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Strava map day 4 part 1, day 4 part 2 Along the ride there was a lot of small road construction zones. There was always a flagger directing traffic and often helping me find where the bike path might pick up again. The flagger guys were always stoked and waving their flag like crazy. Today I found a gravel bike path that wound its way far off the busy highway I was following. I was in the middle of a farmers field with no one around when I came across one guy running a weed whacker and a flagger dude. It seemed so comical to me because we were so far from anyone. The flag guy took it very seriously and waved furiously to have me ride on the far edge of the trail as far as possible from the lonely weed whacker. I laughed for a while about that moment. I would reach Nagoya today and I wasn’t really sure how far it was. I was afraid I might be late so I mostly just sort of powered through the ride. I didn’t see a lot of interesting things and I churned through the ride quite quickly (compared to my ongoing snails pace). I rode into Nagoya around 3pm and straight to Fairdale’s Japan distributor MX Internationals warehouse. They have an impressive place and distro a lot of great brands. I was stoked to see the staff there and I hung out with them for a while happy to talk to them. They were loading up the last minute vans headed to the big party they were throwing the next day. They set me up with a nice hotel room downtown and after a good visit I finished the 9 or so mile ride to my room. I was really surprised how big Nagoya was! It’s a huge city and by far the coolest feeling place I had seen on my trip. The air was fresh and clean and the city was modern and alive. I made it to the hotel and went straight into doing some laundry (as I’d exhausted my meager clothes supply). A little later in the evening all the other invitees started to arrive to the hotel for the party.

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Strava map day 3. My morning ride put me right into the middle of the school run. I rode with packs of kids pedaling to school. It was fun and a few of them wanted to race me. We rode together for probably 4 miles before they turned off towards their school. I gotta say it seems like a better life with kids riding bikes to school. My route jumped around a bit but I finally got myself back to the coast. Here the mountains pushed right up to the water and as I turned on to the only road heading along the coast I found the way blocked by caution signs. I couldn’t read the signs of course but it seemed pretty obvious that they were saying the road was closed ahead. I pedaled on anyway and confirmed my suspicions when I realized there was not one single car on this road. After riding in heavy traffic for so many miles it was almost erie to be in complete silence. When I rode through a long and echoey tunnel it was downright creepy. My route started climbing steeply and 5 miles in I was really starting to get nervous I would have to turn back. Still not one single car had passed and the road was completely deserted. It was beautiful though! As I climbed higher and higher I would periodically find the roadway overlooking a huge drop into the ocean far below. The woods on the side of the road were lush with bamboo and birds. The air was clean. I was having so much fun and so thankful for the peace and quiet I decided to just keep going. Even if the road was completely impassible retracing my steps would be nice. After 10 or so miles I had reached the peak and started a long decent. I raced through a few more empty tunnels and finally came to the end of the road. A tunnel with a barricade in front of it and then a big fence blocking off the entrance entirely. If it had been in the states I’m positive I would not have done this, but out here all alone I thought it would be fun to just keep exploring. I managed to get my bike over the fence and kept on riding. Things seemed even more quiet here and the next tunnel’s roadway was strewn with debris and even grass starting to grow in the cracks of the roadway. I kept on going. I rounded a corner and could see far ahead a old resort partially collapsed on the edge of a cliff. The roadway too appeared to be washed away. I was feeling pretty sure I was going to have to turn back but I kept going on. Another set of barricades were across the roadway with even more serious looking warning signs. Climbed over those and finally got to where the road was collapsed down the cliff. A 100 yard section […]

