Friday morning

6 am: Followed a commuter.
7:45: Rode with maddie to school.
8:30 Took a great trail ride with Mr. Tobin. He gifted me two new outstanding trails before he went over his bars. Bad fall. He untaco'd his wheel old school style.
11:00 Rode up to the p2p garage to get my picture taken.
12:30 Picked up my sandal. It took him about 3 minutes to fix. It cost $4. Problem solved...at least for a few weeks.
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Shimano SPD Sandal Failure

This is a common failure on the Shimano Sandal. I blew this out this morning on a steep little dirt climb. The design is screwy. This plastic tab catches on the bike, as soon as a little fold occurs at the tip of the tab, it's game over: just a matter of time before it rips out. I run a low tread on all my bikes and I walk like a duck, so this is the third pair of sandals where I've seen this failure.



I'll cut the tab off at the bottom and the sandal will end up falling apart there. I'm bummed. This was my last pair of stashed old-style Shimano SPD sandals. The design they have now is lame. It's got three straps and is more shoe than sandal.



Actually, I think I'll bring these to a cobbler and see if these can be repaired before I destroy them. The sandals are otherwise in fine shape and have at least one more year in them.



I've not found any good alternatives to these sandals. My troubles with the Keen Commuter are well-documented. And I've seen a knock-off of this particular Shimano design online. Maybe I'll find those and give them a try when these Shimanos finally give up the ghost.

The Scoop has racks

Patrick and Elissa put leaners in. There's even a wee little leaner for the kids' bikes. Nice.

Midnight Century

The Midnight Century ride last night definitely falls into my top-ten rides. I was just so fun. I was expecting a clobbering pace, but it was pretty moderate. And talking to David today, I think knowing what lay ahead on the course made it enjoyable; I was able to pace myself well for the hard dirt climbs and for Spangle Creek Road.

We left the Elk at mid-night with 12 riders. All but 3 of us DNF'd. We lost the first 4 on the Centennial Trail. We learned later, that that group ended up doing an out and back to CdA. The ride to the border was uneventful -- as the flat, paved Centennial Trail usually is.

We headed north on Idaho road and then did our first dirt climb. It felt great to be on the gravel with the new bike. My Rawland is about the most optimal bike for this type of ride: fat slicks, triple chain ring. The bike really did disappear underneath me for this ride. Everything worked flawlessly on it.


One guy (Pat? not Pat but a new Pat to me) had a wonky front derailleur so he was stuck in the big ring up front. The poor guy grinded up the dirt climb (and then Molter) in his impossibly high gear.

At about 3 am, as we descended Henry Road into Saltese flats we came across a lone cyclist on his way home from work. He was a bit surprised to see a bunch of really bright cyclist lights descending on him. His response: "What the hell?"

We lost 2 more guys as we came across 32nd Ave outside of Saltese. Pat and Ron took off at this point somewhere. So it was me, David Blaine, Jake McBurns, Jon Hawkins, and Bradley Bleck that started the climb up Lehman, en route to Sands Road.

Sands Road was one of a handful of hard climbs and probably the most demanding dirt climb. By the time we got to the top David was not looking good. The day previous, his bike was ripped off, so the night previous, he didn't sleep as he worried about it. He end up recovering the bike, but not his sleep. He was ready to nap in the dirt on the side of the road.

So as we crossed the Palouse Highway, David and Bradley peeled off and headed home.

Jake, Jon and I continued on Dunn road, took the closed portion of road where David had dropped off water and Pepsi (thanks David), and then climbed up to Elder Road.

At this point, Jake kicked in and we picked up the pace. Or maybe I was starting to get really tired because I was having a hard time staying with Jake for the rest of the trip.


The sun began to come up after we climbed Spangle Creek Road. Jake got a great picture of the sun just beginning to seep over the horizon. I was starving and hoping we'd stop in Spangle for breakfast. The Harvester opened at 6 am and we were about 3 miles out at 6 am. I was dreaming of a massive pile of hash browns.

Jake, in his wisdom, wisely talked me down. If he hadn't, it would've been a gruelling ride back to Spokane.

I had a piece of smoked salmon stashed in my bag that sated my need for fatty salt. We all three took a hunk and pedaled on to Jenkins road. Jenkins is about 8-10 miles of rolling dirt road that empties out on Cheney-Spangle. We re-grouped again at the Fish Lake Trail head on Cheney-Spangle.

