Memorial Day (new photos)

Lots of bike related news and photos.

First up: The Westside Invite.

The Westside Invite is a west coast bike messenger race held on Memorial Day Week-end in Portland every year. Jon decided to race the this year. Jon is a 1/3 partner in Tonic, a fantastic welder, a parent of a skateboarder, and a damn good cook. He trys to keep a low profile, but his striking resemblence to young Richard Gear gets him a lot of attention anyway. Jon is sitting next to Drew , taking full advantage of the warming and pain-numbing effects of beer after a cold and wet Alley Cat Race: HPIM1115.JPG

One no-show for the race, Alfred Bobe, defending "King of the Track" (fastest fixed gear rider) from the NACC, and Tonic rider. No word on why he couldn't make it to defend his title, but I know we would have liked to have seen him ride. Fortunately former PDX resident, Bill Dozer, was able to return from NYC for the event. Bill's a very talented writer and organziner. Bill's excellent site can be found here. I also managed to pick-up a new copy of a Seattle Bike culture magazine called Cranked. It's worth getting, if possible. Small, but glossy, and with excellent photography.

One of the check points in the main race was an obstacle course course which included a teeter-tooter, a slalom, a narrrow bridge over a pool of Organic Hobo Pee and a finally through a wasteland of old X-mas trees, scooters and 2x4's. Here are as many good photos from the event as I could take with Tonic Fab's (again) broken camera!?!? That story below...

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It's been raining a ton here and I think everyone's been going a little crazy because of it. I had already been at the Salem Indoor Park the previous week with Aaron Lutze, where we had an exclusive run of the place. I really hope this Park gets some more traffic, because it's well laid-out, well made, and really fun.

This week, I went to the Park with Drew and we had a really memorable session. Scottish photographer and Dig Magazine contributor Fred Murray was there, along with Metal Bikes pro, Caleb Rucker, a slightly broken "little" Kaleb (2nd in Pro at the OC Park jam), as well as recent pdx transplant Gilles, who's working on opening a arts collective and cafe off Belmont, in addition to a Salem local whose name escapes me. Amazing session that lasted untill well past 1am. Everyone used the park completely differently, with some especially creative riding done by Gilles. I look forward to riding with him more in the future. As you can imagine Caleb Ruecker and Little Kaleb destroyed the place. Speaking of destruction, I wound up breaking our camera again crashing on a fufanu attempt gone wrong. I'm fine, but it looks like the camera will need to be repaired again. The lesson, again..don't ride park with camera in your pocket.

Here's the only photo I've got from that night....
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Over and out.

L

The Footloose Dance

You've just clicked onto the Tonic Fab Journal.
Continuing any further will jeoprdize your duty to your intellect, as well as any thread of respect that you may have for your free time. It's not too late to leave....




First up, here's Vassili, a resident of New York city, and Fall Guy rider. He's taken the time to send some great photos of his bike and himself in action, this time at the infamous Brooklyn Banks.
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I'd like to share 2 recent Tonic Fab references in the media.. The first comes courtesy of Aaron Lutze from matchvideozine. Scroll down to the 5.20.06 entry and find evidence of myself and Aaron at the Tualitin skatepark. Tiny park, big fun.

On the topic of skateparks, I rode with Brandon from RiverCity Bicycles at the WestLinn park a couple weeks ago. Beyond excellent park. Photos:
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The second media reference is in this month's issue of "Mountain Bike" in an article about the Gathering. There's a great photo of Scott Matual in it, as well as Seattle heavy hitters Phil Sunbaum, Travis Erikson, and event organizers gohuckyourself.com Mountain Bike is a Rodale publication, so it's fairly well distributed if you are curious to check it out.

In other media news, Stump503 has redone their website, and it looks fantastic. Erik is a real talent.

Speaking of new webistes, Litter. Boldly shaking the foundation of the world's postal service with an excellent on-line bike magazine.

While on the topic of media, I just got the Lotek Mixtape video. This is a video not to be missed. And it's only $5. They will not be amused if you try to "hook-up an industry deal" on this disc. On the $5 or less tip, I also went to see the Dave Chappelle Block Party movie, and it was uplifting, excellent and funny.

Lotek brings us to Goods BMX, an exclusive BMX shop here in PDX. Goods sponsored a Jam (along with Bruce Crisman) at the OC skate park which I missed, although Tony made it. Sounds like some really strong riding went down, and conrats to KC, for winning Pro, with
"little" Caleb in second. More info can be found here.

Unfortunately, local S&M Bikes Pro, "Little" Jeff Landtiser went down again, this time to his face. I hope he heals quickly...he's an incredible rider.

