Over the next few days (or maybe weeks) I’m going to be spending some spare time up at Empire BMX working on a mural over the upstairs mini ramp. Should be lots of fun. Today was my first day and the results are pretty boring. I arrived to the above blank wall armed only with this small pencil sketch. It was raining on the way up there so my sketch got soaked and is almost illegible. It still makes sense to me though so we’ll see where this ends up. At the end of today’s short day this is all I have for you… a poorly primed wall. How exciting right? From grey to grey-ish white. This was not worth your time to read, sucker! Such is the internet I guess… tons of wasted time, we should all be out pedaling bikes somewhere… or eating pizza. However, from here things can only get more interesting right? More on this project soon hopefully.
I’ve been trying to think of a tag line for Fairdale… something like above… or “Every Pedal Moves You Closer” … or every pedal makes you stronger… that kind of thing. And I’ve been thinking about tacos.
Thanks to the internet being on vacation yesterday I spent some time doodling and trying to get my creative juices flowing. Fairdale needs some new t-shirt designs and I’m trying to get something going. I figure cat butts are always pretty cool. As well as nonsense. Also got this picture of a sweet Fairdale Express frame and fork kit build. My buddy Chris is a mechanic over at Ozone Bikes in Austin and built his ride up with rad ole’ Dura-Ace center pull brakes.
Long time friend and all around great guy Sandy Carson is now a part of Fairdale’s team. It’s true that we don’t really have a team but starting right now we are going to begin putting together a small group of awesome folks who like to ride bikes. Here is Sandy receiving his Fairdale kit. You guys didn’t even know we made those because I never told anyone. Sandy signed his contract with me as witness. Unlike other companies who don’t want you to know the details of their rider’s contracts we at Fairdale believe in full disclosure. Take a look at what our legal team came up with above. Next I started building up Sandy’s old parts into a Fairdale frame. I didn’t have one of those stupid “star-fangled-nut” things for the forks so I couldn’t really finish it. Also, Sandy couldn’t figure out what bars he wanted on it so instead we went and rode mountain bikes. Not many dudes can ride a Giant STP single speed dirt jumper on a long ass cross country ride, then shred the pump track at the end of the ride. Check out Sandy all over the web: Sandy Carson on: Facebook, Sandy Carson on: Twitter, Sandy Carson: Photo website , Sandy Carson onTumblr, and Sandy_Carson on Instagram (I can’t figure out how to link to Instagram). Keep the watts pumping folks and have a good day!
And now here’s part 2 of Sandy Carson’s down under cycling tour adventure (you can catch Part 1 here)… The 2 weeks flew by in Australia and I was already regretting only having a week to enjoy New Zealand’s South Island as I flew in. I’ve always wanted explore NZ and i’m sure it won’t be the last. Need. More. Time. ugh! Flying over the glaciers and making a to do list. Hike, ride, explore, skydive? getting ADD already. This was my route. Fuck. Who was I kidding? There was way I could do half of this on a bike in a week, so o I had to rent a car and stuff my bike in it. That still counts as touring, right? I could squeeze more in and use my bike to explore towns. I flew into Christchurch, which had just been flattened by yet another earthquake tremor. It was pretty devastated had turned into ghost town, dead silent, even the grocery stores weren’t playing music. People thought I was nuts when I said I was flying into there to start my trip, but I didn’t mind. I’m actually used to it and find the beauty in documenting natural disasters in my line of work sometimes ( Paradise Has Relocated by Sandy Carson ). I ended up staying in town for 2 days in the only hostel that wasn’t destroyed, picking up some personal photo work interviewing people and making photographs the disaster. I felt really bad for the city, how do you rebuild knowing that It may strike again at any time? A vitamin store’s shelves shook to the ground. Wooster disaster shot. Okay this driving isn’t so bad after all. The Mogwai soundtrack was made for this. About 8hrs later going West, I checked into the YHA hostel and got up early to hike the Franz Josef Glacier despite having not much sleep. Drunk English people snoring. My worst nightmare or both accounts! Ear plugs and single dorms from then on. I’m too old for this shit, need