We opted to hop onto the Cheney-Spokane road at the Fish Lake Trail head. We were all hungry and ready to be home. I was able to stay with Jake until about Scribner, where I just couldn't. The guy has more energy stored in one calve muscle than I have in an entire week of riding. Or something.

I arrived at Maron, across the street from the Elk, at 8:07. Jon pulled in a couple minutes later, a-whoopin and a-hollering. Liza and Maddie had just arrived, and Jake had already put in an order for 3 sides of breakfast potatoes. I ate a lot.

A great great ride.

Rolling With the Neomotos

I had some wheel woes yesterday afternoon. I was just about to run late for a meeting when I decided to take the trails downtown. So I bombed down the rocky trails way more bomby-er than I have on other bikes. I bashed the rear wheel on a rock and blew the tube: snake bite. by the time I replaced the tube Iwas late to the meeting.

Note: I was running the Fatty Rumpkins. Not the Neomoto's I have pictured here.

On the way home from the meeting, my wheels were making that funny ping sound. I had impacted the rim hard enough to loosen some spokes. I tightened up a few spokes on the road, then trued and tensioned the wheel when I got home. The sucky thing is that I already dented my fancy new Blunt Rim. That sucks!

I decided to put the Neomotos on for a few days. (Until Mr. Blaine's Midnight Century -- where I'll be running the Fatty Rumpkins again).

Wow. What a difference. This bike is crazy with these tires. I was able to squeeze in an hour of trail bombing before work this morning. Then at lunch, I took the trails downtown and bombed again. These tires are just great. Super fun. I especially appreciated them on a section of rail-rock by an active train line. This kind of stuff usually slows me down as I pick through it on narrower tires. Today I just kept at speed.

The tires slow down the handling a bit, but not as much as I expected. That said, I was able to work my way through the rooty-rocky semi technical stuff pretty well. And small rooty-rocky drops were just easy. I usually wince and grit my teeth on those small drops when I'm on my other bikes. The confidence I had in this bike felt a lot like it does when I'm on a mountain bike: Just ride through it and enjoy it.

That said, they are a bit turdy and road riding with them is a bit of a chore. My goal with this bike is to ride to new dirt locations. So a typical ride may be 2 hours of road riding and 2 hours of dirt riding. I don't think I want to ride these Neomotos for 2 hours on the road, unless I'm in for like 4 hours of dirt riding. So they'll work well for some overnighters.

I want about a 42 mm (or so) tire with knobbies and soft rubber. What I want is a 584-42 sized Maxxis Locust CX tires. I love these tires (in 522-35) on my RB-T. The grippy knobbies are just ideal for the sandy/loose dirt trails we have here. And they're good enough on the road.

Hey Maxxis people, if you're reading this, I'd like them in 622-32 as well. The 35mm fits on the RB-T but there's not much room for wobble between the rear chainstays. Thanks.

By the way. The Rawland folks read my blog and responded to the weakish paint application on the forks thusly:

Your comment on the paint job was expected. Just so you know we are addressing this issue with Maxway. We are more than willing to replace the frame and fork if so desired.

Rawland Sogn - Initial Impressions

I've had the Rawland built up for a couple days now. All up, I've probably ridden it about 30 miles. About 10 miles of dirt/trail and the rest on paved roads. I dig this bike. It's really the mountain bike I've been looking for. It takes stupid-fat tires (2.3"), has stoutish tubing, and disc brakes -- yet it handles quickly, and dare I say, nimbly. It handles, with 41mm tires, much like my RB-T. So it really is a perfect fat-tired-road bike.


As far as "road" bikes go, I'm not going to break any land-speed records on this bike, but it's perfectly suited for riding paved roads out to the dirt trails and roads and handling both terrains nicely.

Frame Finish
As I mentioned in my initial post on this bike, the frame is made by Maxway. It's tig-welded and powder coated red. The finish is what I would expect of a $500 bike: all the threads need to be chased and if I were really anal I would've faced the bb shell and head tube.

Nice detail on a nice fork crown. That makes up for the lack of a real head badge.You can just make out the cable stop for the rear shift cable. That's one detail that I find sort of annoying. On the canti-version, they spec downtube shifter mounts.
The paint on one side of the forks is a bit faint, and one of the small frame decals was put on up-side-down. This kind of stuff doesn't bother me in the least.

