A Weekend Update

This weekend we had the privilege of being part of a number of different events around the nation.

Starting out on the west coast, Summer Fix LA, where all the fixed gear freestyle riders made it out to throw down with a number of different events. One of the judges was John Watson of Prolly is not Probably, his site has a great run down of the event along with photos as they make their way to the inter-web. Here's a link to a video from the freestyle competition. Hats off to Wonka for taking 1st in the Advanced division, nice custom P35s by the way!

The NUE Series stop in Colorado for the Breckenridge 100. Results are now up on the site. Another solid year and turn out from the looks of it. Remember that overall winners for the series have a chance to win a set of wheels from us.

The North American Hardcourt Bike Polo Championship in Madison, Wisconsin. From all reports this event went off great! There is a rumor that ESPN was there for a bit getting some footage. I wasn't able to find anything that has been posted but hopefully once some thing hits the web, I'll have it for you all. Congratulations to the Odds who won the tournament and got a ticket to Worlds in Berlin. Cheers to all of you who competed, remember to keep your can cool!

Finally, Bike Stock Dos here in Grand Rapids. Bike Stock is simply a day promoting bicycle advocacy around the city. Alex and JBolt made there way down to the festival of sorts to hang out, drink some good beer and talk shop at the booth. In the last few years alone, GR has been making great strides in becoming a bicycle friendly city and the push has continued with editorials like this.
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The answer to our Friday photo challenge as announced on our Twitter earlier today, after much review and valuable time spent researching, we'd say there are 9 different Velocity logos or product shown in the current issue of Urban Velo and at least 8 logos/products can be seen in the bonus photo. It's important to note that during our intensive search, we came to the conclusion that their are potentially more but we can not say without a doubt: 12 in Urban Velo and upwards of 49 in the bonus.

5th All City

We won't hide it. Here at Velocity we're fans of All-City Bikes. I don't mind tooting our own horn and say that our wheels do look spectacular on their rigs. One of their co-founders, Jeff Frane, another friend in the industry who also heads up Bike Jerks, for the last 5 years has put on a little gathering over in the Twin Cities or the Cities or MPLS or Minneapolis, Minnesota [pick your fancy depending on your region] and we're glad to be a part of it again for the coming edition in August.

Here's the rundown of events:

Thursday Night - Fixed Gear Freestyle Heavyweight Championship of the World
I'm renting out a skatepark for 3 hours. One hour of jam, and two hours of contest. We will ride from One on One to the park, get rad, and then go swimming. A & B classes, and a women's division if there are any women interested in competing.

After the amazing experience that was Midwest Mayhem, I am super excited to hopefully host all of the heavyweights of the FGFS scene. Fly in Thursday during the day, ride the comp, and on Friday we'll spend the day riding street (there are some crazy spots here, and lines that we've been waiting to see get done). The rest of the weekend will be a nonstop party. Talk to your sponsors, beg your parents, whatever you gotta do, just get here. It's gonna be a big deal.

Friday Night - Match Sprints, Trackstand, Afterparty
Head to Head single elimination tournament, mens and women's divisions. The Robeast is the three year running champ, can any of you hosses out there dethrone the King of Sprint? As for trackstand, it will be a trackstand comp with people yelling "take your shirt off" the whole time. The Bedlam theatre (best balcony in town) will be hosting us after the sprints, drink specials!

Saturday - All City Championship Alleycat Race, Afterparty
It's going to be a racer's race with the most badass woman and man taking home the title of "All City Champ." If you think you're fast, show up and prove it. Men's and Women's categories with prizes for 1st through 3rd place. There will also be a masters division for men and women 35 and up, a prize for first fixed gear, and a DFL winner.

Expect picks and drops, a time trial component, and about 25 miles or so of racing. I will be posting several of the manned stops ahead of time to help level the playing field for the out of town contingent.

The awards and afterparty will be in the alley behind One on One, there will be several kegs, and hopefully Kopish and D.O. (sp?) will be spinning jams. Likely some hot derby action will ensue. There are few things better than a good party in a downtown alley, and this is going to be a good one.

