Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The Ladies of Team Pegasus Calendar


Team Pegasus is releasing a limited edition calendar for 2009, featuring the ladies of Team Pegasus and friends. The calendar will cost $15 (plus shipping) and half of the money raised goes to World Bicycle Relief (the other half goes to support the team). The calendars will be available to order in about a month or so from the Team Pegasus home page HERE, and will also be available at selected events, like Madison VeloSwap. Here are a few teaser images, and note, even though these photos are great, they're outtakes! The calendar will have 13 original photos.

I'll post again as soon as the calendar is available, but remember to keep an eye on the Team Pegasus page too.

Random Races

Here are some forthcoming races that may or may not be happening where you live:

Santiago Sicko - Santiago, Chile (!!) - TOMORROW, Oct 1st. - Goddamn I wish there was a scene in Caracas like the scene in Santiago.

Blo-No Bike and Rage Alleycat Series - Bloomington/Normal, IL - Oct. 10th to 12th - Details here.

Pumpkin Rally 2008 - Cincinnati, OH - Oct. 18th - Details here.

Night of the Living Tread III - Ann Arbor, MI - Oct. 30th - Details here.

Atlanta Halloween Alleycat - Atlanta, GA - Oct. 31st - No details here, but check it anyway. Ha!

Halloween Alleycat presented by Shop Gentei - Baltimore, MD - Oct 31st - Details here.

If you have a race coming up, especially one in the Midwest, and you'd like me to post it, drop me an email.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Puma PB2R


Saw this vid over on Tracko. Check out Jack from Orange20 reppin' in the Team Pegasus skinsuit at about 2:00mins. The guy is a beast. The race looks fun as hell, too.

[update] Apparently Jack will be wearing the Team Pegasus skinsuit when he competes at Track Nationals. Sweet.

The Classics

There haven't been many alleycats in Chicago lately, but that's about to change. The Classics are back! The Classics are a series of alleycats run in the autumn and early winter, where the points you win for placing in each race are cumulative. The series is won by the racers (male and female) with the highest points total when all the races are run.


Classics Pre-Party. Saturday, October 4th. IROSprints!!

For more details on the races, and the parties, check out the Team Beer'd page here.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Campagnolo in Print

This looks like it will be one hell of a book! I don't even ride Campy and I'd still like it. "Campagnolo has compiled more pro cycling victories than any other brand, and the roster of greats that has ridden their components to championships is legend. Campagnolo: 75 Years of Cycling Passion celebrates this legacy with rich text by historians Paolo Facchinetti and Guido Rubino and spectacular color photography. Drawing on unprecedented access to company archives, Campagnolo: 75 Years of Cycling Passion covers everything from the first quick-release to the newest 11-speed Super Record."

Coming soon to Prendas Ciclismo (and probably to other bookshops/bikeshops).

SquidSprints!

That's not the actual name, but I like it. Tonight is the second round of The I-Cycle Throwdown sprints event, so if you are in Williamsburg tonight, get yourself along to the Vice Gallery at 7pm.


Carlos, Squid and the crew.

Spiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin

The sprints are run using the same open-source software, designed by Chicago's own Evan Farrar, that runs IROSprints in Chicago and N.O. Sprints in New Orleans. If you're interested in getting some sprint nights running in your town, check out the software page here, and for more details/coverage of the I-Cycle sprints, go to Carlos' page here or the CycleHawk page here or the I-Cycle page here.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Outline

Tomity, keirin legend and all-round top geezer, has more talents than you can shake the proverbial stick at. He just posted this wire sculpture of a track tandem pair throwing for the line, that he himself made 30 years ago, on the ChicagoFixedGear board. It's so cool. I want it!

Interbike Revelations

Revelation 1: Lance raced Cross Vegas. He came 22nd in the men's Elite race. Lining up against him was Chicago phenom, Rock Lobster rider and former alleycat supremo Ben Popper. Yay Ben!

Lance "unattached" Armstrong clearing a barrier at Cross Vegas last night. Thanks to Ken Conley for the great photo. Check out more of Ken's cycling photos here.

Revelation 2: MASH edition Cinelli. Let's be honest, this is not a revelation to anyone who reads any other track bike blog, but even though everyone has already seen this, I still felt I should post it. More details here.