The finished details that I *do* care about are good. The frame is straight. A quick check with the frame alignment gauge shows at least a perfectly straight rear triangle relative to the front triangle. All the braze-ons are in the right spot and the bike set up as easy as any other.

The welds are very nice. This is similar to other Maxway frames I've looked at closely. The welds are tidy and with the thick powder coat, they almost look fillet brazed from a distance.



Fillet or TIG'd?

Components
I have some new stuff on here. New to me anyway. The obvious biggies are the disc brakes. They are a pain in the ass to set up, but not really any more of a pain than most cantilevers. I still need to fiddle with the front brake to get it perfect. I used mechanical calipers that were compatible with drop bar levers: medium-grade Shimano mechanicals.

For wheels, I'm running LX hubs laced to Velocity Blunt rims. These rims are disc-specific and seem pretty sturdy. Like all Velocity rims, they were easy to build up. Unlike any Velocity rims I've had, these had huge, ugly decals on them when I bought them. It took me about 3 hours of peeling and wiping with nail polish remover to get all the decal and sticky residue off. I'd do the same for the Ritchey post and stem if his logos weren't etched into the alloy.

Ritchey drop-outs

I found the Rivendell Silver bar-end shifters online from some guy who didn't like them. I don't know how anyone could not like these shifters. I had high expectations and they were exceeded. These are the smoothest friction bar-ends I've ever used.


Tires and Ride
The tires I have on there now are the Rivendell Fatty Rumpkins. So far, the volume makes a huge difference in how I ride on rougher sections of trail. I don't have to be so mindful of the bike/rims under me, which is nice.

The tread doesn't help much for cornering or climbing on the sandy, dusty stuff we have right now on the trails. I expect, like most inverted tires, these will do well on hard-pack. But the money part of these tires is just the volume. They let me bounce and roll over sections that I would normally pick and finesse through. Both riding styles are fun. But it's been fun to do a bit of bombing on this bike and still feel the control I like with my RB-T.



The up-side-down-bike-shot: look at that tire clearance! Crazy stupid clearance, Clarance.


I plan on donning the crazy fat 2.3" knobbies this Friday. I'll to Beacon or Riverside State Park and play around for a couple hours. I'm excited to see how the bike handles with those huge tires and how it handles in more traditional XC mountain biking and trail riding.

Remember to look up once in while

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Friday Run-Around

I had planned to take a bunch of pictures today and I failed.

The one I really wish I had was a picture of Joe up at Spoke n Jo installing my headset and cutting my steerer tube (not in that order). Joe rules. What a great thing: a bike shop that opens at 6 AM. I was out of there by 7. Thanks Joe!

After Joe's. I got home just in time to ride to school with Maddie and Liza. After about a week of riding with no training wheels, Maddie is just a pro now.
Then off to the Friday ride. Jason and I hooked up for the Temple Road loop. It was hot. Aside from the fact that both of us went down on this ride... with no serious injuries, the ride was fun. Pat also joined us for the first part. He bailed after the climb up Lehman, which was quite sporting. You know, compared to bailing out before the Lehman climb.

Sucky rack at a convenience store on Starr road.

Dig those tires! So perfect!

I was able to squeeze in a couple more components on the new bike in a 1/2 hour that I had before running a bunch of bikes for P2P. That's another shot I wish I would've taken. We're getting quite the pile.

The final shot I wish I would've taken was a picture of Mike, Beth, and Liza as we enjoyed a snack and a beer downtown. Riding through the 75F night after a day in the 100's is a nice way to end the day.

FBC tomorrow night. Swamp at 8pm.

New Frame Is Here

There's a back story to this.

It started with wanting a good snow bike. After riding Joe's Karate Monkey a couple times last winter in the deep stuff, I decided that I wanted gears and disc brakes for the next winter.

I've had disc brakes before when I commuted in the Seattle area about 6 or 7 years ago. I think disc brakes are overkill for rain commuting. But in the snow and ice where your rims and tires get caked with ice, rim brakes don't always cut it. For that reason, I have stuck mostly to fixed gear riding for most of the winter.

When it gets deep you need fat knobbies. The only bike I had with fat knobbies the last couple years was the Fuji Turd. Riding that super-low geared fixed turd around was pretty slow. And not so fun after a while.

I've also done a lot of exploring on off-roady, dirt road, rocky stuff this summer and I've really enjoyed it. But my bikes have taken a beating for it, so having a bit more wheel under me I think would be nice. In addition, I'd like one bike with a triple chain ring for the Mica-type rides.

