

2008-05-14T20:08:00.001-07:00

It’s been a while since I last added a blog entry. I sometimes wonder if anyone really reads these things, but I get periodic reminders from people that actually they do. As you can imagine, a lot has happened since the last entry. I think the only thing that hasn’t really changed here is the weather. Which is to say that here in Portland, Oregon it’s still basically acting a lot like winter. It’s still cold and rainy most days, with only the rarest glimpses of sunshine. And, yes, this has become something of a sore point with me, and I can imagine it’s the same with quite a lot of others living here. It’s almost the middle of May, and we’re all hoping for some hint that spring has arrived and that summer is maybe right around the corner. I guess it’s true that things are starting to bloom and you can smell flowers when riding around town. But damn I’m tired of my cold weather gear, and really tired of all my rain gear that smells like stale old socks. But enough of that. Fortunately there are some optimists around me that keep claiming the sun is going to come out soon and stick around for a while. I hope they’re right, but have my doubts.

Recently, there was a Good Man who left Portland, apparently for all time. Mike Muzik took off in a van, headed back east where he’s from. For quite a few years Mike worked as a bike mechanic at the (self proclaimed) Death Star bench at River City Bicycles. He also helped me out at my shop here and there from the very beginning of my frame building career. He was there when I was starting out in the one-car garage that I shared with yard tools and a stack of fire wood.

Together we drank the 12-pack of cheap beer, the box of which became the template for the very first “Half Rack” that I built. After the first 12-pack was empty, we had to go get another one, because an empty box doesn’t have the same specs as a full one, and the rack needed to be built with exactitude, both in regards to size and stability. The whole process became very confusing. But in the end we prevailed, our session of R & D resulted in one of the most popular styles of racks I’ve built.

I’ve had a lot of fun hanging out and working with Mike over the years. He’s one of the best bike mechanics I’ve known, one of the most meticulous and the most ethical. He always had some goofy, witty comment to make, and he was never short on Good Ideas. He’s one of the most golden-hearted humans I’ve ever met, and more than anything, he is a great friend. As much as I’ll miss his company, I also understand that sometimes a life change is needed, and that when it’s time to go, it really is time to go. Fare thee well my friend. Lucky for me, I’ll be heading out east in about a month for the Cirque du Ciclismo in Virginia, so we’ll get to hang out again.

To offset the recent departure of my good friend Mike Muzik is the even more recent return of my good friend and love Ms. Michaels. She’s been off in India for the past 8 months (!), just having arrived back this past week. She’s been traveling around eating mangos and dhal and studying yoga, and is understandably in something of a state of bliss. Her hair’s all sun-washed blonde, her skin is dark, she chants strange words in the morning, smiles a lot, even though she’s somewhat mystified by all the cars and the price of food in America. There are no cows wandering around, no street vendors selling just about anything you can imagine, Bollywood films are very hard to come by, everything here is so neat and orderly and the people don’t smile nearly so much as in India. But, one thing she does have is her really nifty bicycle, which, when she rides causes her to smile so much that the first insects of the year get caught in her teeth. It’s very cute, and I’m really glad she’s back.

Now, on to business. After the North American Hand Made Bicycle Show here in Portland this year, the PDC (Portland Development Commission), working with the Port of Portland, decided to put up a display of hand made bicycles at the Portland airport. The display has 12 or so bikes, all made by Oregon builders. You can read more about the display at bikeportland.org. This is a really cool thing; that we, as bicycle builders, are being recognized by the city of Portland as an important part of the culture and economy of the city and state, enough so to warrant this sort of public display. The display will be up for about 6 months, and an estimated 3 million people will pass by and have the opportunity to check it out. So if you’ll happen to be flying into Portland over the next few months, you ought to make your way to concourse E to see it. I haven’t flown anywhere since the display was set up, and it is on the secure side of the airport, so I haven’t even seen it myself, except for some pictures. You can also watch a short promotional and informational video about the display and the PDC here.

