Los Angeles: The Cog-Joint multi-modal travel express to Levi’s Commuter Clothing Launch event at Orange20, without a doubt and not to exaggerate, was a night to remember.  Departure from the LB Transit Mall (LBTM): 6:15.  Returned home on the LAST train of the night to arrive back at the LBTM at 1:55am.

JJ made a surprise appearance and in the [Tandem +110] field [sprint event] he & I won it hands done y’aLL {there’s wasn’t even the possibility of another entry from the entire Party Peloton}.

Thank you Orange 20 for a great venue and thank you Levi Strauss for bringing a little marketing power that helps bring attention to cycling as a viable means for transportation.

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I found a sUpEr-KoOL Jack’d-ouT bike shop at 1157 Long Beach Blvd [near Anaheim]: The Long Beach Bike Connection.  They’re over-stocked with lot’s of cool junk.  They must have 100 used bikes on the floor and lots of them worth their weight in gold for city riding.  Their entire inventory is used bicycles with about a dozen new single speed bikes.  It’s a treasure trove of pre-owned machinery.  Behind the counter, where the repair station is located, it’s crowded with parts and buzzing with tinkering.  The owners are just plain bike shop entrepreneurs; no pro-shop arrogance, no fixie hipness posturing, just good ol’bike-shop attitude.

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Las BiciCLeTas: Tesoro de oRo Animaux!

Long Beach Bike Connection
1157 Long Beach Blvd
Long Beach, CA

Levi Strauss is continuing their market push to stay relevant with products designed for the new pedaling revolution; pants for the commuter and a new revamped version of the classic Levi’s Trucker Jacket styled for the new bred of Rig-Riders{™©®} in mind.

Levi’s® is planning a 5-day 5-city launch event: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Brooklyn & Philadelphia.

Friday nite is the launch party at Orange 20 in Los Angeles (across the street from the Bike Kitchen and LACC) from 7:00 to 10:00; the perfect opportunity for a multi-modal (Bicycle & Metro-Rail) event.  Who’s In?  First pre-departure stop: Bev-Mo for the right cross town berverages.  For one, I gotta know what a Levi Launch Party is like.  It’s a Los Angeles Cog-Joint{™©®} event and a Freddie Home-Boy’s gotta have it.  As Leonard Cohen once said: “First we take the Launch then we take the Marathon” i.e., let’s go mess them up.

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Visit the Levi Strauss website for more bilge: http://us.levi.co

Remember the 501 Animaux!

There’s a stretch of retail thriving on 1st Street in Long Beach between Elm & Linden and groans around the block as well.  It’s part of the East Village Art’s district; a little like Melrose on a smaller scale.

I stopped at the The Academy (a small clothing store) and found a pair of kick ass pants with a little stretch in the fabric, a narrow cut to the leg that helps avoid the chain and cuffs up neatly.   The pants are well cut, trims nicely with a snug fit yet hangs comfortably and moves as you do without binding and rides like a pair of tights but off the bike presents itself with a tailored style.  These are the nicest pants I’ve ever worn on the bike for riding around town; bicycling functional yet allows me to feel like an adult ready to do business when the bike is locked away. $42.00 {give me a break – it’d be a great buy at twice the price}.  The material is stretch cotton twill; 98% cotton 2% stretch; the Academy Riding Pants.  EZ-Rider was penciled on the tag.  Loving the fit.

All Academy’s good are made in the U.S.

Style Animaux!

The Academy
429 East First St.
Long Beach, CA 90802

For years, even in my youth, waking up in the morning has never been one of those televised events of a glorious experience of sunshine & morning dew freshness; it always feels like I’ve been run over by a truck. Smack damn.

The other day after a hard peloton session in the morning, freighted up to a big-weight squat session at night, all the muscle and connective tissue were aching & screaming; crank-jacked and nasty.  Told myself: Hey! What about that aspirin shit?  Popped two Bayers, went to bed and what a fabulous morning it turned out to be.  Damn!  I’m hooked.  I’ve taken all those other anti-inflammatorial recommendations {motrin, advil, ducktin, wackton, wankton, you name it} and never felt a moment of relief in any regard.

Big ass punch for a couple of little pills.

Rx Animaux!

BlahBlah disclaimer:
Aspirin isn’t for everyone.
If you’re considering an anti-inflammatory, it’s simple relief.
Ask your doctor.
There’s plenty of literature to read.

bike racers like to compete. it’s the nature of the beast.