So that's half the story. The "why" part.

About 3 months ago I decided I'd kill the mountain bike and snow bike bird with one stone. I liked the Novara Muir Woods: cheap, steel, 29'er, disc brakes. The one nagger was the front end. I knew I'd have to fuss with it to get it right. My plan was to get a custom fork made for it, which kind of killed the value. In addition, the top tube on the bike was long. It was a hack. My buddy Alex talked me down and a day later sent me a link to the Rawland.

The Rawland is truly a fat-tired road bike. Steep-ish angles, mid-trail (with huge 58 mm knobbies, this bike has the same trail as my RB-T!), and disc brakes. Steel. Made at the Maxway factory in Taiwan (Surly, Kogswell, Rivendell Bleroit, Voo Doo, etc). It ships with the insanely cool and out of this world Pacenti bi-plane fork crown; a copy of the classic MB-1/2 Ritchey crown. And at $500, a pretty good deal.

The plan is to build it up with a triple crank set, On-One Midge (dirt drop replicas) bars, and fat tires. My thinking right now is to run the Rivendell Fatty Rumpkins until snow flies. The Fatty Rumpkins are about 40mm with inverted tread and made by Panaracer. Once the snow comes, I have a set of 58 mm knobbies (Pacenti NEO-MOTO) that I'll try out.

Fenders? Racks? I don't have solid plans yet. We'll see what evolves there.

More pics to come.

Another Bike Swap - Sept 7th

Got boxes of crud to get rid of? Get thee to the next swap!

So, we had the warm up v1 swap last Sunday.

So if you slept through that one, as part of SpokeFest, the Bicycle Alliance of Washington is hosting another bike swap.

P2P will be there with a bunch of fixie/single-speed-ready frames and other stuff.

Here's the scoop from the BAW'ers:

Bike Swap at Spokefest on Sept 7

The Bicycle Alliance is organizing a bike swap at Spokefest (

www.spokefest.org) on Sept 7 next to Riverfront Park. The bike swap will run from 9:30am to 1pm. We would like to invite bike clubs and bike groups to host a swap table at this event.

This could be a fundraiser for the club or the club could offer the table for its members to use. The swap is an opportunity for your members to get rid of unused bikes, cycling gear and accessories. We ask that the club provide at least one person to staff the table during the event.

Tables are available for $25 (or $15 for half table) and there are a limited number available. To reserve a table for your club, contact Louise McGrody at the Bicycle Alliance, 206.224.9252 or via email at

louisemc@bicyclealliance.org. Individuals may also rent space at the swap.

Speaking of SpokeFest...

The Plum Tree Preschool Bicycle Pirates and Princesses (pictured) will be riding the 1-mile SpokeFest course. So look out for them.

Another Nudge Forward

Yep. That's the city council. That's what 2 seconds after a yes vote looks like. The council voted to fund a bike/ped coordinator position. This is not a permanent, benefited position. I think it's about $30k/year for the next 3 years towards the position. It's the first step towards a permanent position.

This is a pretty historic occasion to me. It's weird how this kind of stuff comes to pass. The BAB has continually been pestering the city about this position for the last couple years I've been there, and I'm pretty sure former BABs have done the same.

Some credit is due to gas prices and a slight shift in thinking by some of the old timers on the council. Verner's administration also helped. But the bulk of the pushing and the paper shuffling and the negotiating and work here is Richard Rush. Thank you sir.

The weird part to me is that in the end it's just a quick vote on a quiet Monday night in the summer in a nearly empty city council chambers. Without getting too sappy: in that moment, Spokane has joined a host of other progressive cities in recognizing that good bicylce and pedestrian infrastructure requires dedicated and knowledgeable planning and resources.


Here's Maddie and Liza. About 45 minutes after the vote. I wonder how the city will look when Maddie's kid learns how to ride a bike?

Bike Swap V1

Today was the first bike swap. I'm sure there's been other bike swaps in Spokane's history, but this is the first I know of in at least 5 years.

It was slow. But standing around hanging out with familiar bikey-faces/friends is a nice way pass the time on a Sunday morning.

Ken and Mike loaded up the P2P trailer with all sorts of goodies. P2P made some money, but the trailer had more bikes going back to the garage than it did when it left.

Ken is kind of the bike sales guy for P2P. He's good at it and moves em out. He's talking about doing a fixie/single-speed frame and bits garage sale some time soon. Watch Craigslist for that.

