Rock The Bike: BLOG
Looking for cruising partners
Hey…I live in Mt View ca and am looking for cruising partners. I can travel from San Jose to SF to Santa Cruz. I have a Phat cycle linkage chopper and a GT Slick Daddy. Anyone interested email me…. crh4978@yahoo.com
CRH
Cruisin’ With the Southbay Cruisers: “The Aloha Boogie” Ride
WHEN: July 20th, 2007 Meet at 8:15PM/Ride at 8:30PM
WHERE: We meet in front of the Lighthouse Cafe at the Hermosa Pier Plaza in Hermosa Beach(30 Pier Avenue, Hermosa Beach,CA)
HERE’S THE PLAN: Grab your hawaiian/surfer wear – hawaiian shirts, coconuts, flip flops, leighs, grass skirts, bikinis, beach towels – and
whatever else hawaiian or surfer related that you can think of. Don’t be afraid to decorate your bike too! Then come out on a ride with us! We will play all kinds of dance music as well as our favorite surfer songs as we ride through the streets and neighborhoods of Hermosa and Redondo Beach. Get ready for some fun activities and a few surprises along our route too! You won’t want to miss this, our seventh Southbay Cruiser Ride!
Our ride will be roughly 9 miles long and will be over mostly flat terrain with a few rolling hills. Single speed beach cruiser regularly come on our rides. (You dont’ have to dress up to attend, but we do encourage it.)
LINK TO A MAP OF THE RIDE IS FORTHCOMING
For details check out our website at www.southbaycruisers.com or email us at info@southbaycruisers.com.
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4th of July Fireworks cruise with the SF Cruisers
Join Fossil Fool and DJ Jojo for a cosmic fireworks cruise on the 4th of July.
On the playlist: Music that makes us proud to be American. Anything from Leonard Skinnard to Sugar Hill Gang. We’ll be playing our favorite American songs. If you’re planning on coming to the ride, please post a comment to this posting with your music suggestions. Or you could just bring an iPod.
This cruise will incorporate a downhill section to the Crissy Field area, where we’ll be in prime position to watch the fireworks. It will also include an uphill section, in order to get to the downhill section. We’ll be in Golden Gate park, the Presidio, and finally Crissy Field. There’ll be lots of natural scenery and beautiful ocean and bay sunset views. If we all concentrate really hard, we might even have a clear, warm night!
We tested this concept last year and had a great ride, stopping at an overlook to view the Fireworks on the way down. We’ll be starting a little earlier this year for a more relaxing ride. And I’ll be rolling the new Soul Cycle Chopper.
Meet at: The Panhandle by the new bandshell (between Clayton and Cole).
The Soul Cycle head unit Rocks!
I’ve been using the soul cycle head unit with two Infinity 2 way 6 x 9 car stereo speakers that I picked up on close out special at Best Buy. The system rocks our Southbay Cruisers rides in Hermosa Beach,CA. I’ve found it loud enough for cruiser rides of 20 – 35 people. People on the ride get a kick out of the fact that there is actually a stereo on my bike too. I love that it is so small – even smaller than the picture makes it seem. And I love that it has just one set of wires to connect to your speakers. And the battery seems to last forever. I’ve ran it for as long as 5 hours at a time without charging it. I can easily take it on and off of my xtracycle and I don’t need a trailer for it.
If you want a stereo for your bike that’s loud enough for a cruisers ride, yet quiet enough for your cruisers to hold an audible conversation, and you can’t afford a custom built soul cycle, this may be the one for you. You could probably build one yourself for less money, but if time is a valuable commodity to you, and you aren’t a bike stereo building guru-check out the soul cycle head unit.
read moreDiscovering Alternate Uses of the Down Low Glow, and rolling with the Long Tall Sally, an Xtracycle Tall Bike
Kipchoge and Eco invited me to a hard-rocking Manu Chao show on Wednesday night and uncovered a new use for the Down Low Glow. Our group of eight people was dancing in an enormous crowd at Bill Graham Auditorium. The room was dark, save for the strobe lights coming from the stage.
A few minutes into the show, we were already dispersed through the crowd. I caught a red glow in the corner of my eye and saw Kipchoge holding this intensely bright red line in his hand. It took me a minute to figure out he had grabbed the Down Low Glow from my bike. Our group came together and danced for a few songs before splitting apart again. Later we put the Down Low Glow on the floor and had a great disco circle a few minutes before a really hard moshing number came up and I grabbed the lights so they wouldn’t get kicked.
Then after the show I still had the lights in my pocket, and our group was totally split up. So I went out to my bike and just there making a peace sign with the DLG tubes sticking out from my finger in a big V. Within a few minutes, people I didn’t know were standing next to me, calling their friends on their cell phones, saying “I’m next to the guy with the neon lights!”
