Last Call...

Sorry everyone if you got a message on your Twitter or email earlier about a new post, the coffee had just began to hit and needless to say the fingers are a bit twitchy from the caffeinated goodness hitting the blood stream.

Regardless...

Just wanted to remind everyone that today is the last day to submit entries for the Temporary Tat Bag-O-Goodies Give A Way and your chance to get your hands on some Velocity Swag:

- our yet to be released to the public Velocity T-shirt
- Velocity can koozie
- a Bottle Trap
- Velocity Waterbottle
- Velocity Rim Extrusion Key Chain
- Velocity Sticker set
- the coup de grace, a signed picture of all the Velocity crew.

Email submissions to: adam@velocityusa.com

Tweeder

So it's the 21st century with nearly a decade behind us, our world has been transformed by the digital culture and subcultures: Websites, blogs, instant messages, direct messages, Facebook, and Twitter. We can't run from it nor hide from it, posting this, micro or macro posting that.

All of this is nothing new.

Of course, we always enjoy it when messages come our way via the Tweed-machine. RTs, responses to our posts or the simple thank yous, all are welcome. A few as of late:

From @guitarted1961 of TwentyNineInches.com and G-Ted Productions

From @zachdestory of Velorue

From @winstonsbrand of Winston's Brand Cycling Skincare

All this to remind everyone of the Temporary Tat Bag-O-Goodies Give A Way. We'll be posting a majority of the submissions, along with our favorites, as they come in on our Twitter. If you submit a photo, along with emailing it to me [adam@velocityusa.com] with all your contact information, feel free to at your Twitter handle.

And why not for you post July 4th hump-day blues, a video making the splash on the ol' intro-web but edited by the Autotune guys...

... see the original here.

Weight Weenies Anonymous

Confessions of a Weight Weenie:

Hi everyone, my name is Jeff and I have a problem.

Hi Jeff.

Well, my problem all started when I met a father and son both named Neil. Yeah, that's right both Neil. Well, Neil and his son are both highly respected racers and some of the nicest folks you'll ever meet. They both have my problem. We all have anorexia of the mind. We think our bikes need to be lighter.

So I have taken this to some extreme cases. You see my 29er needed to be lighter so I started with getting rid of things like valve caps, then front gears because I love riding SS and only need 9 speed in the rear. Then went everything stock on the bike! [Alo note: The 2008 Fisher Superfly stock weight came in a shade over 23 lbs.]

I mean everything that I could afford to make this thing lighter. Trust me, it can be lighter but my budget only allows so much. So guess what? I got a drill press for a present one year ago and just started drilling. That's right, just like what you see on old road bikes: Drillium.

Now, trust me things have bitten me in the ass before and I now realize you can not win without finishing the race. So I do take that into consideration. But when I get a couple of hundred bucks to spend on my bike, guess what? I have to upgrade some thing or buy some thing to make my bike lighter. I have a real problem. I hope this support group will help me find a light at the end of the tunnel.

Parts List:

Stock:
- Fisher Superfly frame
- Bontrager Race Lite Handlebar
- Avid Juicy Ultimate Brake levers/calipers - Ti Hardware
- SRAM X0 Trigger shifter
- Race Light Saddle and clamp [drilled]

Not Stock:
- Woodman Carbon Seatpost [cut down]
- X0 Rear Deraileur [back plate drilled]
- XTR 960 Crank [cut to be made SS]
- White Brothers Carbon Fork [shortened all the way]
- Rohloff SS Guild [drilled with nylon bushings]
- Crank Brothers 3 Ti Eggbeater pedals [shortened spindles]
- Shimano Durace Cassette [12/27, because it's titanium]
- Shimano Durace Chain [as short as it goes]
- Rotors: Front: Scrub 160mm, Rear: Avid G3 14omm with 4 Ti bolts in each [because 4 is more than 3 and all the adapters are drilled]
- Foam grips
- Bottle Trap [drilled]
- Plastic Bell [not drilled.... YET]

Now for the best parts... the wheels.
Front: Velocity A23 28H custom painted black, Sapim spokes, Alloy nips, Radial non-disc side, 2 cross disc side, Bontrager X Lite hub with tubeless Specialized Fast Trak tire
Rear: Velocity Aerohead 32H custom painted, Double butted spokes, Alloy nips, 2 cross both drive and non-drive sides, Velocity ATB Lightweight Disc hub with tubless Schwalbe Furious Fred tire.