Photo from the MASH/Arkitip site.

Revelation 3: Katy Steudel of Team Pegasus won the Wheelers and Dealers Industry Race race at Cross Vegas in front of 3,500 spectators! Hell yes, Katy!

Katy (91) at a cross race last season. She now adds a Cross Vegas win to her Wisconsin State Cyclocross Championship, amongst other impressive victories. Photo by Kat Jacobs.

Sounds like Interbike has been pretty good so far. I haven't seen many photos of impressive track stuff though, but I did see some photos of nice track stuff at Eurobike recently, so I'll post that soon.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Artifacts

As you may or may not know, I just got back to Caracas after a three week trip to the US. Upon returning, I realized that I'd acquired a lot of things on my trip, a lot of cycling related commodities, specifically. What would an archeologist make of these things, these artifacts, if they were to be dug up 200 years from now? That made me think of the role of material culture in the cycling scene, which in turn reminded me of a paper I wrote a few years ago, about material culture, consumption and identity. I thought it might be interesting to post the introduction to that paper, along with photos of just some of the things I acquired on my trip.

Yojimbo's Track Cats supporters shirt - Available from Yojimbo's Garage, 100% of the purchase price goes to support the Track Cats program.

"In his introduction to the book The Social Life of Things, Arjun Appadurai suggests that consumption is a social, relational, and active practice. Demand, the economic expression of the political logic of consumption, 'emerges as a function of a variety of social practices and classifications rather than a mysterious emanation of human needs, a mechanical response to social manipulation (as in the model of the effects of advertising in our own society), or the narrowing down of a universal and voracious desire for objects to whatever happens to be available,' (Appadurai 1986 : 29). In this sense, consumption is a dialectical process with a multiplicity of meanings and motivations dependant on social, economic, cultural, historical and political contexts.

Beijing Olympics Track Cycling Sake Cup! Thanks Jeff!!

Cycle Sport America (thanks, Andrew!) and ProCycling, two of the best cycling magazines available.

Similarly, Daniel Miller, in his introduction to the book Acknowledging Consumption, suggests that instead of attempting a general catch-all definition we should understand consumption as a 'dialectic between the specificity of regions, groups and particular commodity forms on the one hand, and the generality of the global shifts in the political economy and contradictions of culture on the other,' (Miller 1995 : 34). Thus, attention must be paid to both the native categorizations specific to local practices of consumption, and the larger global context, while all the time aware of the academic need to 'generalize as a means of analysis,' (Miller 1995 : 31).

Nitto cycling cap from Trackstar.

Dispatch101 badges. Thanks, Julio!

Both Miller and Appadurai would also agree that one of the generally important aspects of consumption is its construction, negotiation and expression of meaning. Jean Baudrillard highlights the communicative aspects of consumer goods in his book The Consumer Society, when he says that consumption is no longer defined as 'a fundamental practice of objects or as a mere individual group or prestige function but as a system of communication,' (Baudrillard 1998 : 93). Similarly, Appadurai suggests that consumption is the 'focus not just for sending social messages but for receiving them as well,' (Appadurai 1986 : 31). Miller notes that 'consumer goods commonly serve to communicate social distinctions or reinforce relationships of superiority and inferiority between individuals or groups. They may also be instrumental in creating or confirming an individual’s sense of self or personal identity -- people have found that an identity constructed through consumption is far more empowering and controllable than that which is dependent upon their placement within ever larger systems of production over which they have little control,' (Miller 1995 : 42). This is one reason why Miller says that consumption, as one of the prime processes in the formation of cultural identity, should become a central object of study for anthropology.

CSC cap. The best team in cycling. Seeing as the team is changing to Saxo Bank next year, I bought a lifetime's supply (well, 5) of these caps.

Cog Magazine bar-ends.

In advocating the study of consumption, Miller rejects a post-modernist critique that contemporary society is shallow, superficial and essentially cultureless. As Miller says, 'the problem with a concern for objects that are more transient, or a concern with the surface of style, is that is comes up against one of the fundamental tenets of classical Western philosophy – the critique of superficiality. But there is no reason why important issues of identity, and indeed of ontology, should not be conceptually located in both more transient and more surface-orientated modes,' (Miller 1995 : 25)."