Kipchoge got up on the Long Tall Sally, the first ever Xtracycle tall bike with a passenger deck up at the top level! I had seen pictures from Interbike last year of an Xtracycle Tall Bike made by Aaron from Ride Your Bike.com, but there was no upper deck on that one.
Kipchoge’s is pretty sweet. I wish I had a shot of him and Eco ‘crowd-surfing’ it after the Manu Chao show, but alas, here are a couple from the night after, coming home from the Citizen Cope show at the Grand. And don’t miss this video.
Whoah, apparently Kipchoge is not the only one to think of a tall bike with a passenger seat. And not only that, it’s also called the Long Tall Sally.
read moreBART attendant loved my Down Low Glow, then gave me a ticket.
OK, maybe this will seem like a small thing to you, but it meant a lot to me.
I was coming home from the workshop on my racing bike with the Envy Green DLG, and I hit the West Oakland BART stop as usual. The BART attendant was walking back to her booth, and she stopped and said “Ooohhh, that’s a nice light! I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like that.”
So I told her a little about it and gave her a card. She said “that looks like a great gift for father’s day.”
Then as I was buying my ticket, she waived me over and handed me a $3 ticket. I told her “that’s the nicest thing anyone on BART has ever done for me.”
And she said, “That’s a shame.”
read moreCruisin’ with the Southbay Cruisers – “The Big 80′s Ride”
We are excited to announce our sixth ride which will start and end in front of the Lighthouse Cafe at Hermosa Pier in Hermosa Beach!
The Lighthouse Cafe
30 Pier Avenue
Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
(The Lighthouse Cafe is not a lighthouse. It’s a bar about 50 yards from Hermosa Beach Pier.)
We will meet on Friday, JUNE 15th, 2007 at 8:15PM/ride at 8:30PM SHARP-RAIN or SHINE.
HERE’S THE PLAN: We will start our musical journey from Hermosa Beach Pier and ride through the streets of Redondo and Hermosa. We strongly encourage you to come in costume. It’s not required for the ride, but it makes for a fun evening. And we are all about having fun on our rides. We will see Best 80’s Female, Best 80’s Male, and Best 80’s Couple get recognized. Also special recognition will be given to the most creatively decorated 80’s bike. We’ll be entertained by 80’s music booming from the soul cycle bike stereo system while on our musical journey.Hermosa Beach will never be the same again after this, our sixth Southbay Cruiser Bicycle Ride. You won’t want to miss it!
For more information see our website at www.southbaycruisers.com or send us an email atinfo@southbaycruisers.com
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What’s your locking style?
Do you have a unique locking style? How you lock the bike may affect how you Rock the Bike. Here’s one that caught my eye recently:
Bike locked to trash can in front of MetreonBike locked to trash can in front of Metreon
Close-up bike on trash can.: Guess he’s not worried about the paint job. Close-up bike on trash can.: Guess he’s not worried about the paint job.
read moreBike to Stern Grove ’07 Festival Concerts
http://www.sterngrove.org/concert_dates.html
What’s up SF Cruisers?
This year there are so many great free concerts at Stern Grove. I’d love to have the SF Cruiser Ride mobilize a daytime cruise to a bunch of these. My suggestions are in bold. Which ones do you want to hit? Post comments here and lets get the schedule nailed down so we can publicize it in the Guardian or Craigslist.
HUEY LEWIS & THE NEWS
The Paul Thorn Band
June 24
THE IDAN RAICHEL PROJECT
HYIM & the Fat fOakland Orchestra
(No hiphop headliners at this years show — this is as close as we get. Should be fun.)
July 1
PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND
Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers
Classic New Orleans jazz band. Should be very hot. Lavay Smith is a great vocalist.
July 8
SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY
James Gaffigan, Conductor
July 15
OS MUTANTES
Los Amigos Invisibles
July 22
Breathing Under Water, FEATURING ANOUSHKA SHANKAR & KARSH KALE
Non-Stop Bhangra Collective
July 29
ANDY PALACIO & THE GARIFUNA COLLECTIVE
EMELINE MICHEL
August 5
HUGH MASEKELA
GOAPELE
Hugh Masekela is an amazing African trumpet player who has created some very warm jazz instrumentals. I’ll definitely be at this one.
August 12
SAN FRANCISCO BALLET
Helgi Tomasson, Artistic Director
Ballet in the sunshin. Irrestistible.
August 19
SAN FRANCISCO OPERA
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A Beautiful Stretch cruiser
Thanks to Bike Rod N Kustom for posting this amazing cruiser, Elliot Norris’ Full Tilt. If you’ve never read BR&K before, it’s highly recommended. Great community site for the custom chopper and cruiser scene. A new ‘edition’ of this web magazine comes out, roughly, three times a year. And the editors host a cool series of events in Louisiana and New York.
