Stream / Download

I wonder...is this what people mean when they suggest, "Be Well." Illustrating a half-donut bite of a Portland, Oregon, Voodoo Doughnut in the chocolate glazed cream filled variety. Be well.

Whenever it's wet and raining in the Bay Area, it's snowing in Tahoe. Those than don't ride are gloomy and depressed when it's wet out but those that are in the know are stoked when it's storming - so long as the riders can get to the mountains! That's the yin yang perspective. Catch 'ya later at 8,000 ft!

RACINGMIX has been published online since 2000. Ad-free, commercial-free, cost-free, reward-free. Publishing content online takes time and time is money. In the past decade, I've seen many come and go. The following outbound links were removed from the outbound links roll call in the right column:

- 1115: It's quite alive, but it's such a bore. My friend's crew runs this site, but politics get boring, unless there is fighting or gunfire. See Freshjive below.
- 2Flippant: My friend, Ben, from Brisbane, Australia. Good thing the family is up and running!
- A Color: A Blogspot hosted and created site by Dino John, apparently was part of the elite fashion world. Reviews of catwalk shows, basically taking Kanye West's fascination with Milan to the extreme.
- Dzark Design: Some hot stuff back in 2006 regarding graphic design, illustration, digital art. Broken link, but amazingly no back pack girl...yet!
- Element Lounge: San Francisco night spot that hosted the 05/05/05 RACINGMIX CD Release Party. Run by a group of swell guys who struck gold in the first dot-com boom and cashed out to invest in nightclubs. But I'm over parties. Still down to throw down, see deephousesoldiers.com for a mixtape caled "2010 Mude".
- