Welcome to this week’s roundup! The video selection was a little light this weekend until videos flooded in late Tuesday and early Wednesday. One of the last-minute videos is the above from River City Bicycles showing “Portland bikes”. How perfect is that? Dave shows off a Chris King/Cielo and a Mark Dinucci bike. More videos after the break.
Blackburn is presenting a movie called “Comes with Baggage” about the history of bicycle traveling. It appears they aren’t taking a shortcut to when they started (around the Bikecentennial). Looks like it played at Velo Cult last year, how was it? (also from Blackburn: ROLL WITH IT, this year’s film)
Downhillers have to think fast to descend at speed. This is an example of that, showing Steve Peat practicing on a downhill course from the rider’s POV. Pay attention in the technical rocky sections- my brain would have trouble navigating that fast enough. (turn the sound down, it’s just wind noise; see also the rowdy Syndicate 2016 video at this race)
This Dirty Kanza interview with two racers is neat because they talk about preparation and thoughts on the race. My favorite bit is to “allow yourself a certain amount of time in a dark place“.
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BikeRadar and Islabikes put up a video that is a primer for teaching your child to ride a bike. (paging Jonathan)
Is anyone doing Youtube VR? Seriously, anyone? If so, let us know in the comments. Below is a 360 of Smith Rock for you, and here’s the Gorge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiPWlhKSpEQ
Criterium Du Dauphine
This race is traditionally the preview of the Tour de France. Any videos here don’t spoil the race or leaders.
Here’s the GCN preview, showing the riders and stages that should be strong. I’m especially looking forward to ‘Madeleine’ because I rode it last year.
This interview with the neutral service car driver by tire maker Vittoria was interesting:
Others from Dauphine: a day in the life of a mechanic (no obvious spoilers)
From other races: Women’s WorldTour: Philadelphia highlights (with spoilers)
Honorable Mentions
This week’s honorable mentions: driver violence: cuts off guy riding a bike, then threatens him with a knife (read the description for details), infrastructure nerds: watch this highway project to place a tunnel in a weekend, a fancy limited-edition Brompton teaser, beat the headwind on your commute!, GCN walkthrough of factory-custom ordering and manufacturing of an Orbea bike, GCN extol the virtues of aluminum bikes, local driver/biker encounter (pretty much *all* swearing), and BikeRadar talks about offroad e-bikes.
Inclusion criteria: If I’ve missed something, post it in the comments! I prefer videos published in the last week or so. Note if there’s a specific point in a long video that is worth highlighting. Also note if there is colorful language. I will delay videos containing pro racing spoilers by 7 days.
– Ted Timmons, @tedder42
Several years ago I bought a purple DiNucci frame for $375. My Flying Dutchman frame broke after 25 years and I had a Campy Record grupo from my old 10 speed in boxes. I polished the aluminum to a mirror sheen and built the bike up. It is beautiful and very special. The frame is really tall, but a very short wheelbase and in slow turns the front wheel can conflict with my toe. I contacted Mark DiNucci and asked him if there was a different fork I could use to stretch the wheelbase. He replied that if I were a better rider it would not be a problem. Gotta love the panther on the head set.
In the honorable mention video “local driver/biker encounter”, the videographer describes the motorists behavior as “almost running a stop sign” while on his phone. Actually, the motorist ran the stop sign. One is required to stop at the limit line or even with the stop sign if no limit line exists.
This is one of my pet peeves. Motorists use this unlawful technique to terrorize other road users as a matter of routine. I’ve lived where the local police cite people for this and it makes a world of difference in terms of active transportation numbers.
The knife-wielding character in the Austarlian clip was interesting. I suspect that I would have simply raised my front wheel and plowed into him rather than dropping my bike and apologizing for existing like the rider did. Sure, I’d be gambling that the guy with the knife is less well trained than I am, but judging by what I saw that wouldn’t be much of a gamble.
Such people should be jailed for a couple of years and then forbidden to drive for life. If you have the self-control of a three-year-old, you aren’t ready for the responsibility of operating a motor vehicle.
A couple of things to note, DiNucci’s headbadge is a leopard, which was his racing nickname, also while he is without question one of the “godfathers” of PDX framebuilding, he worked for Jim Merz as well as Andy Newlands of Strawberry so he is very much in elite company.