There's talk of doing a few more Sunday swaps next spring and summer. Finding a free space where we're not in the way on a Sunday would be cool. Then we could do it a bit later and get more of the sleeper-inners out.

However it works, I'm game.

No training wheels

Yay Maddie!
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Friday Route Recon

Mr Blaine and I spent the morning going over the "meat" of the Midnight Century course that he's devised for this year. The "meat" is from where the route crosses Highway 27 and pops you out in Spangle.

There's ample dirt road. Lots of washboard. Hard steep dirt climbs. One particularly tight, twisty washboardy dirt road descent, and a closed road section. It's a closed summer road. So when it was open it was rough. Now that it's closed and forgotten, it's pretty rough.

David rode his single-speed 29'er with no problems. I rode my blue RB-T with 32mm Pasalas. It worked ok, but I'm probably going to end up riding a fat-tired road bike with a more volume in the tires. Aside from this middle section, which is difficult, the other hard part about this route will be water. Basically, the route goes out to Liberty Lake on the trail, comes back through Saltese Flats, across 27, to Spangle, almost to Cheney, then into Spokane via the Fish Lake trail.

So, the "meat" section, between Liberty Lake and Spangle -- roughly 50 miles -- has no services where you can refill your water. I need tons of water, so I'll probably be bringing my camel pack in addition to my water bottles. I'll fill the camel pack in Liberty Lake.

Spangle (about 70 miles into the ride) does have services, but they all open at 6 AM. So if you're fast, you may miss out on the services. I won't have that problem. By the time I get to Spangle, I may sit down for breakfast at the Harvester, which -- like the convenience store -- opens at 6 AM on Sunday morning.

If you're interested: the ride leaves the Elk restaurant at midnight on Saturday, August 23rd. No fees, no swag, no support.

Swap

Speaking of no fees -- the "just show up and sell/buy bike stuff" swap is up at the parking lot in front of Harrington Insurance company on 29th and Regal. Sunday (this Sunday!) morning from 8-11.

Another One!!

Another bottom bracket crack. First my RB-1 gave up the ghost.


Now my beloved favorite bike of all time with the most soul ever has done the same.

Crud! I did expect this eventually. In fact, I've been abusing this bike for the last year and sort of waiting for the bb, the rear drop out or the chain stay/bb interface to go at any time.

But it sucks, because I've been without this bike since I shanked the rear wheel about a month ago. Liza finished the wheel last night, I had the brakes dialed in, a new XTR 8 spd cassette on there, and put Noodle bars back on there (instead of dirt drops) in anticipation of CX season. Now it's another waiting game. Ugh.

This baby is going to Hairy Gary. I think he can file out the rot/crack and lay
a bead of some hot steel in there and I'll be good for another few years. It just adds to the charm of this beauty. It's a 1991 bike. So it was built in 1990. So that's an 18 year old bike. I've had it for about 4 years and who knows what kind of life it had before I got it. When I got it, the rear canti post had to be replaced, so it's seen some action.

Lacing Wheels on the Clock

I work from home. Yesterday, I had an hour-and-a-half conference call from 10:30-noon. Normally, I'd eat lunch during the call, but yesterday I decided to lace up a couple wheels.

I sort of had to walk through the ethical implications of building a bike wheel while on a conference call.

Here's what I came up with: I'm paid to think and talk when I'm on a conference call. Eating lunch, trimming my nails, picking my nose... I do these things all the time and none of them get in the way of thinking and talking.


The most mentally taxing part of lacing up a wheel is making sure the key spoke is right. (And to try and line up the label on the hub so it's readable through the spoke hole. But that's a nice-to-have, aesthetic feature that I only do because of my respect for Sheldon.) Once the key spoke is in the right place, the brain is on auto-pilot for the rest of the lacing.

So I finished lacing two wheels. Hopefully I can get them trued/tensioned tonight. The first one has the label on the hub lining up, since I started it before the call. I couldn't line up the other one on auto-pilot.

The wheels are for a new bike. More on that later.

The Rack Pics

As promised, I have more pictures of the Plum Tree rack.

Here's one:

Click the picture to go to a Picasa directory with more pictures in it.


In that directory, you'll also see pics of our hanging out up at my dad's place last weekend. He lives on the Kettle River. Which is my all time favorite river. And a perfect century from our house to his, door-to-door.


I see a weekender event in the future where a big pile of friends ride up to his place and camp on the lawn overlooking the river for the weekend. Kids and SO's to follow by car.


