Movies

8000 Ballons

One Bowl

Filmed at the Department of Skateboarding in PDX.

Friend of Tonic Fab, Patrick Lavalley, helped put the creepy, but somehow amazing short film together for the Insomnia Film Festival. 24 hours to make a legit movie.

Palomino.

Finally, this looks totally excellent? Electronical.

Fluent.

Pierre is fluent in French, English, Trails, Street and Park.

Thanks for sending these in.

Trails action on his brake-less Fall Guy.


Big Street Fakie. Damn.


Nice euro out of a quarter.


Ejecting from a flip.


-L

Super !

Charlie: Super Flow.


Howie: Super Nice.


Raya: Super Dog.


P-Funk: Super Bird.



Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi: Super Smart. This really blew me away. Tough to get much much smarter or resourceful than this fellow. Cheers!



-L

Team / Message

What does it take to ride for Tonic Fab? When the city of Portland turned this brick bank into a hobo pee area, a lot of riders thought the place was done.

Not P.Funk. Hobo pee or not, he's still sending it on the banks. And that's why Tonic Fab salutes P.Funk.


Sometimes you just want the best.


Another message...

Farm Life

This landed in my inbox.

I think I met Brett a couple years ago at Whistler. He's a Kiwi who built Supertrack.

He was trying to qualify for Crankworx.

He was at least as good as anyone riding in Crankworx. Really, really good rider.

Anyway, enjoy these photos of his farm in New Zealand. If you like getting both wheels of your bike off the ground at the same time, this looks like the place you want to be....

NZ is soo good. I did a bike tour there a few years ago, and it's amazing. Salt in wound is that the good weather is just starting to happen there too..

A Message From The Leader

Take Heed!

From the rodeo films blog..

Take It or Leave It

Be there or be square tommorow night (from Goods):

-L

Adventures in Computing

I don't know why the Blogger isn't allowing me to upload photos. I've got loads at the moment, specfically from our exlosive French Canadian Friend, Pierre, and locals Chaz and P-Funk getting busy on their Fall Guys, old and new. Bear with this boring text.

I spoke with Tonic Fixed Gear Rider, Alfred Bobe the other day. He's won Monster Track for the past 2 years on one of our rare Track Frames. Besides racing, he's also ridden the frame continually for the past 2 years as a messenger. I figure a year under Alfred is equal to about 7 to 10 years under the average rider, so the frame is proven. I think we'll call the track frame the Supernaut. I was leaning towards Sharkysmachine, but naming a street trackbike after a cop seemed wrong. Also in the mix was Kowalski, the lead character in the Vanishing Point, but that just doesn't roll off the tongue very well. A bike version of the Vanishing Point is something worth aspiring to..probably the best time you could imagine on a bike with both wheels on the ground.


These frames will be available around the first of the year. Got to get the Howie's and Fall Guys going first..

Speaking of those frames...Howie's are in-process. The Howie has also survived the Animal Testing Program and is Dialed.

Even though we don't advertise and go about things in a very peculiar fashion, there appears to be more demand than supply of the Howie, so we'll have a sign-up list with a small deposit for the first run of frames. We'll get that running around the first week of November.

Nau, or Later?

Nau Cloting. A new eco-groovy, and decidely humourless clothing company out of Portland with millions in venture capital. They have a very nice website and good looking clothing.
After reading about this company, I'm almost 100% sure the path out of this mess is paved with stylish, but functional, $200 chinese made jackets.

Blah, Blah, Blah...

Now for: "Who Wrote This?"

then I notice my watch saysi'm overdo
for my big apointment at the local drive through
i do a number on the accelerator
and i'm cutting in line about 30 seconds later
what do you think this is?
some kind of joke?
give me ten big macs and a small diet coke
i pull up to the window with the radio playing
i grab the bag and leave without paying


Listening to Ministry "Lay Lady Lay"

-L

It ain't hard to tell...

Dex can get his Fall Guy OVER on some trails.


Greg's frame has one trick seat binder.


Tim out of NY can get tabled.

Tim's got a nice Fall Guy.




-L

Jam Pics

Here are a few poor to OK quality photos I took.
Watching these guy ride was simply amazing. What's more amazing is the hard work and imagination that's gone into this place. Very inspirational.

Ryan Barrett moved from Pittsburg to Portland. Watching him ride was a real treat.

Didn't get this guy's name, but he was incredible to watch ride.

PK.

Little Jeff. Big Turndown.

Little Jeff. Again.

Inman. Damn.

Charles, kicking out.