I just received word of another recent piece of publicity from Patrick, a friend of mine who had me build him a bike quite a while ago. Patrick got a devoted single speed 29er, pictures of which are on my website: http://www.ahearnecycles.com/pages/patrickss29er.html

He sent me a picture of his bike, which is shown in the June issue of Mountain Bike Magazine. I think it’s pretty exciting for someone to see their bicycle in a widely circulated national rag. I think the blurb is kind of funny because they head it with “Ahearne Patrick SS 29er,” which makes it sound like my name is Ahearne Patrick. But I’m not complaining. It’s a really cool and unique bike, and press like that can’t be beat.

One of the constant struggles for small independent builders is visibility. None of us has much of a so-called “marketing budget.” In fact, I’d be willing to guess that for a lot of us our yearly gross sales wouldn’t even compare to a percentage of the marketing budget of some of the big-time production bicycle companies. But don’t let that fool you – we may be smaller in the sense that we’re less visible, but we do it way better. It’s like the old Buddhist saying that it’s usually the most vocal ones who have the least to say. Thanks, Patrick, for the link.

A bike I finished recently that I’m pretty excited about is Ken’s green 29er. It’s a straight up fillet brazed frame, uses some really nice, light tubing, has Paragon “sliders” and a really good package of components. Ken is a fairly big guy, quite tall, and he rides hard, getting out on the trail at every opportunity. So far, the word is that he’s really enjoying it, that it climbs and handles better than anything he’s ridden. And, he’s said, with some of the guys he rides with there is definitely some bike envy happening. As a builder, that’s always a pleasure to hear. I wish him many miles of fun this summer, and for many years to come.

A bicycle I’ve put a lot into recently and is nearly finished is Adam Marx’s commuter. This has been a very involved project, since it includes a frame, fork, stem, and a heavy-duty porteur style front rack. Making all these things individually takes quite a lot of time, but in the end it’s so very worth it because it’s all built to work perfectly together, to serve specific needs, and the end result – the complete bicycle – will be far more than the sum of it’s parts, functionally, visually, and most importantly, in the quality of the ride.

Aesthetically, there is no compromise anywhere, front to back, top to bottom. Each part of the bicycle has been built to compliment and enhance the rest. The fork was built to steer with stability even under a load; the rack was built to mimic an older style porteur, and was beefed-up where needed so that it’ll easily carry 50+ pounds, and also has ports for internal wiring to the front light, which runs off the generator hub. The stem was built to accommodate the French style swept back “porteur” bar, and has a boss (the “Dust Stop”) for a single stem shifter and 1 x 9 gearing. The frame has classic style lugs, thinned to a subtle minimum, and has been built with commuter comfort in mind. Strength has been added where necessary to keep the ride stable even when carrying a lot of weight on the front.

We decided to go with the Paul “racer” brakes for strength of braking and the classic style, so the brake bosses are set high and wide, on the outside of both the fork legs and seat stays, and the boss openings were capped with vintage coins (I know, it’s ridiculous; but hey, I’m building the thing, so let me have my fun, as nerdy as it may be…). The bike has fast-back seat stays with an internal seat binder which is almost completely hidden. The components we picked based on function and style, choosing a complimentary mix of the classic and the modern, parts that will work really well for many years to come, and will enhance the overall appearance and theme of the bike.

The finishing touches are nearly complete. I’m very excited to see this bicycle painted and built. And, lucky for me, Adam and I are nearly the exact same size, so that I’ll get to take the bike for a spin when it’s ready and see what it’s really all about. If you have the opportunity to get to Virginia for the Cirque do Ciclismo from June 6 – 8 this year, you’ll be able to see this bicycle in person. You can be sure I’ll post more pictures once this bicycle is painted.

That’s all for now. One of the many optimists around here told me it was sure to be sunny and warm today. I expected rain. Stepping outside now I see that it’s neither sunny nor warm, as I expected. But at least there’s no rain. I can deal with that. I think I’m going to tempt Mother Nature and go for a ride and not take my stinking rain jacket. In fact, I’m going to ride my bike that has no fenders and if I get dumped on I’m going to find the nearest optimist and give them an ear-full. But the funny thing about that is they never seem daunted. They’ll just smile and tell me that the sun will surely be out tomorrow. Sure, OK.

2008-02-25T22:08:00.000-08:00

Brethren!