• wanna haLf wHeel mE? bITcH!!
• race up the hill? bITcH!
• stRaVa segMenTs? bITcH!
• drop the hAmmER on yOR’aSs! ? bITcH?!
• rULe V. bITcH!!
• you’re wEAk. bITcH!!!
• shLAm tHe shLoNG. bITcH!!
• dROpPeD yoUR aSs. bITcH!
• aRm.wReSTle me NoW. bITcH !!!

Quien eS’Ta dA’bITcH nOw Animaux!

The WolfPackHustle.com boys were at it again and we missed out.  Remember CarMageddon (?) when da’WolfPackHustle boys raced JetBlue from Burbank to Long Beach and kicked ass!

The WolfPack promoted the LA Marathon Crash Race with a rolling start that rocketed off at 4:00am before the official start of the running event.  They had 2000 registered racers.  Now that’s some bike race; it mus’ta been some high-peloton intensity janked-jankity gang event of a start.  Last year the field broke into the viable contenders pretty quickly.  These guys{wOLfPaCk’n aLL’z dem} got their event shit strok’n.

NOTE: Video below is LAST Year’s Event (2011)

WolfPack’s favorite was the winner.

Watch the video – it’s worth the time.  We’re gonna enter next year and bring home some of doz dog-tags.  Who’s gonna be our favorite?  We gotta rip it.  Put it on the calendar.

There was a day when 90+% of custom frame consumption came from the race crowd, however, the refinements in carbon technology {specifically the coque’d-out gjemmie-jigs} have essentially annihilated the original customer base as the fetish focus shifted but the new pedaling revolution has blown life back into the industry as the urban street jacqondas have moved in on the scene and claimed the percentage as their own, acting as latter day saviors protecting the beast from extinction while these days the fiber-feather-weight-speed-bunch-outs make sideways cracks about the steel-is-real world but underneath the jocular e-jack’ulations there’s stëëll an appreciation of the craft hiding under all the superiority posturing.

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Mark Llewellyn Bixby   6/26/1966 – 03/16/2011
Visit the Long Beach Post to see other photos featured in an article (written last year) about Mark’s memorial services: http://www.lbpost.com

Some pictures contributed by friends:

Contributed by Bill Cockroft: Mammoth Mountain Adventures

Mark at the installation of the Penny Farthling sculpture at City Hall in fall of 2009.

Image courtesy of Charlie Gandy.
From Charlie: “I give you Bike Advocate Extraordinaire Mark Bixby”

Mark handling photos for a group of Catalina Channel Swimmers

Contributed by Evan Doherty

Contributed by Evan Doherty

Contributed by Evan Doherty

Solvang 2010 [contributed by Ryan Autrey]

Mt. Whitney [by Trent Newlon]

Crossing the Vincent Thomas Bridge on the Tour de Cure 2011

Mark is the 3rd rider from the right.

Contributed by Frank Peters: Mark was featured on his Blog cdmCyclist.com

Group Photo before a ride to San Diego [Freddiego]

Mark is 4th from the left.

Somewhere between San Francisco & Long Beach

After a 120+ mile day on one of the annual suffer-fests from San Francisco to Long Beach

Redondo Beach with Wee-Man; end of day 4 San Fran to Long Beach

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Seth; south bay freddie, yaeger-yanker-obsequi’ondo; self-proclaimed jock-sniffer; maxi-pad consumptionator. [There's something complementary in those last two descriptors.]

Solvang: (as the story goes . . .)
Mr Seth was apparently running scared after Santa Maria {he, Harry and his sainted Yaeger couldn’t shake the peloton} and revealed the cheap side of his cycling character with a wanker* antic; ran a signal to jack an attack up Foxen Canyon.  As a tactic (of wanker* desperation), can you say weak?

The boys reeled him in after the descent over Foxen Cyn and blew by him up the wall; dropped him on the climb after the bridge.  Even Yaeger, to his credit, looked back and beckoned “come-on you wAnKEr!”

Seth and his wing-man Harry were left to munch their maxi-pads.  I’m certain Seth shared generously since he seemed to have an abundant supply on hand.

Entonces Seth. Quien es Animaux aHoRa?

*wanker;  this is not BlahBlahFreddie’s official position on the character of Mr Seth but rather a quality that one might easily surmise from Yaeger’s parting words.