Jeff?

Ryan Barrett, again.

Decade Jam

Tonic was invited to a 10 year anniversary jam at some of the most incredible trails in the NW. Much thanks and respect to all involved. More photos later.

Suspension Born From Passion.

Prepare to be blown away.

Short Clip

This is the first video I've ever done.
All footage from one day with a digital camera, so please be easy..

New, Shiney Things.

"New Products" are usually about as exciting as cold pizza, but I've encountered a few recently which I think are worth a mention.

Probably the coolest company in "action sports" at the moment: Comet Skateboards. Read about these guys...it'll make your day a little brighter.


This could possibly be the most exciting nugget of info to come out of Interbike (besides the Odyssey hubs.)

LH Thomson has verified they will indeed be producing seatpost clamps. I'm thinking these could wind up coming with every Tonic frame...

-L

2-Hip Meet the Street

If you are old, you'll love this. Dave Voelker and Craig Campbell are awesome

The Great North / Epsom Jam

I'm Canadian. So is Amos, who rides for Black Market. How rad is this photo? Amos is getting back from a badly broken leg, and so there's hope. I'll never ride as well him, but I'll ride again. I expect Amos will create quite a stir at Supersessions this year. Or at least get way better photos and footage than the "bigger names." I've seen him ride, and he's good.


Anyway, the bad news is that some random douche punched The Baaron in Whistler, knocking out his 2 front teeth. Perhaps posting the 4th fastest time down A-line (amongst some heavy hitters), building the best trails in PDX, and having more flow than a broken dam was just a little to much awesome for someone to handle. Sometimes life is tough. Word is the puncher is now turning his pillow cover into a skirt in some dank Canadian Gulag.

Here's great clip of a Stephen Murray jam in England. The Pixies and the riding are worth watching a few times.


-L

Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic

Naming a bike is hard. A model name, or simply for your own personal use, names are tough. I don't know how Issac Hayes came up with Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic, but it's one of the best names I'm aware of.

Anyway, here's a few photos of a bike we call the Howie:

I think Paul is running a Chris King hub in his Howie. It makes a pretty distictive sound, and how cool are these axle bolts? We tried to make the drop-outs as small as possible.


Aaron runs a Mid-BB, Hope Mini discs, Thomson stem/seatpost and Profile hubs/cranks. The yoke on the Howie is laser cut, machined, formed and heat-treated.


Aaron's riding, trails, and bikes follow a theme. It's called "dialed."


-L

Guy / Bruce Crisman / Gnar-B-Q / GF in a bag

Guy with a photo-of-the-day on a pink bike, on Pinkbike. Yup.


I still can't believe Aaron Ross won street rider of the year. Enjoy Crisman's Facad section, which definately registers as an instant classic to me. Having a few clips of Inman blasting some trails doesn't hurt either...

Also, weather willing, this should go down:



Finally, I thought this was pretty clever: Girlfriend in a Bag.

-L

More Interbike Sweetness

A few other things about Interbike. Even though I didn't go.

The good people at Howtoavoidthebummerlife captured our Cross Specialist, Ian Brown, in Vegas. He's eating a dollar. Which, if you think about it, is cheaper than eating a Powerbar. And probably tastes better. We salute you Ian Brown.



Probably the coolest bike gadget going wasn't in Vegas. It was on Greg's bike. Here's the threaded top-tube seat post tightening device his bike uses. Sano.



And finally, the Nora Cup.

Aaron Ross won "Street Rider." Bruce Crisman wasn't even mentioned. Where is the justice?

(Not so) Big in Japan.

Tonic hosted a vistor from Japan.

Teisuke is our Japanese distributor.

He wears many hats. Besides the enormous task of convincing the Japanese people they need Tonic's, Teisuke also distributes a smaller, more obscure brand called "Black Market."

Teisuke also makes bike movies, sponsors 4 riders, and writes for a Japanese bike magazine. He used to work at Kuwahara back when Kuwahara made bikes so he knows a thing or two about a thing or two about bikes.

Although the weather wasn't the best, we tried to show Teisuke a good time while he was here. Big thanks to Aaron and Charlie for rolling out the PDX welcome wagon, and again sending a vistor home smiling.

Charlie. He now has a job. Charlie with money. Think about that for a minute.


A photo from our shop. the first new Fall Guy next to the first old one.


Teisuke doing some riding out in the Gorge.


Teisuke managed to get some great photos. Here's the Baaron floating through his trails. Teisuke's Flicker is here.



That's all for now.

-L