Troutin around – June. 23, 2025
I had the pleasure of wrapping Britt’s bars with the always awesome Campandgoslow handlebar tape. It’s always a fun day when customers bring in some of their tape to wrap in either of the rattlesnake color ways or the trout color way. This one was because we had a debate on which direction to have the scales lead into. which direction is your favorite? Scales back like it’s swimming or forward so you aren’t petting against the scales?
Stopping to enjoy the ride – June. 16, 2025
Sometimes I go ride to ride hard and really feel it, usually I go out to just enjoy the city and cruise around and explore wherever my wheels will take me, and sometimes I just cruise out for some vitamin Nature. The other night that was just what the doctor ordered. I rolled out with my buddy Nate just before sunset so it would cool down a bit from the 106’ F day- it was about 90 when we rolled out and quickly dropping to 80.
We goofed off and cruised some urban trails and rolled into the trail. The most amazing thing happened just after we entered the trail head: a great horned owl swooped over us and landed atop of a Saguaro and perched much to our delight. We stopped and observed the owl until it flew off again in search of some yummy snacks. Its usually always worth it (to me) to stop and observe as often as possible, especially in twilight and night when all the desert critters are out.
Dropping into summer – June. 09, 2025
We’re dropping into summer weather here in Tucson. As the temperature warms up we have to switch our schedules to early morning and night riding. A lot of people complain, but generally it’s my favorite time of year.
One- I’m at the shop all day (so mornings and night are the time to be out and I hate being cold) and two- riding in twilight in a t-shirt is generally just magical; animals come out and the desert breathes release from the heat. The other thing is on Tucson all the students and snowbirds leave town and it’s nice to see things chill out a bit. Here’s a shot of Pat dropping into a wall on an early morning trail work/ride session.
Amazing storyteller event! – June. 02, 2025
I really was letting it sink in how awesome our last storyteller event was. It was a great show of community in a packed courtyard at Borderlands Brewing. It was a cool arrangement of presentations and inspiring stories from Serena Rana, Climbing in Color, Bicas, , AZT Association, Sonoran Desert Mountain bicyclist, and Sauer .
I want to give a special shoutout to Asha and the crew at Bicas for such a wonderful tale that was so creative, thoughtful and inspiring. I’m sure it was a crowd favorite with costumes and crashes of a story of friends riding the trails from the perspective of a Saguaro Cactus. Be sure to send Bicas some love be it donations or currently if you are in Tucson they are looking for kids bikes for their summer youth earn a bike programs! See yall soon and be sure to check out all these great organizations and get involved!
Affogatooutside – May. 26, 2025
This last weekend my friend and local bike/coffeeoutside legend Ben Elias hosted his annual Affogato outside #coffeeoutside event. What is Affogato you ask(in case you did- if not skip to next sentence) it’s a shot of espresso with some ice cream! What a delight! This year it got a major improvement when Ben Pulled out his handy Espresso forge espresso pump as featured on the Radavist.
Ben loads up his cargo bike with non dairy ice cream and all the usual coffee outside accessories and we head out on a short little ride and go to a rad meeting spot to enjoy the delicacy. I might have been late to this event- but I got there just in time for the last serving and some good company still hanging out. I highly recommend that you add this your local #coffeeoutside routine in your town!
Attack of the killer puppy – May. 19, 2025
I’m sure some folks have gleaned by now that we love visits from furry friends (dogs and cats haha). There is always treats at the counter and every friend has to pay the pet tax and chances are pretty high we will roll on the floor together. We got the opportunity to to visit with this cute puppy this week and get tons of fluffy rubs and kisses- I love how Jake looks like he’s getting attacked and or eating this cute fluffball!
Another mural by the shop! – May. 12, 2025
I don’t think I got progress shots of this one- but this is a new mural by local mural legend Joe Pagac. One of the best parts about it is that you can see it from inside the shop or on our patio. I thought the last mural was huge, but this one is sooooo tall. It was cool to see how they painted it from the top down. Joe has a prolific amount of murals near the shop, doing a rough count there is 8 or so murals in the immediate vicinity and they are all incredible.
