The End of the Month

Goodbye Bike Month!

We will miss you, but we will still enjoy the ride!



18 Days

Eighteen Days till the ride!



Dust Off Your Ride

Time is getting short, it's time to dust off that old ride and get it ready for the Alpena Seersucker Ride!

It doesn't matter what you ride, but check your tire pressure, chain and brakes. Make sure your bike is safe to ride BEFORE you try to ride with a group.



Happy Memorial Day

In Remembrance to our Fallen Soldiers.

Thank You

Super Capes

Cool Lids

Some ideas...

Wear the Hinny Meets the Saddle

While many people spend hours sweating over what kind of bike to ride or buy, sometime you can improve an old friend (or a slightly used new friend) with a few accessories. The two most important to my mind are quality tires (which we shall leave to another post) and a quality saddle (that’s a bike seat to the novice). Remember this is the part of the bike that makes contact with some of your most interment parts. You deserve something that will give you the support you need.

 

While I love the feel of a classic, leather Brooks B17, many other people would say the old girl is as uncomfortable as she looks. While you can read online and print reviews till your eyes fall out, the best way to make sure something works for you is to see if you can borrow one from another rider. After all, your hinny is probably not exactly the same as mine (and you are lucky if it is not).

Our 100th Post!

  We made it to 100 Posts!

Thanks Everyone!

Nothing to Wear

Time to start thinking about what to wear for the Alpena Seersucker Ride!



Some Nice Caps

I have done a few posts about things that “look” cool, but in fact I have not used… well this time I am going to talk about a few things I have. So here is my ode to caps.

Cycling Caps:

If you want to go with the classic cycling look, something you can tuck under a helmet, and is still easily look stylish in at stops, you can’t beat a cycling cap.

First I will go with an obvious call and say Walz Caps makes wonderful caps… but I feel like that's saying Pepsi or Coke make wonderful colas. Walz, who seems to have their ads all over the place, carries two basic styles, a three panel that makes ones face seem thinner, and a four panel style that gives a great rounded look. They all seat deep on your head, and I find the wool sucks up a lot of sweat on a warm day. If you aren't a wool person, they also have cotton, hemp blends, and wick away poly caps.

Three Panel

Four Panel

A lesser known maker is Alloneword, a small shop out of California, that makes custom caps. While the cotton cap I bought doesn’t really fall into the Tweed Ride style (it is really on the loud side), Mary Elizabeth the owner/operator of this Etsy shop will pretty much make you anything you like. Her cap fits well, and rides higher on my head than my Walz Caps, something people with smaller heads may prefer. Half the fun of this cap was that the owner made me exactly what I wanted. So while you may buy yourself a sweet Our Lady of Guadalupe cap, I am sure it will not look just like mine. Now if you want something more tweedish, there are also wool caps (see below).

Flat Caps:
Unlike cycle caps, flat caps (in their vast array of styles) need to be tried on before you buy them. There are many makers, but they are not all equal, not only is there a difference in quality, there is also a difference in shape/fit. While some are cut to fit someone with a round head, others are cut to fit someone with a long, thin cranium like the author. It is also important to think of the look that you want to pull off. Some caps are intended to have "puffy" side, while others to give a streamlined effect.

My original venture into the Flat Cap arena was with two high end caps from TLS Classics. Both were form there Harris Tweed Collection, made in the USA, and of the classic Ivy Cap cut. While many people make similar caps, I have found none that fit my head as well.

A few years later I picked up two Pub style caps from Stefeno, and while I also like these caps, the main selling point at the time was that they cost about one sixth of the price of my  originals so I didn’t care if they got used or abused. I did not realize until I started writing this post that Stefeno/TLS are apparently the same company. (I don't think this was always true, but it is hard to find info about the hat/cap market.) All four caps are well built, and have gotten many complements over the years.

