You might have noticed a lack of Bloglin posting from me over the past month. I’ve been traveling a lot this year, from SF, to Boston, to NYC and even Melbourne, Australia. When my lady’s company offered to put her on a project in Australia, I got to tag along and do my thing. To me, cycling is as much about the experience as it is the community.

There’s a world-wide network of like-minded individuals who will gladly take you out, into the woods, or drainage ditches and show you a good time. Err, something to that effect. When we showed up in Melbourne, I wasn’t that jet-lagged, so I headed over to Saint Cloud, a local fixed gear shop, for their weekly trick meet up.

We rode through the city and to a big-ass ditch with hips and walls surrounding it. There, the local rippers showed off in front of the lens.

Here’s Nick (on the right), reppin’ Мишка and D.A.R.T. Saint Cloud is one of Мишка’s stockists in Melbourne and the guys who work and hang out at the shop are some of the nicest people I met while in Melbourne.

It’s a rad shop with all you need for your track bike or fixed gear!

While I was on the fixed freestyle bike a lot, I really wanted to get out the city. Remember what I was saying about that cycling network? Well, it also enables you to make and keep friends, even across the globe.

Take Andrew White for example. He and I run like-minded cycling blogs, across the world from each other. Fyxomatosis has been a major influence on my life and when I first met Andy in Japan back in 2009, it was rad to hang out and kindle a bit of a bromance.

Andy knew I loved to ride road bikes, so he lent me his Eddy Merckx MX-Leader and took me on a ride up the King Lake mountain range. At the base of the mountains, it was warm and sunny but at the top, we were greeted with fog, rain and freezing temperatures. I.e. not the best of riding conditions, especially on these curving descents where we topped 48mph at one point.

Life’s too short to ride shit bikes and to ride shit routes. We had a blast. Frozen snot and all.

At the bottom of the range, we came across a mob of kangaroos basking in the sunlight. Andy approached this large male roo as I sat back and watched. This was on a Friday, come Sunday, we’d take off on cross bikes through the Dandedong ranges.

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One of the best things about living in NYC is how often you run into friends. This is Seth Rosko. He builds motorcycles and bicycles out in Bushwick. Seth’s bikes range from 700c track bikes to 20″ BMXs. I guess you could say that he’s a man of all wheel sizes.

Recently, he started to work on a line of 26″ dirt jumpers. These bikes are super light, easy to throw around and pack a punch!

Guys have been working them over up in Cunningham, the local trails and thrashing them on the streets of NYC. Seth’s bikes are lighter than most company’s bikes and they’re being made by hand in Brooklyn.

Bumping into him randomly on the street, I had to take photos of this thing. Wanna see more from Seth? Check out a piece I did on him and Johnny Coast here on my blog.

If you are around tomorrow and you live in the Brooklyn area, or fuck it the general New York area you should try to come out to the second annual Brooklyn Invitational custom motorcycle show. I didn’t go last year but heard it was a pretty sick! This year is even bigger, with a ton of custom bikes from the top builders of today from not only the tri-state area but builders from as far as California will be at this year’s show. There will also be music by The Dixons, Natur, and Endless Boogie, free booze, and all sorts of other vendors.

Among the list of builders committed for this year (in alphabetical order): Lock Baker, Ernie Barkman, John Copeland, Paul Cox, Chopper Dave, Mike Davis, Shinya Kamura, Krazy Kevin, Chris Lindig, Hugh Mackie, Andrew Rosa, Keino Sasaki, Max Schaaf, Jeffrey Schad, Jeff Wright andWorks Engineering. Alongside the bikes there will also be a show of photographs by Adam Wright, Cicero DeGuzman Jr., Ken Nagahara and James Macari.

I am pretty stoked on picking up one of these limited edition belt buckles that will be available at the show by Repop MFG! Hope to see some of you out tomorrow.

Saturday September 18th 3om-12am
Root Studios
131 North 14th St.
Brooklyn, NY

Vanity Post Alert. Which is probably how I should start most of my posts, but, well, I don’t.

Is there anything better than finishing a years-long project? Anything more gratifying than finally putting down all your worries, fears, and insecurities about said project? Really, truly getting to reap the rewards of all your hard work?

