The 2009 list of bike friendly states includes Wisconsin at #2! Way to go home team! In addition Wisconsin was ranked #1 in the Infrastructure category.
http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bicyclefriendlyamerica/bicyclefriendlystate/rankings.php
From the League’s website: A Bicycle Friendly State promotes cycling through legislation, policies, programs, and by creating new places to ride, educating motorists and cyclists, and encouraging people to bike for transportation and recreation.
Tim from Teecycle.org stopped by a bit ago and took a cruise on the Shark. We only had time for a short cruise but Tim enjoyed the bike and commented on the comfort.
Tim is an avid biker and commutes daily from the North Shore to Marquette. In his spare time he runs the teecycle.org web site. Here is a bit about Teecycle’s mission.
Tim says, “Your T-Shirt says a lot about you, whether you know it or not!”
From the Teecycle website:
When you buy off a rack in a retail chain, it says you have limited imagination, support giant corporate profits and have thousands of replicas. Who wants that?
When you own a Teecycle shirt, it says you have a unique one-of-a-kind item of clothing. It also says you care about the environment by keeping a perfectly usable item out of the landfill.
Each Teecycle shirt is hand-selected from rummage sales, thrift stores or donated by friends. Just not a rack in a nondescript department store.
Your purchase also supports the River Revitalization Foundation. $1 of each sale is donated to restore urban river trails and waterways in the Milwaukee area.
Thanks for checking out the Schlick Shark, Tim!
This refurb job is being done on a 17-inch Univega 507 mountain bike. I believe it is a 1995 model. It was my wife’s bike for quite a while when we were dating and pretty much got hung up when our daughter was born 10 years ago. It never got ridden a ton but is still showing some signs of age and I want to change the purpose of the bike since I’ll be using it now.
Gone is the very cool ControlTech Lawill Leader 3 fork and in its place is the original Univega ridged fork. The stock Univega fork is a very nice unit with tapered and butted blades so it rides great.
The wheel set was upgraded to Shimano XT hubs and some sweey Ritchey Vantage Rims that I’ve had forever.
Say bye to those cream-colored Panaracer Magic Tires. They are being replaced with Kenda HookWorm tires. This simple change is what is really changing the character of the bike. Going back to a ridged fork and having a Commuter/City flavor about the thing, plus the copious pot holes in our fair city demanded some cush to the tires and these deliver in spades!
Away went the whatever-it-was gel saddle my wife used and on went a Sellitalia Turbo saddle. While I am still partial to Flite saddles this one was in the shop and has a bit more beef and structure to it than a strictly competition saddle has. Weight is not a huge issue. Besides, I like the white color on this bike.
Handle bars. Bye-bye to the MTB bar and barends. Don’t need you any more. I just went with a wide 3-inch rise Cro-Mo bar. I looked, briefly, at a Ritchey Rise bar but that will be going on my Teesdale MTB so it did not get the call.
If you have an older but loved bike consider throwing some love at it! If you haven’t got the time, shoot us a note. We’ll treat the old girl like she was one of our own.
Dave the crash test dummy took one of our Zize prototypes out for a little durability test bashing and the bike came through with flying colors.
Milwaukee celebrates two Bike to Work Weeks for 2009. May 9-15 and June 6-12. The League of American Bicyclists celebrates Bike MONTH this month.
http://www.bfw.org/about/pressreleases.php?category_id=4159&subcategory_id=&id=464
While we all love the Shark around here we still often ride other bikes. The Ralph Cycles 17-inch hardtail shown here is being refreshed with a good, thorough cleaning and some parts replacement to bring it back to serviceable condition.
This particular Ralph frame was one of 6 built by Tom Teesdale in about 1995 for the Ralph Cycles racing team. This frame is serial #3 and I raced it inthe WORS series as well as MTB races in Minnesota and Iowa. It is in pretty darn good shape considering it was my primary MTB for about 3 years but has been mostly siting around since. Built from Reynolds 853, it is a strong, light frame and incorporates Ralph’s T-Bone seat stay that we used to help keep the seatstay flex down with the then powerful V-Brakes.
For this refurb job we are going to leave the color original for a couple of reasons.
The RockShox Judy fork is a pretty stock unit but has Arlo Englund Air Cartridges in. Hopefully those still work but I am not opposed to going back to urethane or whatever the bumpers were. This will not be a competition bike any more and may even get a ridged fork.
More as the work progresses.
If you have an older but loved bike consider throwing some love at it! If you haven’t got the time, shoot us a note. We’ll treat the old girl like she was one of our own.