icepick's blog

Every once in a while, PDW throws a party. Saturday was one of those times. Early this spring Amanda Sundover of Backyard Blam fame approached me about working with her on her next Blam event. Having attended and sponsored the last two events she'd put together, I was excited about the opportunity. As the months crept by, she started to hash out a plan, and the plan was Cycle Speedway Flat Track Racing. I watched the videos and I was behind it. The plan was to find an outdoor venue and make it a summer event. Well, no venue materialized, so I suggested perhaps we could host an event at the space we were looking at moving into. In June, we solidified that and moved forward with plans to set up shop at the former Department of Skateboarding (RIP) location and build a track to race on. Simple.

Fast forward to last Tuesday when the ramps were supposed to be out. They weren't. In fact people were still skating on them, and I couldn't blame them. The Dept was a one of a kind, very rad place. A group of volunteers started helping with the demolition of the skatepark, and the construction of a new play area:

Here we started to manhandle the risers from the existing ramps into the boards for the track. This is turn 1 looking into turn 2.

The biggest snag for the build was this poured concrete stairway right on the front straightaway. It took a jack hammer and about 100 full wheel barrows to get it and the gravel underneath it out. This picture was snapped at about 6 pm on Wednesday. Our work was cut out for us at this point.

When we finally got the stairs out, we installed the wall skins and got right down to painting the boards around the track, and one wall for the folks from the Disposable Film Fest to project on. Thank you, Mitch, for being so tall.

While some volunteers were building the walls, some were painting the boards, Sean was taping and painting the floor. The man had a vision. Check out the hand painted logos in the next image.

About 24 hours after Sean started painting the floor, racers were out on the track starting to warm up. Let it be said that we had a pretty good crew of volunteers, without which, Holeshot would not have happened. I reckon we logged about 150 man hours building this monstrosity... round about 50 folks contested Holeshot in heats of three racers. You can get a pretty good idea what went down from Jose Sandoval's Flickr site. Great pictures, Jose! I have no idea how many folks were there... hundreds, I imagine, over the course of the 6 hours the event was going for. It was fun, it was crazy and it was loud. Very loud, especially when folks were banging their u-locks on the boards durning the races...

At the end of the night (read: just after 3 am) it was just me, these three empty kegs, some broken dreams and a big mess. It was totally worth it. Will the track stay? I doubt it. A couple of folks actually went through it. What will happen to the space? Not even we know, so stay tuned because we're pretty sure it is going to be awesome! This after all was the first night we'd really even been in the space!

So, in closing big thanks to Amanda, Jessica at Globe for providing the bicycles, 21st Ave Bicycles, The Disposable Film Fest, Kyle from The Department of Skateboarding, New Belgium for the brews, Red Bull for the DJ and lights, the volunteers (especially Phoma, Mitch, Cole, Matty B, Da Murph, J Rad, Nathan, Jake Tong, Sean and Jenny) and all the sponsors. And a series of high fives to everyone that came out to see it!

Well, the day is upon us. Time for Backyard Blam's Holeshot event at the new PDW world HQ. If you are in Portland this weekend, please stop by 15 N Hancock, right off of Williams. We're moving into the former Department of Skateboarding. Over the last several days we've transformed an indoor skatepark to an indoor flat bicycle track. Is it badass? You bet it is. We've had a good crew, and a string of long days/late nights but it is turning out better than we could have ever dreamed! Here is a spy shot from last night. Come for the left turns and two wheel drifts, stay for the New Belgium beers and the Disposable Film Fest!

For the last several years I've been building a file of interesting bikes from all over the world. Sometimes I do a better job than other times about logging where I see these bikes. The bike below I've got no details on other than it is a bicycle used to carry a firehose. Pretty cool when you think about it. You don't even need a fire truck, you can just show up at the fire, tie into the nearest fire hydrant and get down to work. I assume it was probably from Amsterdam, and I probably came across it on a site like Transportfiets, which if you've never checked out, you really should. Lots of cool stuff!