Total Weight:

17.15 lbs

Hey Green Eyes!

Celeste. There is just some thing about it.

Some say it's the color of the Milan sky, some a mixture of military paints, and others the color of the former queen of Italy's eyes. [Thank you Wikipedia!] This is a timeless color that's been in our line for a number of years on our Deep V, Fusion, B43, Blunt, Aero, VXC, Aeroheat and Aerohead rims.

Regardless, all I know is our celeste comes from Australia.

Some of you have probably seen our new ad in Urban Velo. Sporting how versatile the Bottle Trap is and since we know how you love matching colors, yesterday we received the first batch of the Bottle Traps in celeste. Numbers are limited now but more are on the way!
_

This Saturday is also a big day here in Grand Rapids, as it is the ribbon cutting/Mayor's Ride/'official' opening of the GR Bike Park. Join Ryan, J-Bolt and a slew of others at 9am for a trail day, then at 11am let the riding ensue!

Then Sunday, I'll be heading back to my homeland [Cedar Falls, IA] for an extended weekend and will be putting on a little urban ride with a few people; and yes, I'll be rocking the 16" folding fixie! It looks to be a good weekend here in the Midwest, so get out and ride!
_

Finally a few videos for the weekend. The first two are from the Velo City 2010 Tour, the first is a recap of sorts followed by a teaser from the past LA event

The final video is from a film project in it's early stages of development. 'Career Courier' is a documentary on, you guessed it, career bicycle messengers. We're excited to be a part of this project and look forward to seeing Kenton put together his vision for the film. Share the love, click on the widget below to see the video and help support the cause.

Dirt and Polo

Busy day here at Velocity but never too busy not to show off one of our rigs... Today, we have another one of Paul's, with a short write up:

After many years of mountain bike racing and many different mountain bikes, my IRO has put the fun back in mountain biking.

IRO 29er stats:

- IRO single speed frame and fork
- Velocity Blunt wheelset
- Avid mechanical disc brakes
- FSA crank
- Ritchey handle bar
- Ritchey seatpost
- Race Face stem
- Time ATAC pedals

From racing to pulling my kids around in the trailer, my IRO makes every ride a great ride!

-

Staying with the mountain theme. We recently posted over on our Facebook page a video from an early run by Ryan on the new pump track at the GR Bike Park. Lots of hard work by a group of devoted volunteers has both the pump track and the first single track loop taking shape in time for the Mayor's ride and park clean up date on May 15th.

Finally, for all of our friends across the pond. No not Wisconsin, we mean the big pond... over in Amsterdam. We've hinted at our love for bike polo here and there's a little throw down right at the finish of the Giro d'Italia this Saturday. Check out their website for more details. You'll have a chance to win some of our Deep V rims and a few of our Bottle Traps.

Put that in your Trap

If you haven't made your way over to Urban Velo to check out the newly released May 2010 issue, I highly recommend it. We advertised again with them and this time decided to highlight the new Bottle Trap.

As we've mentioned in the past, we developed the Bottle Trap to replace the Velocage after the machine used to make them continued to break down. It was a sad day to see that decision be made since the Velocage had been with us from the beginning. We were adamant about whatever we decided to replace it with needed to be just as versatile, strong and light as it's predecessor.

The design of the Bottle Trap went beyond our expectations, after getting the prototypes we were blown away with how well they held a bottle in place. And truth be told, it was when we were taking product shots that it was discovered the massive array of containers that fit in it. The Bottle Trap truly allows you to pick your poison for 'hydration'. With a price between $6-$8, depending on your shop, the cost to weight ratio [29 grams], the Bottle Trap is hard to argue against.

In the months since it's release, the Bottle Trap as gotten a number of great reviews/recommendations from across the spectrum of riders:

'I've actually used these cages and they grip your bottle with authority! I highly doubt you will lose a bottle on a rough gravel road using one of these composite/plastic cages'

_ Guitar Ted, TwentyNineInches.com & TransIowa Founder

'I know I want one!'

_ Prolly is not Probably

'The Bottle Trap seem very minimal in the base area that holds the bottle. No wasted material needed. They seemed pretty lightweight to me right away as well so I set them on the scale to compare them to my carbon cages. The Velocity Bottle Traps came in at 30g each which is identical to the Profile Design Karbon Kages '

_ Carl Buchanan, Velo Syndikat


Jeff at Urban Velo did a little write up on them yesterday and to read all of Prolly's thoughts go here. More importantly, go to your local bicycle shop and ask for the Bottle Trap. If they do not stock them, your local shop can order them through most distributors or directly from us.

