Black metal and tacos?

What could be better? Via album tacos.

You all should move here

Friday night the Mrs. and I met Mitch Kline and his Mrs. in The City for dinner at Una Pizza Napolitana.  In case you are not aware, Mitch is the guy responsible for the Soulcraft website.  He lives in Denver.  Booo.  The guy working the pizza oven is Anthony Mangieri, owner of said pizzeria and kind of a big deal in the pizza world.  He recently shut down his place in Brooklyn and moved west.  After a months long battle with The City zoning and permits people, he's finally open.  I can't say what an inspiration it was to be at his place and watch him work.  Totally stripped down with a complete focus on the art of making pizza.  Not at all what most of us grew up eating on Friday nights with the family.  Totally blew my wig back.

Anthony owns 3 Soulcrafts, and recently had his old Plowboy shipped out.  I spied it on my way to the bathroom.

Anthony telling Mitch he needs to move here.

Great sticker collection.
 

On Saturday morning before Biketoberfest started we managed a ride at Tamarancho with Paul and Renee from Paul Components and Mike Varley from Black Mountain Cycles.  We got in trouble for riding the fire road.  "Bikes are supposed to stay on the singletrack!"  Yes ma'am!

Biketoberfest has turned into a nice gathering of local frame builders.  We've all been seeing a lot of each other lately, which is nice.

We were next to Curtis Inglis.  If you want to know what colors will be hot this season, just look at his shoes. 

Have you got the eye of the tiger?

We here in the Soulcraft camp do. They just happen to both be blood shot.

Guess I better start training

Cause I got into 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo as a solo rider. Now I'm scared.
And I haven't been training, at least not for long rides like that. I've been doing this:
And some of this:
And plenty of this:
But, I guess it's not hard to want to go out and ride when the forest looks like this right now:
Yeah, that's nice.

Gran La Fonda

Our highly unorganized Gran La Fonda bike show the night before Levi Leipheimer's Gran Fondo was an unmitigated success.  By setting the bar so low to begin with, we had nowhere to go but up.  No fees for the builders or public, free beer, etc., we wanted this to be the anti-bike show.  We had somewhere around 15 builders from Portland to Santa Cruz.

As you can see, the accommodations were meager but fitting.  A partially burnt-down loading dock makes a way nicer hangout than an expo hall.  The guys from Whiskeydrunk Cycles showed up with their Whiskeydrome. Curtis, Jeremy, and I climbed in and took a spin.  Completely frightening at first but with a crowd looking on, we represented fairly well.

Whiskeydrunk also brought out their crazy people powered rigs that were built for the Hand Car Regatta.  Impressive doesn't begin to cover it.

Handmade bike shows are all the rage these days and with all the great local talent it's a bit of a mystery why we haven't had one here before.  Actually, it's not a mystery.  We're lazy, and would rather spend our free time riding.  Speaking of which, riding was the whole reason behind the show.  The next morning all the builders met up to take part in the Gran Fondo.

 We even got Bruce Gordon to show up with his insane creation.

 
We decided the "medio" route of 65 miles would be more to our liking than the 105 mile route.  Of course we had to modify that slightly with a run up Willow Creek Rd.  Typical of frame builders, we opted to hide from potential customers.

 

Check out Curtis Inglis and Rick Hunter working on the best way to look cool while waiting around.  "So where do I put my right hand?"

We have to acknowledge the crew at Bike Monkey (that's Monkey #2, Greg Fisher, after Patrick Dempsey wouldn't autograph his left breast) for helping us make the Gran La Fonda possible.  These guys and gals (15 of them I think) are responsible for pretty much every bike race in Sonoma county (and elsewhere), including the Gran Fondo, which helps raise money to pay for the Tour of California when it rolls through Santa Rosa.  In a few short years they have helped make Sonoma county more of a cycling destination than it was already.  After looking back on the whole weekend, I have to say I'm even more proud to call this place home.  Not that I didn't know what we had here, but to see it all come together like that was inspiring.  I can't wait until next year.

Help!!

Hello Team!
I have a favor to ask...I want to race 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo as a soloist this year, but it sold out in like 6 hours.
However, the nice folks at Epic Rides have opened 10 slots to the people who get the most votes on FaceBook...now I wasn't even part of that social network crap until about an hour ago. But, I want to get into the race!!! So please pretty please, go to Epic Rides Facebook page and find my plea (my name is Lindy Lee on there) and thumbs me up!

Thanks and I'll let y'all know if I get in!

Linden

JANE! STOP THIS CRAZY THING!