The reason I didn't make it to the Jam was because I was loaded into a car with bikes and riders and driving North to Seattle and Olympia. Rode Dart and Softies. Really cool to see everyone progress and get better throughout the day. Aaron rode exceptionally well, cleaning a large set at Dart. I wish I had better photos, but this is all I got...
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By the way, Aaron, Charlie and Ryan's trails are making serious progress. This place is going to be awesome.HPIM1023.JPG

Good friend, Rob L. and I got in some great XC riding last week as well. Hood River was Excellent. We both like to pedal, jump, and wear skimpy outfits, so how much more fantastic could things get?
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For those concerned about when the next round of Fall Guys will be available:
We will be receiving the remainder of the the parts we need early next week. A lot of the tubing is cut, and we should be a good position to get them out fairly quickly. Track frames will be run immdiately after the Fall Guys.

That's all for now.

L

Happy Trails.

A hopeless void of interesting or useful material hasn't prevented us from draging on with this pointless "brand building" excercise yet, so why stop now?

Those who seek to uphold the journalistic integrity of "cyber space" have been thankful for the unusually long interval between the most recent Tonic Fab log entries. We've given those sensitive to quality and taste the equivalent of a 3 day week-end, and for that we deserve cakes, beer and cheeses from around the world.

Although it's usually a complete lack of motivation that holds us up, this time it was a broken camera. There are less expensive, and more effective forms of protection to use while you are riding a skatepark than a small digital camera in your pocket, but that's life; live and learn. Unfortunately I missed getting photos of new S&M Bikes Pro, Jeff Landtiser, back in action (sorta) after a horribly broken foot, and Justin Inman using the tiny Oregon City skatepark in the most deft manner imaginable (actually this is very hard to imagine without seeing it.)

Before I get into the thick of my Trail Odyessy, I'd like to take a small detour and intoduce a new-ish member of the Tonic Fab Family of bikes. This is our Cyclocross bike. There's been a bad photo of it on our webiste for some time, but if you've been racing 'cross in our region, you may have seen it. Ian Brown (designer of our website) has been racing cross, short-track mountain bike, training , commuting, and crashing this frame for the past 2 years without a single problem. Creak, crack, or otherwise.
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Properly set-up it delivers up to .25" of rear wheel travel. The spring rate is tunable with differenent material and wall thickness "tubes" which bolt into the stays. The bike is light, comfortable, and BEAUTIFUL in a subtle, mechanical, and modern way. A small quantity will be ready for this CX season. Save your pennies if you want one; they won't be cheap.


Onto getting as much air underneath your tires as possible.

May 7th, a Sunday, was scheduled to be the first in a series of Go Huck Yourself.com Jump Jams. I drove up (no small expense with gas at $3.15/gallon!) a day earlier and saw my parents in Olympia, and hit the infamous Dart Trails. These are probably considered warm-up jumps in some circles. For me however, Dart is pretty big stuff. DART_SCAPE_small.JPG , LARGE_DART_sm.JPG > Definately the largest gap I've had to clear in a rhythm section. Lots of hang time here. Even though this section has perfect flow, I've never felt entirely comfortable here.

From Dart it was up to Seattle, where I met-up with Seattle local Scot Matual, and Potland local, Paul Laclava for some more riding. First spot was Green Lake. Nice, mellow, public and legal area. Scot has the place dialed. Great flow, and turndowns over the larger sets. This blurry photo is all I've got. SCOTT_TURNDOWN.JPG

From Greenlake it was onto a top secret intown location. I will not reveal the location of this place, but it is INCREDIBLE. The most incredible set I've seen. Steep, winding, and perfect. I only mananged to make it through the first half before I decided to back out. I don't have the courage or skill to get that place figured out quickly. Fortunately Scott was there to show us how it's done. Big thanks to Scott and Rama (man responsible for these trails) for showing me this amazing set. Why is Scott a blur in all my photos? Is he a vampire?
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The next day, I woke up and it was POURING in Oly. It seemed impossible that the Jump Jam could go on that day. For some strange reason, no rain fell at Softies (less than 1 hour north) and the conditions couldn't have been better. Blue skys and cool air made for a perfect day to play outside. Travis Erikson and crew have put in an enormous amount of work, and Softies was running perfectly. As per every other GHY event; good vibes and great riding. These pictures will do a far better job explaining the day than I could.
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^ Luciano riding a Simple. Simple's are made in Yakima, Wa. by Oscar. Nice bikes.
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^Signature Flow.
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^Wish I had some better photos of Billy riding, but I don't. Billy's an incredible rider, and is sponsored by Union Street Bikes. You can find photos of him here.
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^Charley. Testing the limits of a $4 department store tire.
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^Not only was he landing tailwhips to pedals cleanly, he also pulled a very clean and casual 720. And I can't remember his name?
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^Guy Marsh borrowed Sean M's (2nd place expert park at the gathering) one off brake-less Fall Guy and really destroyed the place. Huge everywhere, stylish...true "NW" style. Check him out here and here.
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^Most people know Phil Sunbaum for his deep bag of tricks, but it was really nice watch him just ride through Softies straight. Probably went higher than anyone else, and with real style. Really nice to watch.

That's all I got. More (and way better) photos here.