I was out running some errands this morning (read: taco run) and I stopped by to visit one of Portlands newest bike shops, Splendid Cycles. While there the PDW Cycle Truck got to mingle with three other Ahearne Cycle Trucks. Kind of like when I take my dog to the dog park and there are other huskies there, I guess. Here is a picture.

I've been working on finding the right cargo carrying set up for the Cycle Truck for the last week or so. The last two weekends found me carrying mostly cases of beer and BBQ supplies, so just strapping stuff to the deck really hasn't been cutting the mustard, so to speak. I scored this extra wide milk crate from our landlord Glen a couple of months back, and found out it fits on the rack almost perfectly. 4 zip ties later and BLAM: Mail Runner. What am I mailing you ask? Fenderbot samples to some really nice mag-o-zine types.

I've been pretty serious about bicycles for transportation since I limped my VW Jetta to the junkyard and sold it for $50 in 1996. I took the $50 and bought some city tires for my Giant ATX 890 mountain bike, and started commuting to my job on the other side of town. As the years have gone by, I've riden tons of miles on several bikes in half a dozen cites. One thing has always remained the same: I've had to carry stuff with me. A change of clothes, food and drink, etc.

I bought a Timbuk 2 messenger bag in about '97. Started off great, I could jam a 12 pack in there, or my books for school, but I always got jabbed in the back by things like CD jewel cases, etc. It also wrenched my back.  I had to switch to a backpack after I hurt my shoulder in a crash in 2001. A backpack allowed me to carry more weight comfortably, but it too had it's limitations. I mounted up a succession of front racks around 2005, and while teaming the rack and a bag allowed me to carry pretty much everything I typically needed, there were always laundry days, and big shopping trips that had me digging out my trailer.

A couple years ago, I started dreaming about getting a cargo bike. I had an Xtracycle for a while, but it was one of the things I sold to help finance PDW. For the last year I was seriously considering a long cargo bike like a CETMA,  but our current house doesn't have a garage to store bikes in, so we have to put them in the basement. The basement is pretty big and secure, but to get stuff down there you have to go down some stairs and hang a 90 degree turn. Any bikes that go down there have to have a short wheel base. So I kept looking.

Last fall at the OBCA show here in Portland I stopped by to visit with Joseph Ahearne. One of the things he had in his booth, was his first prototype of a Cycle Truck. Now I know what you are gonna say "Schwinn made cycle trucks in the 40s, and people in Europe have been using them every day since." Yes, you are right. What Joseph did was apply his own knowledge and experience to the design. What he came up with a versatile, lightweight Portland version. After he made about 5 or 6 prototypes I put in an order for one and it showed up last Friday. Carrying it up and down my stairs is not so bad. I ended up with the "Work Cycle" version which will allow me to carry over 100 lbs. The rack is integrated with the frame, which keeps your steering from getting weird when the bike is loaded. The center stand keeps the bike stable to load it up when it is parked.

Below are a couple of pictures of the bike that is now my daily commuter. It's going to get full fenders, a cargo deck and a PDW sign on the frame, but you get the idea. After all, it isn't really PDW style to wrap a PT Cruiser or a Hummer for some passive marketing. But a cycle truck, now that is how you put out the vibe that urban cycling is where it's at!

It has been a loooong wait, but the Payload rack is finally back in stock. Most of them are headed for shops all across the country. You can also find them here.

A few weeks back I introduced you to our neighbor Rob of Tsunehiro Cycles and took some pics of a bike he was just starting. Rob stopped by the other day to let me know the bike was finished and was back from paint. I stopped by and shot a couple pics just so you could see the finished product:

He removed the canti-studs for paint, but you get the idea. Clean. the cable stop will also have a threaded adjustment barrel.

Gratuitous downtube shot. Really like the gray on orange on yellow.

Boom. Another happy customer. Nice work Rob!