There may also be a little street fair in the alley before the race for any sponsors who want to come out and setup a table and show/sell their goods.

Sunday - Freeride
Zito's annual booze cruise wraps up the weekend on Sunday. A slow leisurely ride through town with beer, DJ's, and fireworks. The perfect capper to the weekend's festivities.

This is a weekend of bike bliss. Mark your calendars. Be there. It's not only the right thing to do but it's worth it.

Don't forget about this weekend either. The Midwest is really the place to be.

A few things.

I won't lie, I tried to avoid posting a video today but once I saw this over on Prolly's blog I had to, this was just too good.

Hillbilly Cats Bicycle Club =^.^= 10.07.2010 from Benjamin Donadieu on Vimeo.

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In what was the last tournament before the North American in Madison this weekend, the Burlington Hardcourt Bike Polo crew put on the Last Stand Waterfront Bike Polo Tournament. Doesn't look like results or photos from the tournament have been posted yet but we look forward to hearing how things went and seeing who got to take home the Chukker wheelset!

Registration has closed for NAHBPC and you can see all who's joining in here.

68 teams. 44 cities. Stellar.

If you can't make it to Madison follow the event via their Twitter and we'll do our best to RT a few things on ours.

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As mentioned before, we recently built up a set of Halo Dyad's for CommutebyBike.com. Arleigh, the main contributor for the site, will be rocking them and reviewing them in the coming months. Have experience with them? Start the conversation.

Where's the beef?

Where's the beef?

Well, it doesn't get beefier than our Velocity Psycho rim.

Robust.
Bomb Proof.
Stout.
Heavy-Duty.
Strapping.
[Thank you Thesaurus.com]

From the McFerrin family rocking them around North America on their tandems to Wonka pushing them to the limit on his fixie; whatever word you would like to use to describe the strength of the Psycho rim, it can handle just about anything you throw at it.

This is part of the reason we are sending a set of these built up on 36 hole fixed/free track hubs for the North American Hardcourt Bike Polo Championship next weekend in Madison. We are proud to be a Slayer level sponsor for the event and if it plays out right we'll have a few of the Velocity crew there hanging out watching some polo. We'll also be hooking everyone who is playing in the tournament, they will be receiving one of our can koozies in their player pack, which is important because it's always critical to keep your preferred drink of choice cold before, during and after a match.

Get out and enjoy the weekend. Watch the Tour, the World Cup final or if you're in the West Michigan area, join us for some polo on Sunday afternoon.

Classic.

There is just some thing about the classics: classic rock, classic cars, classic movies... Well, those 'classics' might just be for Jacobi regardless of what your idea of classic is, we've got a few for you today for the Friday Highlight.

On our last container of goodness from the crew in Australia, some of the old/classic red and blue paint was found and some Deep V's were done up and sent our way. Our current electric blue and red have been super popular with their translucent, anodized-esque powder coating compared to the classic red and blue's distinct color. Jacobi calls the blue a 'mid-90's Ford pick-up truck blue' and the red being much deeper or blood red. The first picture below is of just classics together.


Here are the new and classic together. The classic being above the electric colors:


These classic blue and red are extremely limited, and available in only in 700c with 32h drilling. Contact your local bicycle shop to get your hands on these.

I'll leave you with one final taste of the Handmade Show this past weekend, it's a 10 minute video I stumbled onto over at trackosaurusrex. Have a great weekend everyone, get out and ride!

2010 North American Handmade Bicycle Show from Michael Wendell on Vimeo.

Handmade and Urban Velo

Well, the crew over at Urban Velo are at it again. With it being the first of the month, issue number 18 is out and they also have a pretty stellar amount of photos from Handmade this past weekend. Check out day 1, day 2, and day 3. The site is loading a little slow today, I'm assuming from the high volume of people checking out everything they've got going. So be patient and enjoy or even stop into your Local Bike Shop to see if they have the hard copies, if they don't suggest they bring them in!