Bicycle Film Festival 2008 limited edition Cinelli musette. Thanks Tristan, Aaron and Michelle!

Of course, all of this is not to deny Marxist critiques of the commodity form. But, applying a material culture semantic analysis to the popular culture of cycling might also be productive, as it is a culture in which consumption of goods, far from being an “erosion of culture” (Miller 1995 : 268), is elemental in the construction of culture.

Works cited:
Appadurai, A., 1986 The Social Life of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bauldrillard, J., 1998 The Consumer Society. London: Sage Publications.
Miller, D., 1995 Acknowledging Consumption. London: Routledge.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Northbrook Velodrome Closing Night Photos

Chicago track season is over. That presents this blog, about track racing, with a bit of a dilemma. The dilemma is that unless I start posting about the goings-on at other velodromes, my coverage of local track action will be a bit sparse from now on. I'll figure something out, but in the meantime, here are some photos from the closing night at Northbrook Velodrome. Thanks to Gavin for all the photos, although I am disappointed in him that he didn't get pics of the grill... [edit] Ed White came through with a photo of the grill. Thanks, Ed!

Pro/1/2 race. Josh from Get-A-Grip in second place. Hi Josh! Photo by Gavin.

Borrowed bike, street shoes, and still he wins. Henry of Team Pegasus becoming State Trackstand Champion. Photo by Gavin.

Juniors race: a Yojimbo's Track Cat grabs a wheel. Photo by Gavin.

Juniors race, with a big contingent of Yojimbo's Track Cats. Photo by Gavin.

Patriotic lap of honour. Photo by Gavin.

The grill! Photo by Ed White.

That's it. Season's over for another year, and I didn't even get to race once. I won't get to race next season either, as I'll be in Fiji for the year. I'm not complaining, especially not about Fiji, but I do miss racing a lot. It'll be interesting to see how I do when I get back into it...

Anti-Dooring Campaign Update

The stickers were made, the website is up, and people are noticing. I found this photo over on the Keirin Berlin:

It seems that one of the guys from Berlin was in Chicago recently and saw one of the stickers on a parking meter. Keep spreading the word, people! For more details, go to the brand new Anti-Dooring Campaign website here.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Friday, September 19, 2008

Paralympic Track Action

Check out these shots of some of the track racing action at the Laoshan velodrome during the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing. It's a real shame that the Paralympics doesn't get more media attention. Anyway, enjoy these photos.

Australians Kieran Modra, right, and his pilot Tyson Lawrence compete in the Men's 4000m Individual Pursuit. AP PHOTO/ANDY WONG

Britain's Aileen McGlynn, right, with her pilot Ellen Hunter reacts after they won the Women's 1km Time Trial final. AP PHOTO/ANDY WONG

Tang Qi of China cycles during the women's individual pursuit. STR/AFP/Getty Images

Gold medalist Simon Richardson of Britain, center, is flanked by silver medal Masaki Fujita of Japan, left, and bronze medal Greg Ball of Australia during the award ceremony of the Men's 1km Time Trial (LC3-4) final. Britain killing it on the track again. AP PHOTO/ANDY WONG

Carlos Arciniegas and Juan Careno of Colombia (R) race against Ben Demery and Shaun Hopkins of Australia in the men's sprint. Awesome. STR/AFP/Getty Images

Dong Jingping of China cycles during the women's individual pursuit track cycling. STR/AFP/Getty Images

Australian Kieran Modra, right, and his pilot Tyson Lawrence reacts after they win the Men's gold medal 4000m Individual Pursuit. They set a new world record at 4 minutes 18.961 sec. AP PHOTO/ANDY WONG

Cool shots, huh? The tandem sprint in particular looks feckin' mental!! Do they trackstand?? As far as I know, the stoker of the tandem is the paralympian, and is usually blind. The pilot basically just steers. No disrespect to the pilots, but the idea of being a blind track cyclist is so impressive and inspiring.

Laek House

Yes, yes, yes. I am behind the times, and behind about a million other bike blogs in posting the awesome new stuff from Laek House, but I've been travelling. Give me a break!




Actually, in my defence, I did post about some of this stuff a while ago, but now Ethan has updated the page so that you can actually get your grubby little mitts on them. So go here to check out the stuff.