It’s Saturday. I woke up to the sun shining here in Portland and had an overwhelming urge to go for a mountain bike ride. We’ve had a few days of really nice weather, and I’d been feeling the need to get away from town, see the trees and experience the quiet. There are a series of trails only a few miles north of town, near Scapoose, that would do the trick. These trails are on a hilly tract of forest that is, I think, privately owned. They are maintained by some local folks, but I don’t know much about it. I’ve only been out there a handful of times. It’s a kind of playground for mountain bikes. There’s a gated gravel road that goes maybe a mile or two back, and has a whole network of trails that run off into the trees on either side. The loops are short, and many of the trails link into each other, wind around, crossing other trails, so you’re constantly choosing paths to one side or another. It’s a lot of fun. There are some fast parts, short somewhat technical climbs, I saw a few ramps, drops and ladders that people had built, there are a lot of switchbacks – there is a little bit of most everything, at least a taste of it, so that if you’re in Portland and you need a MTB fix, it’s there for you.

I checked out my sorely neglected mountain bike yesterday, put the wheels back in (I use them for dummy wheels on frame builds), dialed in the brakes and shifting, lubed the chain. It’s always fun getting a bike back into order, making it ready to ride. It’s like reacquainting yourself with an old friend you haven’t seen in a while.

One thing about mountain biking that is an issue with me is that for the most part, if you want to get to the good trails, you have to take your bicycle there with you. You have to drive. There are those who are lucky enough to live within a short distance of a trail head, but for most of us, the really good trails are too far away to be that easily accessible. Fortunately, well within a hundred miles of Portland are some of the best trails anywhere. I drove to the trail today, but one consolation is that my car, an old Mercedes wagon, runs off of biodiesel and WVO (waste vegetable oil). Most of this trip was fueled by veggie oil. The exhaust smells like a hamburger and fries, but so be it, I got where I was going and I didn’t fuel a war in the process.

I went out to these trails today because I needed to think. It’s been a couple of weeks since NAHBS, and I’ve been slowly coming off of all that was involved with the show, letting the dust settle. My world had become pretty small. For the three or so months prior to the show I worked a lot, and I mean crazy amounts, trying to attend to all the regular business, and also to make a couple of extra special things. It’s taking some time to decompress, and to reacquaint myself with the rest of the world.

Every year just before the show I think I’ve got a show-stopper, something really great that is going to blow everyone away. That feeling lasts until about the time I enter the hall and start to set up my booth. As I see more and more of the bikes around me I am floored. The builders who go to the show are so very creative, so innovative, and I am amazed at all the great work being done in the name of the bicycle. This brings me back to the planet, gives me a good humbling. There are a lot of folks out there doing really incredible work, and I feel very privileged that I can present my bikes in the same room with them.

This years’ show was a success in most all senses of the word. There was a large attendance, somewhere in the nature of 7100 people came over the three days. This in spite of the (in my opinion, and, I think in the opinion of many others) outrageous cost to get in the door. Having paid as much as I did for my booth I had the obviously ill-conceived notion that this was to cover the rental of the convention center, and many of the other expenses involved.

I go to this show each year because it is a way to make what I do visible to whoever might be interested. The high cost at the door serves to limit the attendance only to those who are really very interested in bikes. This suddenly cuts out a large portion of the people who I really want to see attend, mainly, those who may like bicycles but maybe aren’t living a bicycle lifestyle; people who ride on the weekends and enjoy going to bike shops but don’t really know more than what they’ve seen from Trek, Specialized and the rest. These are the folks I really want to attend the show because I think we, as bicycle builders, as crafts people, will knock their socks off, will give them an education in bicycles that they didn’t even know they needed. I guess that what I’m saying is that I’m not only interested in showing my bicycles to bike-people. I want converts; I want people to come to the show and look at all the amazing things there and say, “My God! I had no idea that a bicycle could be like this!” We, as frame builders, are setting the bar so far above what is available in most bike shops, and most people don’t even know it. The people who do know it are the only ones willing to pay so much to get into a hand made bicycle show. Most of those who don’t know what they’re missing aren’t going to pay $18 to see it, and so they’re still missing it. That’s a bummer. I have a lot more to say on this subject, but I’ll reserve the really fiery part of this for another day. For now, I’ll get off the soap box.