Race Days

Today, we just wanted to do a little shout to a few races:

As mentioned Friday, the Yankee Springs Time Trial was Sunday, it went off without a hitch and was another successful year. Both Ryan and Jacobi sounded pleased with their results, although Jacobi has a bit more of a story involving his disc brake rotor bolts. I'll see if I can swing some sort of race report out of one of them this week along with some pictures.

Another event we are pleased to be part of is Trans Iowa. Surely not the original in the growing epic gravel races but truly one that has gained the reputation for being one of the toughest. The race goes on this weekend out of Grinnell, Iowa and is 'one big ass loop' of 315 miles of unsupported gravel goodness. With rain in the forecast for this weekend, it will be interesting to see how the race plays out and who finishes. With the 70+ riders registered for the race, we wanted to make sure all the riders at least walked away with some thing and supplied one of our new Bottle Traps for everyone. Stay hydrated, stay safe and ride hard!

To give you a little taste of the race, here a few videos from previous years of Trans Iowa put together by some of the riders on it:

Gravel

Endurance Gravel Road Racing. I don't know if I want to call it the latest trend since riding on gravel is nothing new or maybe that's just coming from my days as a shop rat back in Iowa. Either way the popularity of the 24 hour races seems to have morphed it's way into endurance gravel racing for one reason or another. Open courses, 100+ miles, no support, no non-sense riding. Races like the DirtyKanza, Heck of the North, Trans Iowa, and the newly minted Gravel World Championships all have sprung up all in the last 10 years. Not to say that this is a purer form of racing but often these have no fees, done on some sort of raffle format with a cap on the number of riders, put on by riders for riders. As with any of bicycle event, simply just a great time. There are also a number of shorter gravel races like Michigan's very own Barry Roubaix that are out there if you'd want to just see what all the fuss is about, a few of the Velocity crew will be doing this event. For a great list of gravel races check out the Gravel Grinder News website.

I say all of this to announce our sponsorship of Trans Iowa. We are providing every participant with one of our bottle traps for this late April race. This was announced over at one of the race promoters sites, G-Ted, this past Friday with what I must say a great endorsement for the Trap:

I've actually used these cages and they grip your bottle with authority! I highly doubt you will lose a bottle on a rough gravel road using one of these composite/plastic cages.

Both Ted and David put countless hours into putting on this great event and we're excited to be a part of it! Good luck riders!

A few things for today...

Lots of things going on here at Velocity today. Of course we have the normal grind of wheel building, pulling and taking orders but we are also preparing for North American Handmade Bicycle Show and Frostbike coming up. Jacobi has been leading the charge on getting together custom and unique wheel sets for the Handmade show that will definitely catch your eye and hopefully make your jaw drop. You can rest easy that as Handmade draws closer I'll start to post some teaser photos of these. All of that topped with the construction of two new workstations and a photo booth we've got, as always, exciting things ahead.

On a cycling note... still haven't scratched your cyclocross itch enough? Like snow? Live in West Michigan? Here's your ticket, Versluis Snowcross at Versluis Orchards here in Grand Rapids. A great little event that's been happening the last few years. Another reason to get out and ride. More information go here and here.

On a completely different note, some of you have already gotten your hands on one of these, others of you may have yet to hear of them, and the rest of you might be on the fence with them. Carl Buchanan recently got his hands on our new bottle traps and will be giving his thoughts as on them as he gets some ride time with them on a number of his rigs. Carl is a 24 endurance mountain biker, cyclocross guru and has also been racing road for the last few years, all this to say he rides and knows what works and doesn't. He did do a little weight comparison in his initial impressions that caught my eye:

'The Velocity Bottle Traps came in at 30g each which is identical to the Profile Design Karbon Kages that I had mounted on the SystemSix previous to this. I also have the Bontrager Race X Lite cages which weigh in at 26g.'

Lots of weight savings at a fraction of the price! Get yours!

Our Rides, because We Ride

Today, a new little segment we'll be starting up called 'Our Rides, because We Ride' series. If you've frequented or stumbled onto the regular Velocity site you'll notice a section under the About Us there's a few links to some of the guys bikes. This will be similar to that, but hopefully with a little bit more depth on the bikes themselves, maybe a story or two from on the ride. Plus give you all the opportunity to familiarize yourself with more of the Velocity crew.

