I'm moved.

Thanks to Andy my website is reworked and blog-driven so there is even less point to this blog now.

Lots of work left to do on the new page but it's running so check it out.

www.twothreesix.com

There is no god.

see over at pez

Logo placement...

Which jersey can you easily make out logos on?

winning a B race

Winning a B race at Bryan Park through a combination of sandbagging and having 6 teammates blocking is pretty cheap.

Shawn's Volume Creedence.

After two weeks of using loaner bikes at Go Fast Turn Left CBC rider Shawn Deal decided he wanted a track bike of his own.

After working out the ever important budget parameters with his wife we set to the task of finding the perfect bike. It is with a bit of irony that we made the decision to set up a Volume Creedence. Volume is a BMX company that happens to make a couple fixed gear bikes that make sense out of the box as a street fixed. So here we have a bike track racing bike that started life as a street bike that was designed because not that long ago bike messengers and other urban riders started taking old track bikes and riding them on the street.

I guess things have come full circle.

But enough history... on to the bike...



Shawn's Creedence is a sleek steel machine. Right out of the box it came with Andle cranks and sealed Novatec hubs built onto a rock solid cromoly frame. All I had to do was gear it up with a 14 tooth cog and swap the riser bars for some drops and hook them to a 130mm Origin8 stem. Race ready!



As you can tell from the maniacal look in his eyes Shaw is very happy with his Volume and counts down the hours at work every Monday before he can go race.

Dolan Kadet Race Build

When Dolan Bikes designed the Kadet they had to know many of these inexpensive but high quality track frames would end up on the street. This frame was bred for the track and they are starting to find their way to the banking. Steve Burton of Sportsquest and Tim Lamb of Team Invisible Bike have both been racing these frames at the Go Fast Turn Left races this year.

I thought it would be fun to build one up into a true "race ready" configuration but on a budget. Basic builds on this frame come in at under $900 but I wanted to use some higher end parts to really make one of these bikes a rocket.

Wheels:



H+Son Formation Face rims. 42mm of aero superiority laced to low flange Origin8 track hubs with adjustable sealed bearings. Throw some ceramics in there and you have a set of wheels on par with Zipp or Reynolds for about 25% of the price.

Cranks:



All-City's super BEEFY new 612 crank arms hopped up to a race gear with a FSA 49 tooth track ring. STIFF!

Bar and stem:



Origin8 again brings killer value to the table with their deep drop Pro Track handle bar and Alloy Ergo Stem.

The whole package comes in at under $1300 and is ready to mix it up with any $5000 super bike on the boards.

Alan's H+Son / Profile wheels

Alan Garvick heard about us on Tarckbike. Down in New Bern, North Carolina there are not bike shops that really do much fixed gear stuff and he had a specific set of wheels in mind to hook up his Surly Steamroller.

Alan hit us up with the request for some H+Son SL42 rims powdercoated white laced to purple Profile Racing fixed gear hubs. I told him "no problem."

After an email to my guy Tzusing all the way over in China and ordered up the rims. A week later they arrived and I laced them up.

Check them out...

Keith is my man...

I think Keith might own a time machine or at least have access to one. There really is no other possible explanation for how he managed to find these original Jan Ullrich Adidas cycling shoes.

Even cooler is that we wear the same size and he didn't need them so I have ended up with another pair of cycling shoes I don't need.

New stuff from Volume on the way

We have some new goodies from Volume coming in VERY soon.

First up... the Fu Manchu fork.



Beefy unicrown with BMX style dropouts to take whatever beating you feel like giving your fixed.



The Krull Spider. 48tooth splined with a 130mm bolt pattern. No more slipping sprockets on your street rig.

Still dreaming...

Come on Sportsquest... don't let me down!

Go Fast Turn Left KEIRIN Tournament

On Monday June 15th Carytown Bicycle Company and Sportsquest.biz bring you a night of fast paced race action at Southside Speedway.

The Keirin is one of the fastest and most exciting types of races in track cycling. If you want to give it a shot we have plenty of loaner bikes available at the track. Or if you just want to come watch the action it's 100% free to come spectate.

Work hard, play hard

They may not look like it but Andrew and Ian are great mechanics. They take fixing bikes VERY seriously. Anyone that knows them also knows they also take goofing off just a serious. On a much needed break between fixing bikes they decided perform some "stress tests" on Mavic wheel bags.





The good news is that Mavic wheel bags are just as high a quality as their wheels and passed their barrage of stress tests.

Tuesday night

Summer time in Richmond means many things. To many on two wheels it means just one though. The Bryan Park Tuesday night races.

This has been a staple of Richmond area bike racing for around 30 years now and continues to grow each year. Last night was the second race this season. Throughout the race several of the local teams slugged it out and in the end Dan King came up with the win. Carytown's Andrew Alli picked up 3rd to better his 4th place result from last week.

There are two races each week that are divided up by ability. A few times this summer there are even kids races.

Check out this video that CJ Congrove shot of the A race last night. No bike mounted camera antics but still very cool.

Tuesday Night at Bryan Park from CJ Congrove on Vimeo.

Could this be utopia?

Vauban, Germany has taken a neat approach to reducing auto traffic in their town. On many streets cars are banned and driveways are not even allowed to be built. To make things work they have designed the layout of the city to include important commercial zones that are spread evenly throughout the residential areas.
Many residents sill own cars but they are stored at the edge of town in large garages.



It would never happen here but I could easily see the fan working with this approach. There are plenty unused areas that could be turned to garage space and anyone living in the fan knows how close most of the needed business are.

I have lived in Richmond for over 10 years now and provided the weather is agreeable I can often go weeks without driving to run all my errands and commute to work.

Check out more about Vauban's approach in this article in The New York Times.

New today!

I finally got around to making t-shirts of the Richmond VA design we brought out back in the fall. Standard white on black and a VERY limited run of "Giro" Pink as well.

Awesome!

CJ from Team Invisible Bike brought his bike mount camera to the speedway last night and set it up on a few bikes. Check it out!

Track Racing w/ Bro's from CJ Congrove on Vimeo.

Finally!

Sunny skies and a high of 75. After two Tuesdays of lots of rain and no track racing things are looking up.

I can't wait until 5 o'clock!

Track racing on the speedway is a blast!

How many tarck points?

This guy means business.

3T Ergonova review part 3.

Continued from earlier...

The icing on the cake with this bar is the slight outward sweep that the drops have. Where the brake hoods mount to the bar is actually almost 2 whole centimeters narrower than in the drops. This works brilliantly by giving you the ability to run your brake hoods at a width you are normally comfortable (in my case 42 centimeters) but at the same time giving your a bit more leverage in the drops when you are sprinting. This flared design also pulls my forearms a bit further away from the tops of the bars which gives a much more open and stable feel when out of the saddle in the drops.



I found this to work so well in fact that I installed a pair of these bars on my track bike as well.



There are other companies out there that have designed bars that are similar to the 3T.

The FSA compact bar design is a great solution for smaller riders who are looking for some of the same benefits of the Ergonova but I have found that for my height and riding style they can be a bit too cramped if you like to ride in the drops a fair bit.

That aside however, I have found that the dimensions of the FSA compact bar (about 1 full centimeter smaller in reach and drop compared to the 3t) has worked wonders for shorter or less flexible riders that I have fit on their existing bikes and almost always allows them to use the drop bars far more than they ever had been able to in the past.