Judging the bicycle type categories of cyclocross, track, etc., comes with a subjectivity with which I’m not entirely at peace. Of course, one alternative is to adopt a points system that ...
Monthly Archives: February 2018
2018 NAHBS: Best TIG Welding and Best Layup
There are competitions in which a competitor can be disqualified from future competition after winning too many times. I grew up in Memphis, a place whose water supply was fed by artesian wells. ...
The Boycott
The Parkland, Florida, shooting. What can you say? That we allow this to persist in the face of empirical evidence that these shootings can be stopped has made us the laughingstock of the first ...
Patronized, Catcalled and Mansplained: One Woman Speaks Up
I could tell you a million stories. I bet you have a million of your own. At least, you do if you are a woman. There’s the time I pulled up to a red light in the dead of winter, wearing ...
Friday Group Ride #398
You know how it is. You roll up to meet the group. This guy said he’d be there, but isn’t. That woman who rides with the crew sometimes is there, and she’s ready to go, because ...
2018 NAHBS: Best Lugged Frame and Best Fillet-Brazed Frame
The construction categories are, in some ways, the toughest categories to judge, even though they often have the fewest entries. There’s a fair dollop of subjectivity to what makes for the ...
Paceline Podcast #104
Our man Patrick is back from the North American Handmade Bicycle Show and has stories to tell. As chief judge he, with the help of fellow judges Tom Kellogg (yes, that Tom Kellogg of Spectrum ...
2018 NAHBS: Best Mountain Bike
When NAHBS organizer Don Walker tapped me to be chief judge, I relaxed a great number of rules. I stressed to builders that our job is to recognize great work rather than find out who follows ...
2018 North American Handmade Bicycle Show: Best in Show
There was a surprise in this year’s awards at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show: a mountain bike won. It’s the first time that has happened in the 14 years of the show. ...
His and Hers Race Tires: Kenda Valkyrie Pro
If confidence came in a bottle, I would buy my wife a case. I would put a hydration beverage in one cage and a bottle of confidence in the other. She’s not so much nervous as she is cautious. ...