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Strava map day 2. I checked my map and saw that there was a castle near my hotel. Out pedaling by 6am I rode up to the Odawara castle. It was really amazing. Not like a stone castle you’d find in Europe, but a big beautiful and ornate temple looking place. Huge walls and gates and a feeling of oldness that made it seem almost holy. Perhaps it was, but the spacious and tranquil grounds sure were a nice change from the traffic. My route had me cutting across a peninsula today and I really didn’t know what to expect. It appeared I would be going over a mountain range but I had no idea how big or how far it was. I mapped out some back roads to cut down on traffic and headed inland. Immediately I started climbing and the little roads I was on were so steep! Honestly they were the steepest roads I have ever seen. I think you could probably fall down these roads they were so steep. Every pedal took a stand-up, gut-busting effort. I climbed something like 1400 feet in less than a mile. When I finally reached the top I felt like a super hero and encountered a confusing sign with highway 11 shooting off in 3 different directions. I rested there for a while and spent some time figuring out which of the “11’s” I should take. Luckily choosing correctly I was rewarded with a long decent where I was able to cruise at about 30 mph sitting completely upright letting the wind cool me down. I stayed at the speed of traffic and had a wonderful coasting cruise for a few miles. I hit the coast again mid day and was at the base of Mt Fuji. Sadly the haze was so thick I could only barely make out a dull outline. The coast here was again pretty industrial. It also got quite humid and sticky. For about 11 miles I was able to follow along a nice quiet tsunami wall. It was weird out here. Quite a few homeless-dude shacks on the beach or in the woods, a lot of trash spread across the beach and a general air that this area was just forgotten about. Again I don’t think this was a really nice place to be, but it was profoundly interesting to me. Occasionally there would be a small and busy beach loaded with surfers too. There seemed to be consistent waves out there for them too. My route fed onto a busy highway that had a bike path along the edge. Here the highway is literally on the beach, elevated over the beach for the most part. The bike path kept jumping from one side of the highway to the other. This got a little old as there was long waits at traffic lights to cross the freeway. Eventually the path put me into the middle of two different but busy parallel freeways. It was loud […]

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Stava map Day 1 Part 1 ,  Day 1 Part 2 Wide awake at 4am I spent a while stretching and catching up on emails on my tablet. At 7am breakfast started and I was first in line. I started with the “Traditional Western” buffet and had a completely non-traditional western breakfast consisting of french fries, miso soup, iceberg lettuce and white rice. Being vegetarian in Japan can be challenging for sure! I felt a million times better then I did the day before and was excited to get out on my bike. My plan was to ride from Tokyo along the coast to my destination in Nagoya. The company that imports Fairdale into Japan was having their 35th anniversary and they had brought me over to be part of the celebration. Rather than flying over for just the few days of the event I flew in a bit early so I’d have time to do the ride. I had planned absolutely nothing for my trip and barely even looked at a map. Over planning can kill a trip. Instead I was just going to work it out on the fly. A few last minute adjustments to my bike outside the hotel and off I went into the confusion of downtown Tokyo. I managed to get lost about every 5 minutes for the next 4 hour or so. I constantly was stopping to pull out my tablet and check Google maps to make sure I was headed vaguely the right direction. Tmobile says it has free data in Japan so hopefully that is true! Tokyo seemed to turn me around and disorient me at every turn. I was not at all frustrated by this though… the hustle and bustle of Tokyo is amazing to be in the middle of and I was loving it. Riding was not really that awesome here though, loads of traffic and people everywhere along with stop lights at every block. There was a bike lane painted onto the sidewalk where I rode often. With how ordered Japan generally is I found it odd that the bike lane was complete anarchy. Pedestrians seemed to lurch unexpectedly into my path constantly. When encountering oncoming cycling traffic I noticed that older folks seemed to want to pass me on my left, while younger folks seemed to want to pass on the right. Moms riding bikes loaded with 2 kids came straight at me and didn’t brake or turn. I was laughing at the madness of it all and thankful for my years of BMX experience. Swerving and dodging all the people was kind of a fun game. I was going VERY slowly though. Between the stop lights and the traffic I was averaging less then 5mph. The other option was to ride in the roadway. With no shoulder and never a break in traffic it seemed like more than I could handle. I did see a few road bike guys hauling along in the roadway keeping up with traffic […]