Well, I had one of those weekends. One of those weekends where it all came together and I finally got to blow the doors offa something that had been turning my hair white—one by one—for the past 3 years. I am not a natural car person. I do not just automatically know my way around a wrench. There is something at once terrifying, amazing, and surreal about screaming down the road at 85+ in a car that you yourself more or less touched every bolt on. Turned every screw. Spliced every wire.

Still, all that aside, she wasn’t truly complete until this afternoon when I was able to finally break open the vault and add our all-seeing eye to my own personal pantheon of powered-by (that is just TOO Stan Lee. But! R.D.F.L.).

A different kind of geekery than we normally expect here, true. But geekery still. So I naturally thought of you.

I know there’s at least a couple bike people on the Bloglin so I thought I would share my most recent build. I treated myself to a new frame and fork a couple weeks ago that’s finally ready for the road and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.

I had my eye on the Ridley Oval since last fall but I gave up on the idea when I found out that the Canadian distributor wasn’t going to stock them this year. Much to my luck a few random Oval frames found their way to Canadian warehouse just in time for a new Spring build.

By no means were the last couple frames I was riding loose but they were nothing in comparison to the Oval’s geometry. No turning required with this bike, but rather a lot of lean. A whole lot of lean in this cup. The toe overlap is definitely providing a learning curve.

Anyone else out there with any Spring builds they want to share in the comments? Anything! Fly whips, scrapers, hooptys, whatever!

LL Cool J – The Boomin’ System

8Ball & MJG – Just Like Candy

Masta Ace – Sittin On Chrome

UGK – Wood Wheel

Rich Boy – Throw Some D’s

I know some of this is probably old news to car guys, but these are still pretty cool none-the-less and I’m sure even the non-car guys who read the Bloglin can appreciate the beauty of these machines I have lined up.

First lets peep the 2009 Dodge Challenger Vapor.  It kind of looks like something Batman would design. The US Air Force and Galpin Auto Sports teamed up to build this as a recruitment tool to entice people into the Air Force.  This stealth-looking Dodge is best described as part muscle car and part fighter jet

The car’s paint job actually makes it invisible to radar, while it’s stealth exhaust system makes the car practically soundless.  Plus there is a camera on the roof that detects movement within a quarter mile distance. The car is stocked with a camera on the roof that detects movement within a quarter mile distance, GPS, Internet Access, gull wing doors (the ones that flip up), thermal version windshield and even a  a fingerprint reader to get inside!  To see more pics and info nf the car check out Geekologie. Now on to something slightly less accessible…

Initially released in 1952, this is the 2009 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Panamerica Replica.  And it still uses the same instrumental panel from its original.  This Benz is equipped with a 5.5 liter Mercedes M-133-55 engine, which you find on the SLR and AMG models.

The engine pushes 370 HP and is a 6 speed.  It still has the old school and retro look, but I promise you there is nothing old about it.  This is a very classy car, and I’m sure there will only be only a few exclusive people who will actually own one of these.  For more info on this car check out this post on Wolrd Car Fans.

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I don’t know why I want a Lamborghini so bad. I’m not really sure that I really do. Perhaps it’s due to propaganda from Trapper Keeper. Though the Countach will always be in my heart, the brand new Reventón is one of the sickest cars I’ve ever seen…

Let’s just get the numbers out of the way right now, shall we? That’s all anyone really cares about when talking about an Italian V-12 supercar. The 6.5 liter, 12-cylinder mill puts out 662 horsepower. The car does 0 to 62 mph in 3.4 seconds. It tops out at 205 mph. But the most important number is 20. As in that’s precisely how many Lamborghini will build. – via Wired

Crook already made the Batmobile comparison, so you’re gonna have to do better!

Oh yeah, and it’s $1.6 Millie. But that comes fully equipped with free vagina for the rest of your life…

I am a sucker for anything Mopar. I am a sucker for anything girls. I am a sucker for any unironic usage of a Steve Miller Band window sticker.

So naturally, I am a sucker for Daisy Detroit, rolling the sweetest, stockest, most boss Dodge Challenger I’ve seen on the road. Ever.

These photos were not taken 30 years ago. They were taken this weekend. There has GOT to be a flux capacitor in the back of that whip, as she looks like she rolled the stop off the assembly line, hung a left at 1976, and pulled up right alongside of me.

Click. That’s one sweet ride.