Adventure story telling series – May. 5, 2025
I’m really excited we get to cohost another adventure story telling with the fine folks from Roadrunner Bikes. With everything going on we wanted to highlight folks that help advocate and maintain public access to lands that we recreate on. This one is especially bittersweet because we will be at Borderlands Brewing who is just a couple of buildings down.
Borderlands has graciously lent us their beautiful outdoor space for many events as well as opening it up for many community groups and people. They are unfortunately losing their space of over a decade (long terrible story), so this will likely be our last event with them unless they find another space or some kind of miracle happens.
Anyway- if you are in town, come hang out and enjoy some good ol’ fashioned story telling and community hangs. (Sign up here) And don’t forget to send Borderlands Brewing some love and buy lots of beer and swag from them! Big shoutout to Mo (Revolta Art) for the amazing artwork!
The Ultimate Touring rig? – April. 28, 2025
Are you ready for your next forever touring bike- ready to travel the world, cross the country or just some local roads and errands in comfort and style. The Surly Disc Trucker is one of the benchmarks of durable, long lasting, no nonsense touring bikes. We are fortunate enough to have this amazing custom built Disc Trucker on consignment here at the shop.
It’s a very thought out complete build in size 56. Features such amazing and well thought out pieces as White Industries VBC Crankset (variable bolt circle diameter so you can run a large combination of chainrings to get exact gearing you want) and Bottom Bracket (all machined in Petaluma, CA), Shimano Ultegra 2×11 ultra wide shifting (44/28 up from with an 11-42 cassette for a range of 18-110 gear inches or whopping 599% gear ratio!) with hydraulic brakes to save your wrist with stronger braking with less effort, Velocity Dyad USA made Wheelset (a bombproof touring classic wheelset), Brooks Saddle (a touring classic), Tubus Front and Rear Racks and a full set of Ortlieb Panniers (full set of Front and rear and banjo bros handlebar bag)
This bike is fully kitted out and ready to tour! The best part is you can save thousands on this barely ridden build! It can be bought locally for $2599 or if it needs to be shipped out for $250 more ($2849).
Easter Bunny?!?!?! – April. 21, 2025
On Easter we went for a little ride and hang with some friends. While out cruising the neighborhoods, we saw this yard with lots of cactus blooming. Of course we turned around to stop and take some pictures. While taking pictures of the cactus, out pops this cute little cotton tail bunny that was snacking on the flowers. Could it be the Easter bunny? It did hop and around and go say hi to our kiddo.
Surf bike love – April. 14, 2025
I used to be an adamant proponent of riding your bike to surf. Surfers, like bike riders, rely on the environment for participation in our activities and connection to place. As with bike riding, I find it funny how people drive all over town and the region to find some surf or fly everywhere all the time especially when most beach towns are relatively small. I always try to reduce my footprint and damage to the environment by riding my bike or walking to surf locally.
Some old memories came up and out popped up a picture of one of my favorite possibly most outlandish surf bikes I built. It started with a dumpster find beach cruiser frame that had broken cantilevers and a stuck seatpost, than I spotted a giant 64 tooth chainring on a Schwinn exercise bike that was sitting on a curb for a few weeks and it started to fall together. I found a Specialized Allez road fork in the junk pile at our shop that fit mighty close and accentuated the curve of the down tube than the bike kept evolving. Behold, the mighty surf bike. Total money invested was $25 (I already had the rack from previous use. My favorite factoid was I left the stuck seatpost in place and slipped this one over, cut to fit and screwed it into place .
To by or not To by – April. 07, 2025
The other day a fantastic coincidence happened. A wonderful springer spaniel galloped into the shop with its people. They called the dog and I answered. We all laughed. The wonderful puppy’s name was Toby!
Now this is something of an inside joke in my family; when I was kid, I had a certain dislike for my name, because a good portion of new people I met would say “my dog’s name is Toby!” Or “I had a dog named Toby!”. As I grew older I leaned to embrace it, because dogs are the absolute best and we don’t even deserve them. Now I just have to gather every dog from David’s last tidbit and invade that restaurant full of Tobys! Who’s a good dog?!?!?!