For our ad in the current issue, we've got our Road Disc wheelset. Which sport our Fusion rims on our sealed-bearing road disc hubs, which is simply a bomb-proof wheelset for commuting or if your 'cross bike is rocking discs.

Riding Velocity wheels and rims, one knows:

_ we pride ourselves in giving you the very best in quality and price on the market
_ all of our wheelsets are handbuilt here in Grand Rapids, Michigan
_ every rim is handcrafted in Brisbane, Australia
_ each wheel and wheelset is made to order specifically for you and your specifications by professional wheelbuilders

Just a few of the many reasons Velocity once again is 'the best name to ride with'.

1x, 2x, 3x, maybe with a Twist

Some things are great conversation starters, some are just appealing and we can't put our hands on why, others are so wrong they are right. I don't know if that describes what has come up in conversation a few times since Frostbike but this wheel sure does catch the eye.

Yes, we like it even more that it's a B43 but we can appreciate this unique lacing pattern done up by the guys at Handspun [if you were at the show you would have seen one of these in our booth or in their booth]. JBolt rocks a snowflake lacing on one of his rigs and was jazzed about this once he saw it.

Another unique project we had going for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show this weekend was that done by Jacobi. If you follow us on Twitter you've already seen this but it's part table, part display, and part pump. This came about through trying to find an original way to display all our spoke and nipple colors. Sure there are probably easier ways of doing it that might take up less room but leave it to Jacobi to come up with this concept.

Here are a few of the main parts you'd need if you feel like making one of your own:
1 - 32 hole, 20" [406] Fusion Rim
1 - old Schwinn pump
1 - 20" tire
1 - piece of glass cut to proper size

*You'll also need some sort of larger base for the pump so it won't fall over on you. Jacobi used an old chainring from a 1-piece crank. He also radial laced the wheel instead of any crossing pattern for a cleaner look. It's also good to note that the pump still pumps... sorta.

Handmade.

Today, the Jeff's are making their final preparations for the trip to Richmond, Virginia for this year's North American Handmade Bicycle Show. Jacobi has put together a pretty sweet batch of wheels and rims for everyone to check out. From the looks of it, this year's show should be as good if not better than years past. Stop by our booth #231 and say hello, pick up a catalog and check out our stuff.

Around a month ago, I started a project partnering with Michigan Awesome in making a custom one-off Michigan themed wheel, in hopes for having it done by the Handmade show. Using all 3 sticker designs they have, I cut out and covered the rim with: 'Isn't for Sissies', 'Smitten with the Mitten' and my personal favorite 'Bi-Peninsular and Proud' goodness. Then lacing up one of our limited edition gold, solid flange, hollow axle track hubs to a B43 rim with blue spokes and green nipples as a slight nudge at our great state's flag.

Overall, the wheel turned our great and from a distance it is exactly what I was hoping the project could be. Unfortunately, as the time crunch became apparent we had to make certain calls on what wheels could or could not make their way to Richmond, the Michigan wheel did not make the cut. It will most definitely be making plenty of appearances around Grand Rapids and the Midwest, along with on our Twitter/Facebook pages.


Michigan Awesome is a great company, started by some guys here in Grand Rapids, that simply strives to celebrate our great state. Please take time to make it over to their site, check out their shirts and hoodies. If you Twitter, show some Michigan love and tag it with #michiganawesome. Because we all know it... 'it's good to be where you're from'.

A simple equation.

As mentioned yesterday, the ball has begun to roll on items for the Handmade Show in February. The first teaser for what you'll get to see is represented by the equation above. We're working with another company here in Grand Rapids called [Michigan Awesome], if all goes to plan it's going to be a pretty sweet one-of-a-kind tribute to the Glove!

Nice catch by Jeff over at Bike Jerks on our stellar new hold music. We switched it over not more than 24 hours ago and sure enough he noticed. Matt has been raving about the Trailer Park Boys for some time and it has gotten the thumbs up from the rest of us. Check it out!

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!