Wheels of Glory 3

Ah, I'm back. First, to anyone out there who actually reads my blog, sorry about the huge delay on posting. I got caught up with a combination of work, illness, procrastination, and the desire to rest after the last race. This review is long overdue, so I'll get right into it:

The turn out for this third race was smaller than the second. It was more around the size of the first race which was fine. We had about as many racers as the second event though.













Thanks to Karl over at A&M we had many many more prizes to hand out to people.






Basically, we ran everyone through the first round as usual, and at the end we took the top distances and moved them on to the next round. We had a bit of a smaller crowd this race so we were able to keep more people in per round. We double, triple and quadruple checked the bike's calibration this time so they were completely even. We didn't have a bike that looked like it was winning over another bike. Also we had only minor bike malfunction this time that had us down one bike for maybe 6 minutes before it was back up. All in all I think the third race went the smoothest out of all of them. Third time's a charm.

In the end, Seth, Marcus and Jim won first, second, and third place respectively as far as the overall races.



Sorry Jim, I guess we didn't get an action shot of you in your power hoodie.

We also had a number of other winners for our age categories. Here's how the overall race broke down:

In the end, we generated about 350 dollars for SCOSAG which they'll be using to fund some awesome stuff for their kids.

Thanks for everyone who came out. You can see more pictures from the event here. Keep your eyes on the WillCycleforCharity.com for information on the next bike event. It won't be updated for another week or so while we start to put together our plans for may, but once we're set we will post info. We're skipping April as far as putting on an official event (we all needed a bit of a break) and doing a group ride and movie night in May. More info to come.

-Chris

WOG3 review coming soon

I'll be posting about last night's Wheels of Glory race later on tonight, I just don't have time to now.

For now the results for the races including the winners for each of the age brackets is up at the will cycle site at www.willcycleforcharity.com

The pictures from the race can be found on Carrie's picasa.

More to come soon.

-Chris

Wheels of Glory III Tonight!!

All of the prizes are assembled, the spoke cards are made, the t's are dotted and the i's are crossed. Tonight is the night! The last Wheels of Glory race of the season.
If you've never been before, this is your last chance to watch or race inside at The Atomic Cowboy before they kick us out. I've you have been to one or both of the previous rides you already know the drill. Doors at 5, registration at 7, races at 8.

The money for this race is being donated to SCOSAG.

I hope everyone has a chance to come out and ride. Hopefully after our article in the RFT (shameless plug) we'll get an even bigger crowd this time.

See you tonight!

-Chris

RFT article!!

The River Front Times wrote up an article about the third set of Wheels of Glory Races!!!!!!!!

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2009-03-04/calendar/pedalphilia/


Fucking awesome!!!!!!!

NAHBS!!

Well, the North American Hand built Bike Show was FREAKING AWESOME!!!

Let me start out with my favorite bikes, the road and track bikes from Zullo:



My first (and current) road bike is an Italvega Super Light which is also a hand built Italian bike. The look so similar that I automatically had an affection towards Zullo's bikes. The green track bike is freaking awesome. Too bad I'm not made out of money :/

My second favorite was the Bad Penny bike from Groovey Peacock:

I have a particular draw towards this bike because, again, it reminds me of my Motobecane Le Champion, Matilda. She is another one of my bikes. The bad penny looks like the copper counterpart to my chrome matilda.

I think more than just nostalgia, I like these bikes best because I like the thin frames. I know that you can get bikes that are much lighter with large carbon fiber tubes, but small steal tubes just look more aesthetically pleasing to me personally.

Groovy Peacock also had a couple of other really cool bikes:

I really like the guy's personal bike. He said that he built it as a reminder of his childhood when he would ride down the street to get fruit stripes gum:

I'm not really into the flat handlebars on track frames, but this one looks great. That peacock cutout in the drops alone makes this bike amazing!

Naked bikes had a really really cool bike at the show:
This bike costs over $16,000 dollars! 16,000!!!!! JFC, if I bought a bike like this I would never want to ride it! It sure is beautiful though.






There were plenty of examples of nice lug work:



Lugs always look a lot nicer then weld marks.

There were also some odd looking bikes like the bamboo bike from *coughcoughcan'trememberthenameofthebuilderanddon'tfeellikelookingitup*


And the space age dildo looking bike from another bike builder that I don't remember the name of:
Seriously, I assume its supposed to be a unicorn looking bike maybe, but when you see this:
it doesn't exactly scream mythical beast, it just screams.


Again, I'm not wild about straight bars on track frames, but this track bike does look pretty awesome
This bike was pretty awesome. The picture doesn't really do it justice. The wheels on this bike were massive:
Pretty cool.

I really liked this track bike as well (if you can't tell I love green bikes).
This particular bike is really cool because the stem and handlebars are one whole piece:It also had a mast stem. The seat post is actually really small and at the top of the mast, which allows the builder to run the break cable straight through the mast:

Here's a weird looking bike. I wish they had it on the floor so that we could take a closer look at it. At first I thought it was just a tandem bike with one seat facing backwards, then I noticed that there is a normal bike seat in the middle:
Out of all the bikes at the show, that one is the one that I'd most like to ride around.

Signal have a really nice commuter bike that caught my eye. I think the more my friend Eric talks up commuters with fenders and packs, the more I want one. Plus an endorsement from Simon and Garfunkel is always a plus:
Zullo also had a cool commuter bike:
If you look close you can see that the top tube is actually two separate tubes with the break cable running in between.

I took a lot more pictures that I don't really feel like pasting into the blog. You can check them out here.

-Chris

Wheels of Glory III

The final Wheels of Glory race!!This is your last chance to get some good indoor computrainer racing in before we move on to other events. The charity for this race is St. Louis City Open Studio and Gallery (SCOSAG). Hop over to the Will Cycle for Charity site for more information on SCOSAG and the link to their website.