He's right in between Sherman and Boulder passes too. So there's great logging roads to explore and great climbs to enjoy.


Next summer. Hold me to it.

Downtown Transportation Plan

DKS is a consultant company that is assisting the city on coming up with transportation plan for downtown. There's a bunch of cycling stuff in there.

If the plan shakes out into something good, the plan is to bake it into the Master Bike Plan. So far the DKS plan is pretty good. There are a couple things that need to change, and it's not exactly how I would do things, but in the interest of progress and moving forward with concrete project-level stuff to raise money for: the plan is good.

You can see the plan here: http://www.spokaneengineering.org/Downtown%20Study/Downtown%20Study.htm

You can send feedback here: DKSTransportationStudy@spokanecity.org

My feedback is here: http://phred.org/pipermail/bab/2008-August/000865.html

This is dry stuff, but if you ride downtown or want to, this plan (well, Chapter 4 and the Bicycle Summary Sheets specifically) is worth a read. People doing this stuff actually do read and act on feedback.

Oh yeah. And of course the dead line is this Friday. My bad. I should've posted this about a month ago.

A Nifty Trick

Liza's comrade in the REI bike shop, John, told me about this sweet little trick. I'm sure it's old hat to most reading this, but it's new to me.

If you are going to replace a rim -- keeping the spokes and hub -- then just tape the new rim to the existing wheel, taking care to line up the valve holes, and swap the spokes over one by one.

I can't believe it. Without this nudge from John, this totally and completely obvious shortcut would've never occurred to me. There's no lacing, no counting, no thinking! My kind of solution.

I did replace about 6 drive-side spokes that had gotten a bit torn up near the elbow where the chain dropped in between the cassette and spokes. And I replaced all the nipples.

Related Question #1

The accomplished wheel-building observer will recognize all but one of the tools in the picture above. Anyone have an idea of what the cylindrical tool with the poker is for?

Related Question #2

The wheel I'm rebuilding is the Velocity Synergy with LX hub from my CX'ish RB-T. I bitched and moaned about this wheel about a month ago.

Anyway, the question: Why doesn't QBP carry the 700c version of the Velocity Synergy? They only carry the 650B version.

Stuff related to Question #2

I ended up ordering this rim from Rivendell, which is cool too. I need to stock up on my Lip Ivo and it gave me an excuse to order the new Riv (Pace) cap, which is orange. The Pace cycling cap is the only cycling cap that fits my fat head. And then only if my hair is mostly shaved off. Pace caps are made in LA. That's cool too.

Cycling caps really are ideal for keeping the sun out and keeping the waves out of your hair after a ride.

Damn. I went to snipe this orange hat pic from the Riv site and they just added a Nitto cap. That's f'ing cool. And it's made by Pace. And it's super low-key. Less writing on caps is good.

Ideally, I'd like the 8 panel Pace cap with nothing on it. But I'll shill for Rivendell, Nitto, Rawland, and maybe a couple others -- and pretty much any small builder.

Plum Tree Rack

A couple weeks ago, I showed a picture of a purple rack in one of my posts.

I kept meaning to come back and talk about that beauty. So here's the story.

That rack was built by local artist Hazen Audel and it now lives at Maddie's preschool, Plum Tree.

The point of the rack is more to serve as a place to lean your bike, than it is for locking up bikes. A growing number of families at the preschool are biking more. Many bike set ups include a trailer or a trail-a-bike, or other cumbersome kid hauling solution. These types of bike trains are hard to park and often the kickstands on bikes don't hold up with a trailer.

Plum Tree doesn't have a suitable spot to lean such bike contraptions, so the school got this rack for leaning. Although, when I picked Maddie up last Friday, a parent had locked their bike to the rack. So you can lock too.

I need to take more pictures with a better camera to do this rack justice. It's really neat and pretty. It's powder coated dark blue and is sponged with purple. Hazen thought that as it weathered, the kids would have fun sponging it with different colors of paint. There are little animals carved into a big plate of 1/2 inch steel. He said it was cut with water jets? Does that make sense?

There's also a cool little cut-out of a bike in there. I think the point of that is to inform people that it's ok to lean bikes up against it.

I will take more pics this week.

In the meantime, if you want to see it up close, you can check it out at 20th and Sherman.

I'm filing this under "sucky racks" so that it is easily found in the future. This is clearly not a sucky rack.