We'll start off with one my rides, my Cannondale Cyclocross Optimo 3. This bike only has a few stock pieces left on it and has taken quite a few different transformations over the past 2 years; I'm sure there will continue to be a few changes as time passes. For now I have upgraded the wheel set to a custom Velocity Brown Fusion rims [Velocity road hubs, 32 hole, 3 cross, DT Swiss Champion spokes, with blue alloy nipples, using Veloplugs], rocking it 1 x 9 [inspired by Carl Buchanan's cross set-up] a 105 crank set with a Salsa Crossing Guard and 41T Salsa Ring, topped off with Kore White Canti brakes and stem, a Brooks B17 saddle, and recently install new bright white bottle traps. All in all, She's a looker.

The bike has seen the gravel of Iowa for Trans Iowa last year and competed in a few of the Kisscross events here in GR. This bike is really my all around bike, I'll swap out tires quite frequently from the Bontrager 700 x 34 CXR's to Continental 700 x 25 Ultra Gators and rock the bike as a commuter when I feel the need for some gears. Of the 7 bikes I have, this is 1 of 3 that I would have a hard time parting with.

Spec on the bike:

2007 Cannondale Cyclocross Optimo 3

Frame: Cyclocross Optimo
Fork: Slice Ultra XR Carbon
Wheels: Velocity Fusion 32H
Spokes: DT Swiss Champion w/ Alloy Nipples
Tires: Bontrager CRX 700x34
Pedals: Crank Brothers Egg Beater SL
Crank: Shimano 105 41T w/ Salsa Crossing Guard
Chain: Shimano 9-speed
Rear Cogs SRAM PG-950, 12-26
Bottom Bracket: Shimano 105
Front Derailleur: None
Rear Derailleur: Shimano 105
Shifters: Shimano Tiagra
Handlebars: Cannondale C3, 31.8 mm,
Stem: Kore K34 100mm [+6 degree]
Headset: FSA Alloy integated
Brakeset: Kore Race + Canti
Saddle: Brooks B17
Seat Post: Cannondale C2 Carbon-wrapped

PAID.

As the week comes to a close, orders continue to be filled, wheels are being built and friendly wagers are being paid. If you remember yesterday, I decided to take on Jacobi in a friendly wager concerning the 'Pump' shoes. I think we can all agree that there was really only one 'real' pump shoe and others simply made shoes that NASA would be proud of.

But not being a sore loser, I pay up... and pay up promptly regardless of the amount of trash talk surrounding the bet. As you can see by Jacobi's enthusiastic expression on his face and the box in his hand, there is payment in full: 500 of the finest U.S. pennys.

Don't go spending it all in one place!

Now, the Friday Highlight... As mentioned on Tuesday we got quite a few rims and bottle traps in and if you were at Interbike this past fall you might have been able to get a sneak peak into these guys.

Some of you might remember our former bottle cage, the Velocage. It had an amazing run and was hard to say goodbye to. What closed the door on the Velocage was the machine we used to make them continued to break and the cost to fix and replace was not worth it to continue with that style. We then began to develop a cage that would be just as reliable and strong as the previous style.

Enter the Bottle Trap, this composite cage is being made just down the road from our Austrailia facility and has the same quality you come to expect from us, satisfaction guaranteed. We're offering it in a slew of colors to match whatever setup and color combo you might be rocking.


Remember if you're in Dallas or San Francisco to check out the Skidaddelisco Alleycat on Saturday and on Sunday the Pedallas 'The Twenty' Alleycat. Also tomorrow and Sunday, a few of the guys are heading down to Rays MTB in Cleveland. Jacobi, Ryan, J-Bolt and Matt will be riding in the afternoon and then again Sunday. Stop and say hello if you happen to be in that neck of the woods. Hopefully we'll have some pictures from the trip for you next week. Until then, enjoy...

Rays MTB Promo 30 from nocturnal bmx on Vimeo.

Container Day

Days like today always have us playing catch up in the afternoon but there's no reason for us to complain about that. Today was container day... since we manufacture our own rims Down Under every month or so we get a container of goodies our way. I didn't get a chance to get a time lapse camera set up so for now you only get to see a few pictures of some of the warehouse and all the rim boxes before we got them put away.

Before:

After:

Here's a better idea of all that we received today...

Got to keep today's post short, wheels to build and orders to fill. I should mention before I head out, we did just get in a slew of colors for our new Bottle Trap and they do look hot!