Monday Videos

Another day. Another Monday. After a weekend, the mind is always a little sluggish; so why not keep it simple today with a few videos to hopefully stimulate the mind on this Monday morning.

First, if there was any question on bike polo, this video sure does clear it up. Well... it doesn't but it was posted over a on the Hardcourt Bike Polo website, which is a great site to get an idea of the ins and outs of this segment of the cycling world.

The next video was posted over at Urban Velo last week: the Red Bull Minidrome. Yes, you read this correctly, minidrome. And yes, it is that sweet.

Red Bull Minidrome from Radar Films on Vimeo.

I'll leave you with a video I stumbled onto this weekend on the GR Bike Park. With the Mayor's ride coming up this weekend, it's exciting to see how this park has developed and is developing [plus, you can see Ryan and J-Bolt doing a few runs on the pump track]:

Just when you think the world has gone to hell...

With the world we live in, it's not hard to turn on the TV and see all the horrible things that occur on a daily basis. It's easy to think that things are or have gone to hell and a handbasket. Last night, Jacobi and his wife were watching the local news here in Grand Rapids when a story of a local man who got his bike stolen from out of his front lawn.

Unfortunately, most of us have experienced having a bicycle stolen or at least losing some thing very important to us. The kicker to this story is that this man has cerebral palsy and relies on his bike to get to and from work everyday. The area of town that the bike was stolen in a highly populated. with a strong cycling community; as Jacobi told us of this story, we all knew exactly the bike that was stolen and from where, most of us even knew who he was. You can read the story from Wood TV8 here or watch the video below that shows there is still a little hope left in the world.

Within 5 minutes of the story airing people rose up, wanting to correct the wrong that happened to Nicholas Knack. Amazing. We've worked with TerraTrike/WizWheelz for around 15 years and seeing how quickly Jack and the rest of the crew worked to help out is simply an encouragement that the people who have the nerve to steal will not get the last word in situations like this.

A huge hats off to TerraTrike and the GR community!

_

We also just received a few photos from the guys who we work with to get the Halo reflective coating done on our rims. The wheels shown is first Velocity Reflective wheelset we built, a B43 trackset, blacked out with the exception of the 1 white spoke through the Velocity Reflective sticker.

Photos by Hugh Forte

We shot the picture below for a new magazine out of Austin, TX: The Dropout. In their next issue there should be a little segment on the Velocity Reflective rims and wheels that we're looking forward to being a part of.



Have a great weekend everyone, get out and ride and work on your skids...

Dirt and Polo

Busy day here at Velocity but never too busy not to show off one of our rigs... Today, we have another one of Paul's, with a short write up:

After many years of mountain bike racing and many different mountain bikes, my IRO has put the fun back in mountain biking.

IRO 29er stats:

- IRO single speed frame and fork
- Velocity Blunt wheelset
- Avid mechanical disc brakes
- FSA crank
- Ritchey handle bar
- Ritchey seatpost
- Race Face stem
- Time ATAC pedals

From racing to pulling my kids around in the trailer, my IRO makes every ride a great ride!

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Staying with the mountain theme. We recently posted over on our Facebook page a video from an early run by Ryan on the new pump track at the GR Bike Park. Lots of hard work by a group of devoted volunteers has both the pump track and the first single track loop taking shape in time for the Mayor's ride and park clean up date on May 15th.

Finally, for all of our friends across the pond. No not Wisconsin, we mean the big pond... over in Amsterdam. We've hinted at our love for bike polo here and there's a little throw down right at the finish of the Giro d'Italia this Saturday. Check out their website for more details. You'll have a chance to win some of our Deep V rims and a few of our Bottle Traps.

Put that in your Trap

If you haven't made your way over to Urban Velo to check out the newly released May 2010 issue, I highly recommend it. We advertised again with them and this time decided to highlight the new Bottle Trap.

As we've mentioned in the past, we developed the Bottle Trap to replace the Velocage after the machine used to make them continued to break down. It was a sad day to see that decision be made since the Velocage had been with us from the beginning. We were adamant about whatever we decided to replace it with needed to be just as versatile, strong and light as it's predecessor.

The design of the Bottle Trap went beyond our expectations, after getting the prototypes we were blown away with how well they held a bottle in place. And truth be told, it was when we were taking product shots that it was discovered the massive array of containers that fit in it. The Bottle Trap truly allows you to pick your poison for 'hydration'. With a price between $6-$8, depending on your shop, the cost to weight ratio [29 grams], the Bottle Trap is hard to argue against.

In the months since it's release, the Bottle Trap as gotten a number of great reviews/recommendations from across the spectrum of riders:

'I've actually used these cages and they grip your bottle with authority! I highly doubt you will lose a bottle on a rough gravel road using one of these composite/plastic cages'

_ Guitar Ted, TwentyNineInches.com & TransIowa Founder

'I know I want one!'

_ Prolly is not Probably

'The Bottle Trap seem very minimal in the base area that holds the bottle. No wasted material needed. They seemed pretty lightweight to me right away as well so I set them on the scale to compare them to my carbon cages. The Velocity Bottle Traps came in at 30g each which is identical to the Profile Design Karbon Kages '

_ Carl Buchanan, Velo Syndikat


Jeff at Urban Velo did a little write up on them yesterday and to read all of Prolly's thoughts go here. More importantly, go to your local bicycle shop and ask for the Bottle Trap. If they do not stock them, your local shop can order them through most distributors or directly from us.

JRA

This past weekend there was a lot riding to be had: Ryan, Rachel, and Matt along with a crew of others headed up north for a two day ride that ended up being a good 150 mile trip, Jacobi threw down at the Fort Custer Stampede, and J-Bolt continued the shaping of the pump track at the GR Bike Park.

We also sent out some rims to the 5th annual VeloCity 2010 Tour. This is a 4 city tour that spans the whole U.S.. The first stop on the tour occurring in L.A. for the 3 day event. A number of races, parties and polo, all made for a great time for all who showed, I'm sure. The next 3 dates and cities go as follow:

May 22nd :: Chicago

July 3rd :: NYC

TBA :: San Francisco



For more details head over to the Cyclehawk website, but most importantly get out to these events! Thanks for the support, Squid!


Whether you're a messenger or mountain biker and everything in between, be sure to be checking all the events that we are a part of on the sidebar on the left. We do our best to keep that up to date. Each is an opportunity not only to get out on your bike, but also to score some Velocity gear.