Toby is an alchemist of bike love, a wizard of cycling culture and a prophet of adventuring by bicycle. We’re so stoked to have him plying his trade managing our bike shop, building up new bicycles, servicing old ones and fine tuning our showroom in anticipation of the return of cool weather and a functional Toole street in front of our building.
Toby has been living the bike shop life since 2004, getting started at the Sports Basement in San Fransisco before relocating to Ventura. In 2010, Toby co-founded the Ventura Bike Hub an amazing community bike shop. Toby helped build this organization into a thriving and integral part of Ventura’s cycling community and it was a tough and sad parting of ways for him and his partner Benicia to move on to Tucson. But it is also a testament of what they built that they can move along and pass their leadership on to the next generation of HUB leaders.
Beyond bicycle wrenching and riding, Toby’s interests include surfing, restoring old cars and traveling with his family.
Anand and the Colorado Trail. – August. 10, 2025
We had the pleasure last week of a friend and customer Anand dropping in with donuts and pictures and tales of the Colorado Trail. Anand got his TimberJack from us a year ago with plans to rock the Colorado Trail with a friend. Time went on, the friend bailed, but Anand kept trucking and fulfilled his dream of riding the Colorado Trail. It was so awesome to see the progress of his setup and then get to see all cool pictures and hear the tales from the trail.
Check out this rad picture from his trip!
Silly Rabbit – August. 04, 2025
I was stoked to go see the world premier at Slow Body Brewing of the short bike riding film by Tucson film makers Kirby Willow and Chloe Thomas. They Made the film with State bicycles, Presta Coffee and Transit Bikes. It was super cute and funny- the premise was that they rode bikes from Tucson to Bisbee in search of the elusive Jackalope. I loved it because I’m an avid Cryptid lover! It was also really sweet to see a large group of rad Tucson folks get together and brace the heat to enjoy this silly time together.
Give it a peep: https://youtu.be/CvUKrBk96Qc
A new frame bag for Cholla! – July. 28, 2025
My homie Cholla stopped by the shop the other day to show off their new frame bag! Cholla is a rad person and a frequent flier on the shop trips and has been dialing in their Esker Cycles Japhy rig. This is a custom frame bag from Lesenok Bags– a builder in Lviv, Ukraine.
Beyond the great fabric with an amazing strawberry pattern, it really fits Cholla because they teach horticulture and are a desert plant specialist. It’s always a treat riding with Cholla because as you ride around, Cholla can identify all the cool and special plants and flowers!
Classy Monkey – July. 21, 2025
I was stoked the other night to get an invite to ride with some buds and enjoy a cooler evening sunset as well as a bunch of awesome critters. We had a list of things we hoped to see and got most of them. We were hoping to see snakes, owls, toads, frogs scorpions, and coati.
Unfortunately I forgot the black light for the scorpions so missed that one and we didn’t see any elusive Coati. But we did have a great time and stopped many times to toad watch, millipede watch, and snake watch. We listened to owl hoots echo across the canyon and watch them swoop around in search of the next meal. It’s always a nice reminder to get out and enjoy the space around you!
Classy Monkey – July. 14, 2025
I got the pleasure of working on a cool Make-It-Mine Karate Monkey this week. I enjoyed the customers choice of braided silver shift housing for the shifter and Dropper as well as the Silver Color kit and Waveform Pedals from WolfTooth, and matchy Sky Blue Holdfast Valves. It was all a classy but definitely cool choices that made for a fun bike.
Forkin around – July. 07, 2025
It’s been while since I’ve had an opportunity to straighten a fork. This fork came in with an unfortunate bent and twisted fork leg. The beauty with modern and vintage steel frames and why people love touring with them beyond the ride quality is if something gets bent you can safely and fairly easily bend it back. It seems when I worked in the vintage bike world we were often checking alignment and straightening forks and frames.
When we did this we had a really nice fork jig do you could find exactly where the bend started and go from there making adjustments until it is perfect. Luckily David brought his jig into the shop and we hooked it up and made the proper adjustments using the jig and a frame bending tool. Once the legs were aligned, we used the candlesticks to straighten out the twist in the dropouts. Voila! A perfectly aligned fork!
It’s a Haboob! – June. 30, 2025
The other evening after closing the shop I had an ill advised idea of riding up a mountain- a cool peak that stands out just outside of downtown and the site of Tucson’s birth and its name. It was a cool 103’ F when leaving the shop and a touch of humidity and wind that made for some rough conditions, but I was determined to get some bike riding in. I cruised up the mountain huffing and puffing and felt the wind pick up and some drips on my back and arms.
As I rounded the top I was greeted by an amazing sight- a large dust storm slowly enveloping the whole city. It was an amazing sight with visibility dropping and bursts of lightning. I rushed down the mountain to get home before it got to me and just got maybe a mile of harsh headwinds and dust in the eyes.
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?!?!?!