Team Cyclocross News

The Signal CX roster for the upcoming season of races is filled with awesome people that we are proud to have on our bikes. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Pete Zlatnik will be leading the charge in the Men's singlespeed category. Pete is always in the hunt in the SS race. Pete's wife Marila will be representing Signal in the Women's A field. Marila's name only has two syllables, so don't call her Ma-rill-a. She keeps getting faster every year. In the Men's A category we have "Diamond" David Roth high-kicking it into overdrive. Dave lives in Eugene, and that is where I met him. A few years ago he ended up coming out of nowhere to take 2nd in the singlespeed class, giving Soloman Woras a run for his money. Dave is a class act all the way. And speaking of class acts, Carey S-H is our other female rider. She's going to be racing with gears and in the Women's B field. This is her 2nd year racing cross and by the look of the fire in her eyes, I expect she'll be upgrading before the season is over.

And I hope to make it to the races to cheer the team on, and maybe to get out there a bit too. But as for right now, I still have 3 team bikes to build! We are building the bikes up with Columbus tubes and AlphaQ forks. I'm also building 4 sets of Chris King tubular wheels for these bikes (Nate, get back from Nebraska!!).

Yes this should have been started a long time ago, back when there was plenty of time. But then how exciting would that be?

Follow the progress on our flickr page. I'll post all the craziness as it happens.

New T-shirts are here!

At long last! We ran out of XL white shirts, the ones that are in the colorway "baja sunset" (I know!) So we have been overdue for a fresh shirt. These are printed on 100% sweatshop free American Apparel cotton right here in Portland. Sure to impress all of the bike nerds in your neighborhood, the Signal t-shirt has been said to posses mystical powers for attracting the opposite sex, so be careful! Hermits and ne'er-do-wells need not apply. $20 gets you a shirt. Payments gladly taken with paypal, payment[at]signalcycles.com Please add $5 for shipping in the US, or give me a call if you live in Portlad and I will have Nate run one right over!

We only have uni-sex (mens) sizes small, medium, large and X-large.

For now.

Pete gets the top step!

Pete won the overall title to the 2009 Short track race series on Monday night. Congratulations Pete! After a couple years of coming close, Pete put it together and dominated the series. I'm convinced that this is just the beginning of Pete's winning ways! And as happens every year, as soon as the last rider crosses the finish line at short track, everyone's collective brain melts a little and we slowly give in to the fact that all we are going to talk about for the next 5 months is CYCLOCROSS!!!!
Get used to it. "What tires are you running?" "Have you seen those new canti-brakes?" "Guess who's rocking the flat bar this year!?"

Ahh cyclocross....

The big news for us is that there will be a Signal Cycles team out on the cyclocross circuit broadcasting bike love all over the place. The goal with the Signal team is to have the nicest people in cyclocross racing for us. People so nice that you won't even mind that they are passing you. You will probably even cheer them on as they go by because they are just that NICE! It should come as no surprise that Pete is going to be on the team representing Signal. It is pretty much impossible to not like Pete. Unless you are some kind of monster.

I'll introduce the other riders as we get closer to Fall.

AND I'm going to be a dad in about 3 weeks!

Bike Shops...

Here's a link to an old video that I just love. Bike Works. There are a lot of people with "personality" in this biz!

Where Are You Go

Elizabeth and I went to the Clinton street theater last night to view the newest film by Brian Vernor. It's called "Where Are You Go" part of the Bicycle Film Festival, and it was amazing. Brian joined a couple friends to ride and document a group of racers/ riders riding bikes from Cairo to Cape Town. Over 3 months of dirt roads, sun, and encounters fill the movie. We had a chance to see a preview of the movie last year at the Halloween cross race in Astoria when Brian showed us what he had so far.

It was really cool to see the completed film after seeing the first version. Some of the shots border on sublime. It seems that the continent is so large that the ideas and vision of the story have ragged edges that aren't necessary to make clear. The conversations with riders are what you might expect "This is the biggest thing I've ever done" type stuff, but the moments that spoke to me were when I got a sense of the time and distance that these people were traveling, and the realization that what we must have to survive can come in a very small package.

The roller coaster interview has to be the best interview I've ever seen. That alone is worth the price of admission.

I've shied away from the filmed by bike festival, I suppose it's because I think Portland has enough people wanting to throw a party to celebrate bikes. I'm getting tired of the spectacle for the sake of spectacle. And maybe that's what I liked about the movie too. When you see Benny ride a tall bike or wooden scooter, or the anonymous African kids riding their bikes decorated with peacock feathers, you can see the joy the bikes bring to them. It's not about color matched rims or the latest bauble. It's about a true love of bikes.

Lucky for me, this film didn't get too much press and the theater was not too crowded. If you get a chance to see this film, make sure you don't miss it!