At this years’ show I received the award for “Best City Bike.” I consider this a great honor, especially considering that this year the show was in here in Portland, which is one of the best commuter towns in North America. That I’ve won this award for two years running is especially heartening, considering the category for “Best City Bike” as an award possibility was only begun at last years’ show, meaning it’s a category that wasn’t even initially thought worthy of an award. That’s kind of funny to me. Bicycles were made for transportation long before they were mountain bikes or cross bikes or race machines of any sort. And most especially, for custom builders, the commuter presents a vast amount of potential for pushing the limits of the craft, where function is the name of the game, and aesthetic follows suit. I think we're going to start seeing a lot more effort put into building these sorts of bicycles in the future. I certainly intend to keep on building them and continuing to refine what I know. I really enjoyed building Maggie's mixte, which won the award last year. I'll tell the story behind that one some time. It was quite special. And this year, Tony's commuter really caught a lot of attention. I know he's very excited about it.

The race scene began early in the history of the bicycle, and has probably given it the most visibility over the years, but throughout the world, by far the most common bicycle on the road is one that takes a person and their stuff from point A to point B; in one variation or another, the commuter. Granted, here in America we do things a little differently, but I think we’re catching on. If you look through any of the most popular cycling magazines you’ll see that a lot of the talk is devoted to racing bikes, the “newest” technology, the lightest weight, the most plastic, and so on. Fortunately there is a new trend coming. Momentum Magazine, based in Vancouver, BC, is a really good example of this burgeoning awareness of the bicycle as a viable form of transportation. There are a lot of reasons for this, many of them quite obvious. You’ll probably be hearing a lot more on this subject in the near future. You certainly will be from me.

Now that it’s Sunday (no, I haven’t been writing all night, I took a break to eat and sleep) and the sun is again shining, I think it’s a good time to go for another bike ride. Peace, and out.

2008-02-06T17:45:00.000-08:00

!!!

Greetings Brethren!

Will you just look at all this new stuff! I've been working my ass off for the past few months to get ready for the North American Hand Made Bicycle Show, and also to put together everything required to for this new website.

On the show side of things, I've got bikes, racks, forks and stems, even a custom made chromoly picture frame. In regards to bikes, there are a couple of design ideas that are new for me. Strange and interesting variations on some older, "classic" ideas. If you can make it to the show, you'll see them there. If not, you'll hear about them soon.

Another bold ray of light shining through this February gloom in Portland, at least in my little world, is this absolutely fantastic new website. Will you take a moment to take a gander? Look at how clean, clear and concise it is. Look at how easy it is to get around. Everything seems so intuitive, so sensible, and it really makes a person want to hang around for a while; click some buttons, view the pictures, read some words; generally learn something. Right? It's great! A really sizable note of appreciation is in order.

I take no credit for any of this. When you're ready to dole out the praise, you need really to give it where it's due, which is to the web guru Julie -- she's the true conductor behind the magic you see here. I'm just the troll in the workshop. She designed everything, and she put it into action. I built some bikes, wrote some words, had some pictures taken. Beyond this I've kept myself mostly to what I know, which has mostly to do with steel. I think she's done a really fine job.

Along with a new website, there's also a blog. You're reading it now. For anyone who paid attention to my old site, you may have at one point or another checked the blog. The first and, I think, last post was somewhere around this time last year. You may have checked once or twice, saw that it wasn't changing, and having assured yourself of how lame a blogger I am, you probably gave up entirely. If you didn't give up, my condolences for your futile persistence. You're right. I was a lame blogger. But the key and operative word here is "was", meaning past tense. Meaning I've vowed to be a better blogger, a better human, a better... everything (this could quickly go too far, but if you keep reading, you may begin to understand).

What does this mean, exactly? It means a lot, to be sure. But for our purposes it means that you're going to have the option, from now on, to read what I have to say. So much happens in my little world, and I may be going out on a limb here, but I suspect that at least a few crumbs of it might be interesting. Though, your level of interest isn't for my speculation. I figure I'll just have to write, and you'll read it, or you won't, and the world will keep on moving, because that's what it does.

Next, the show...