beauty sleep! This glacier is about 7.5 miles long, according to the Wiki page. It’s receding quite and I was eager to hike about on it before it melted, after all, I had my banana skin climbing shoes on and wanted to put them to use. Here’s the Fox Glacier. It’s a bout 20k from the Franz Josef one. Are the mints named after this? Sadly I had no time to hike around here because I figured it would look better from the sky… I’ve always wanted to go Skydiving so I figured if I was going to do it, might as well be over a Glacier! I was thinking on the way up that it was worth it just for a close look at the Glaciers. I was probably just blocking out crapping my pants. I felt safe flying tandem with Will Ferrel, he did Elf and Ron Burgundy quotes on the way down. Her’s the video […]
So let’s see… to be fair Sandy Carson’s bicycle tour of Australia/ New Zealand was before he was actually on the Fairdale team and he’s not actually on a Fairdale. Still, his bike does have a Fairdale sticker on it and he had a great adventure we want to show you. Plus, yes, he is almost officially on the Fairdale team that we are starting of awesome people who ride bikes. Once he signs his contract we’ll give you a good bunch of info on BMX legend/ Austin’s favorite photographer/ veggie powered cyclist Sandy Carson. Check out Sandy’s trip through his photos and words below. Part 2 which covers his New Zealand leg will be here sometime next week- Taj Australia/New Zealand bike tour 2011. I had been sitting on a free ticket to Australia for 2 years and was trying to find a window to cash it in. It was a trade for shooting my good friends Jamie & Meagan’s wedding here in the States. I can’t think of a more epic barter, thanks guys! Besides, it got me off my ass to go back down under since the Federal Bike Bmx tour in 2003. This time I wanted to see the coast and cities on big wheels this time instead of BMX, put some miles in, camp out and be a weirdo with my camera. As It was the tail end of the summer down there and had a small window to do it in, so I booked up for a 3 week solo mission,( 2 in Australia and one in New Zealand). It’s a long trip there, so you might as well make the most of it. Here are some point n shoot digi pics I shot along the way. My film stuff can be seen on my tumblr page. Thanks for reading, Now get pedaling. This is all the rubbish I took on the road for 3 weeks. Tent, sleeping pad, 2 panniers with some clothes, waterproofs, 2 cameras, film, some tools and a map, but no cell phone- Stoked! And a gallon of sunscreen cos you know the ozone is amazing down under. Anxiety. That’s a long way over water from LA to OZ, luckily there were no plane crash movies as inflight entertainment. …instead they featured one of my favorite photographers, Chris Jordan. He talked about carbon footprints which seemed ironic since it was shown on a plane. It’s always a good sign to see your bike make it on the other side. On arrival at Adelaide, South Australia, the first thing I did was put my bike together and test ride it against sand and salt water, since it had never seen either. This is my host and good buddy Jamie ‘Chiv’ Moore who owns a killer BMX Distribution –Stowaway. I dare say I would wear a helmet too if I had junk this big! There is so much goin on here. TheT1 Crew were staying at Jamie’s and parting down on their […]
In an effort to test our new Weekender model as much as possible before full production I lent my personal steed out for the weekend. This gave the Weekender a chance to live up to its name and prove its stuff. Full Factory’s Logan and his pup Hershal took the bike and my Bob trailer for a 100+ mile ride to a camp ground up north of Austin (Upper Colorado Bend State Park). They traveled with everything they needed for a camping weekend. Logan said the ride was good except that the loaded trailer with dog on board made standing hill climbs difficult. Since his route went through the thick of Texas hill country he spent a lot of time grinding away in the small gears. The ride proved to be quite an adventure and he managed to spend a relaxing weekend with his dog camping and then head back to Austin. Not bad! Sounds like a lot of fun… I think I might be doing something very similar very soon. Thanks to Andrew Brady for the pic!
Found this beauty on the internet. Carbon fiber bikes with leather seats and carbon fiber couches with leather seats. You’re life could be complete! Actually pretty interesting construction techniques if you find this kind of thing interesting like I do : http://cncrouting.co.uk/projects/carbon-fibre-sofa/
