7 angels on a bicycle

last night i went to the east bay, a rare event indeed. why did i do this? to see a woman i've grown up with perform. her name is carrie rodriguez and she is on tour promoting her new album. when we were growing up, she was studying classical violin, and now she plays the fiddle. heh. she's now grown up from that 6 year old girl i first met all those years ago into a talented, and lovely, female americana artist.

she was born into an artistic texas family. her dad is songwriter david rodriguez and her mother is fine artist katy nail. fun chisme fact: mama texican ran into katy nail the other day, and then two weeks later the daughters were reunited.

so i'm glad to see carrie is carrying on her family tradition. and to see she's also representing austin well. we're all so proud to be from austin! it's ingrained in our veins.

anyway, she wrote a song for a friend that she knew since she was 2 years old who lost his life too soon while commuting to work in manhattan. she says she plays the song every day to her dear friend. her friend had bike toured from seattle to austin, backpacked in patagonia, chile, and succumbed to a commute in manhattan at the age of 25.



what a nice way to be remembered and to heal.

i've included a video of lyle lovett covering one of her dad's tunes, just for fun.



have a great weekend everyone, and hug your fellow bicyclist. one day we will not be killed going to work.

sights and sounds from the south

birmingham, alabama

i went to birmingham, alabama recently and one of the first things i saw was a large billboard showcasing some bicycle marketing we've talked about here on the blog before. this time was advertising a bank.



they equated bicycles with efficiency. heh. i can dig it. also glad to see that bike marketing is permeating a city infrastructure which basically supports no bicycles. i'm not trying to be sarcastic either. maybe the marketing will seep through and begin to have some sort of influence on the city, or not, but gotta remain hopeful that change is coming. all over the US.

austin, texas

i also went to my hometown of austin, texas. bikes are everywhere there, and i can't help smiling when i see bikes all over the streets.

i went to austin city limits music festival again, and as i mentioned previously, they recommended pedal power to get to the festival. we definitely took advantage of their bike parking. and also got to see some great bikes.

the little blue cannondale is mine. got it as a christmas present last year. if anyone knows about this era of cannondales, please share! says it's made in the usa.









i miss texas, and can't wait to get back for a non-working vacation sometime in the near future. had a great time, but it's time to head back to san francisco.

friday fun times: tall bike edition

a bunch of people came into town to critical mass a couple of weeks ago. including people who came from mexico city on a TALL BIKE. not a touring bike, but a tall bike.

image from johnny payphone.

as i shake my head at wondering how hard this must have been to do, they were quite the sight to see all over town. have you seen how to mount those things? not to mention stopping.

if you are not familiar with a tall bike, it is a bike that constructed out of two (or more) frames stacked on top of another to have the "tall" look and feel of it.

here are a few that made it to ocean beach from whereabouts unknown. requesting donations to get them shipped back to those places...

am not sure about if they got help to go back home, so if anyone reading knows, we'd love to hear about the continuing adventures of those tall bikes.

am in austin, my lovely hot and humid hometown for the ACL festival. we will be using pedal power to get to the festival. duh. also can't wait to be riding my austin bike again! we both have older mountain bike frames that we have converted to be more commuter friendly, but we also want to ride some trails while we're here! hope we have time to do so!

have a great weekend everyone!

friday fun times: atx's abbey road

foto by jrtrussell of one of my favorite atx homies, @fidmart85.

more fun with bikes in austin!

we were able to acquire bikes while we were in austin for a few days last week. we got a hook.up! on a rental bike for me. i'm short, so finding a bike that fits me is really difficult. there was one road bike at the rental place that fit me pretty well. i was happy to go with the normal hybrid variety, but the temptation of an extended test ride with a road bike that is nicer than my road bike was too much. sure enough, i'm now in crush with that bike...



as you can see, the other one was the practical bike, much like my joanie baby. that bike hauled stuff around in its very handy basket. i LOVE baskets.

we didn't really go for too long a ride, and austin is pretty flat compared to SF (at least the areas we rode around in). thus, i didn't get a chance to completely test out that climbing gear, but whoa, i do know enough of riding around on that bike to know i want to try it out some more. my birthday is coming up sometime in the next 364 days, so if anyone wants to get me a present, i'll take the lexa slx in size 47cm please. kthx.

in other news, i was impressed with the volume of bikes that were being parked at acl, and here's a tiny taste of it...

bike parking before:


bike parking after:


it was fun navigating around austin on bikes and figuring out bikey ways around the city thanks to the trusty austin bikey map. i can't wait to go back and do it again!

some fun with bikes in austin

so last week i was fortunate enough to be able to go home to the motherland for a couple of days. here are some of the bikes i saw when i was down there y'all!

tandem cruiser?! i can safely say i've never seen a tandem cruiser before. each set of handlebars had its own bell too. just in case, ya know? i've seen a tandem cargo bike, but not a tandem cruiser. radness. and on a SUV. well, that part isn't so rad, but what can you do?

free gary fisher anyone? sigh. the myriad of ways people lock up bikes for the taking really astounds me.

tomorrow will have another scene from austin, but this time involving the bikes we actually rode around on.

Happy Birthday Calitexican!!

by *Honeychild*

From the girls of Change Your Life. Ride a Bike! & your bikey friends. Hope you have a great time with us all, your loved ones and everyone around you. We wish you a super happy birthday!
♥ To a wonderful year !!!!!

by busbozo

by meligrosa

by busbozo

by ericm

scenes from the bikey lane: austin, super short bike hack, edition

i saw this from a car, but there is a bike lane right in front of it, so that counts, right?



mailbox bike hack. with lock, and everything. future CYLRAB headquarters. or perhaps our texas satellite office.

scenes from the bikey lane: austin, I'M HOME, edition.

in case you haven't guessed by the title of this post, i'm home in texas right now. yay.

i was a chauffeur for the mama texican earlier today (no u-lock required), and rather than going home, i went around downtown austin. it has changed a lot. i forgot some places i used to know, i forgot how to get to certain places, i forgot that i forget things.

but i didn't forget about the bikey time that i wanted to squeeze in. so, after getting a little turned around, i went to mellow johnny's because it is a few blocks away from the mama texican's workey times place.

i got some coffee and then cruised around the bike store.







i helped a(n admittedly clueless) guy buy a shirt for his sister, looked at clothes & bikey art, and looked at rows and rows of bikes.

as you may know from reading this blog...we over here have a weakness for mixtes.



"a powder blue 8 speed masi mixte soulville? i need to get on this bike right now," i thought to myself.

so i did. and this is what i saw:













if you have/had to travel far during the holiday season, did/do you incorporate your bike love into your trip? for example, besides my test ride of that delicious mixte, i am planning on going back and renting a bike from MJ's and teaching one of my cousins (who is 15!!) how to ride a bike. i also got another cousin talking about bikes, so i plan on visiting his bikey soon. i hear it has an old school iron child's seat on it.

please let us know in the comments :)