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It had been a busy month leading up to this trip. Fairdale displayed it’s 2015 bikes at the Interbike Tradeshow just days before I left on my Japan trip. I had been so busy getting ready for and working at the tradeshow that I had done almost no riding to prepare myself. I hadn’t even planned out what bike I would ride or gotten gear together for myself. This all kind of hit me as I flew back from Las Vegas realizing I was heading to Japan in only 2 days. Typically I also had managed to get very sick at the tradeshow and was feeling like hustling to get myself ready for a big trip was going to be a huge pain. I borrowed some Blackburn bags and a front rack from Fairdale team rider (and neighbor) Leif. He also helped me set up a Weekender Archer bar bike for the trip. It was a sample bike we made in the Electro-Silver color and happened to be a large (which was my size). With only a short around-the-block test ride I packed up the bike into a cardboard bike box along with all my bags and gear. The $200 bike fee United charges each way was painful but at least I had a direct flight from Denver straight to Tokyo. I will tell you that all my years of traveling have made me pretty jaded about flying. I realize it’s amazing that I can go anywhere in the world in a matter of hours but man, I hate it. The whole process of herding through the airport and getting stuffed into an uncomfortable little seat on a plane is something I could happily do without. Once I actually get to my destination the flying time seems to be erased from my memory and I enjoy myself, but I’m never a happy flyer. I was still pretty sick on the plane ride over. My antibiotics were in full force and I was fighting my typical spleen-less bacterial infection that I seem to pick up easily. I was coughing and feverish the whole trip. I was positive I was annoying other folks on the flight, but I don’t think I was actually spreading anything around. My neighbor in the middle seat next to me was a big dude who wrote “martial arts” on his customs form as his occupation. He never said a word the whole flight and hardly moved. He simply sat down, put his hands on his thighs and seemed to meditate. With his shoulders being wider than the seat and myself not being particularly narrow I had an uncomfortable time trying to keep the unwanted body contact to a minimum, contorting my shoulders to make room for him. Anyway, enough reliving the miserable part of the trip! 14 hours later we were on the ground and I was breezing through customs. I had planned to ride my bike straight out of the airport but considering how sick I […]

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Sandy posted some really amazing photos of his Tour De LoLorado. For sure click the link to see some epic-ness. Sandy also designed a cool back pack you should check out: Sandy’s Betabrand back pack design. A handful more votes and it will go into production.

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Here’s a flipbook of a bunch of sort of recent drawings from Taj.

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A surprise summer shipment of a small number of Taj bikes in the coveted Military Blue colorway arrive next week. Hit up our in-house distributor Full Factory to order one (or tell your favorite bike shop to)!  

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When we are ready to show new bikes to bike shops we send out something like above. It’s just a preview of what is coming and a way for a bike shop to predict which models they will order from us. We usually include some plea for them to keep the new bikes secret and not share the images. I’m not really sure what we’re so worried about… I think we worry that no one will buy the “older” bikes if they see the new ones. Personally I think it’s more likely to drum up some excitement for the brand and hopefully get folks interested in trying our bikes. So, this year we are letting you all see the very same preview we sent to bike shops. Keep in mind these bikes won’t be out until November. Also, there’s no specs or geo listings in this preview… that will all come later once I get it all organized and fit for print (in our consumer catalog). So check out the COMING SOON bikes!

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We got kits in! Limited numbers available (because making custom kits is rather expensive). The cool thing is not a lot of people will look like you dressed up in a Fairdale kit. Made for us by Castelli you can be sure of the quality and fit (Castelli kits are our favorites). Check ’em out… The classic Castelli fit cycling cap is made in Italy. Buy one? Yes you can… here.  The jerseys are made here in the USA by Castelli. Again, fit and comfort are awesome. Check them out here.Bib shorts are the best we think. And these ones really truly are the best because they say “Fairdale” on them. Complete your “factory Fairdale” look with a set of these cycling overalls here.

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