minnesota_slim's blog

DIY PDW holiday lantern.

Materials: Danger Zone light, hole punch, glass jar, taillight rack bracket

Step 1: Punch two 4mm holes in the jar cover and mount rack bracket to inside of cover.

Step 2: Click Danger Zone light into bracket .

Step 3: Screw lid onto glass jar.

Step 4: Turn off the lights!

We're all set to give Circulus a fond farewell by opening it up to the Interbike crowds for three days of riding and racing. Here's a little video our main man James Wilson put together about the track. If you're at the show then come ride with us!

Most mellow Iron Maiden cover ever:

Due to tight space in the warehouse we had to disassemble our mini ramp so it could move on to a new home. It took an entire 4th of July Saturday but we got 'er done:

Big shout out to my friend Adam in Madison, Wisconsin, who loaded up picnic supplies for Concerts on the Square into his Takeout basket and Payload rack. It's summertime, folks.

Just got back from working on some exciting new PDW gear in Taiwan and did a little celebrating on the last night there with fireworks off the roof of our hotel. I burned a hole in my shirt but it was totally worth it.

Photo courtesy of Heath at Planet Bike.

My friend Nick was nice enough to plan a route over the Coastal Range from Hillsboro, OR to Tillamook, OR that consists mainly of gravel logging roads and last weekend I got a chance to try it out. The beauty of this is the lack of cars zooming by at 55, which is pretty much what you get with any road route to the coast.

We got lost five or six times, pushed our bikes through snow for a bit when the elevation got too high, saw a herd of eleven elk, drank snow runoff, climbed thousands of feet, descended at breakneck speeds, and gorged on Safeway's bounty when we got to Tillamook eight hours later. So it was pretty rad.

I was also able to put our new Takeout basket through the paces. When packing for the trip I was kind of blown away by how much stuff fit in there:

• rain jacket
• rain pants
• pb&j (x2)
• cliff bars (x6)
• beef jerky
• chain tool
• multi tool
• inner tubes (x2)
• mini pump
• sunblock
• arm warmers
• wallet, phone, keys

I always envisioned the Takeout as a run to the corner store kind of basket, but for all day adventures it totally kills it.

Here's a few shots of the journey:

It was a nice day in Portland yesterday so we drove over to Brown's Camp to go for a mountain bike ride. Boy what a difference 1,200 feet of elevation can make. After considering riding in the sleet for a bit we settled on scouting out some hiking trails and drinking beer. Mother Nature one, Erik and Dan zero.

We got yer Friday soundtrack right here. 1% For the Planet is giving away all 41 songs on its album 1% for the Planet: The Music, Vol. 1. Sounds like it could possibly be a bunch of hippies noodling guitars into infinity but hey, it's free. Why not give it a spin?

Just click on the link below and enter the code "EARTHDAY11" and you'll be grooving to some new tunes in no time. Or maybe in like an hour if your internet connection sucks.

Listen to the dancing Statue of Liberty and get yer taxes in, folks.