Ivy Cap

Pub Cap

While I personally think the Ivy Cap cut is more sophisticated, and I will almost always wear this with a suit coat, the Pub Cap, with its deep seat, works better while riding your bike fast, or on windy days. Lately I find myself choosing the Pub Cap more often than not.

I have also picked up a nice pub cap from New York Hat Company. The wool is much lighter then the above listed caps (definitely nice on hot summer days) and also has an elastic hat band that gives it a more universal fit. Where the elastic on most cycling caps is pretty obvious, this hat hides it in a way that you are the only one who knows it is there, but it adds to the security of the hat on a windy day.  (This seem trivial until your hat is blown in a multi-lane road,  then it's not as funny).

While most warm days I don't mind a light wool cap, there are those days were fashion is not worth the heat. For this reason I picked up a 100% linen Ivy Cap form Cavanagh Hats. While they are better known for their wool/fur felt hats, I really liked this linen hat not only because it is light, but because unlike many cotton/linen/summer Flat Caps, it kept the streamlined look of the wool caps that I love.

There are other great hat companies that people have recommended to me like Scala, Kangol, Broner, Bailey and others that I don't recall off the top of my head, but so far I have not invested in their wares. Feel free to leave a comment about types you have tried! 

Biking Big Time

Beautiful Sunshine

So today was a beautiful day to go on a ride... but I forgot one thing about beautiful days when you are a little paste...

...that sun will burn you something fierce!

So now my nose looks like I have been on a 20 year bender (cycling caps don't cover big noses well I guess)...

... my neck is defiantly a little red...

... and the back of my hands look a little splotchy! I hope I just earned a few more freckles, and not skin cancer! So learn from my mistake, besides a little Seersucker this summer, you probably need a little sunscreen too!

Some Nice Suits

Safety Last

For the most part, we at the Alpena Tweed and Bike Club have tried to stay out of some of the bigger debates within the bicycling world. Primarily because our goal is to promote riding for fun in general and more specifically our seasonal rides. Now we have actually taken a little flack from a few readers for not actively promoting bike helmets in either photos or print.  They are arguing that the helmet is the primary safety device for safe riding. We have maintained as adults operating within your legal rights, that the choice is up to the individual, and have felt that there are tons of blogs out there to talk about bicycle safety… until now…

So why am I bringing this up now you ask? Because I witnessed two incidents in the last week that illustrate, in my eyes at least, that without using that thing you rest the helmet on, you might as well leave the safety cap back at home.  

Case #1: I witnessed two bicyclists in full sports gear riding through town in single file at a good clip. At first I was just checking out their sweet rides (bicycle envy can strike at any time), when I noticed that the front rider was actually riding so that they were facing backwards so that they could talk to the rider behind them. Now this wasn’t a quick glance, or a fast word, this was a multiple block conversation where both riders were distracted, even if they were riding in a straight line. Now if they got in a wreck, they were wearing their helmets, but it’s not like we say it’s ok to drink and drive as long as you wear your seat belt. This bugged me, but I let it go, until today…

Case #2: This incident involved a sporty looking young lady riding a cruiser. Now she was also wearing a bicycle helmet… but she was also talking on her cell phone, with it crammed between her shoulder and ear. As if this wasn’t bad enough, she was also riding with a coffee cup in her one hand. Now where the riders in Case #1 were at least going in straight line, this girl was all over the road.

Distracted driving is distracted driving.  Where a bicycle helmet might help you in a crash, keeping your head in the game will most likely keep you out of the crash in the first place. Please use the safety device that you were born with.

Ride with a Friend

Care of Wool

While doing some research for a blog post, I ran across a post that had all the information I was looking for, so instead of rewriting it I will just direct you there...

Rivendell Bicycle Works has a great post about "bike clothing" that might help people looking at joining us for the Seersucker or Tweed Ride. While it's not about fashion, it is about function. 

More importantly, after you make the leap there is also a great post about cleaning up your wool and seersucker.

Ride in Style

Robert Montgomery

Susan Peters

Harold Lloyd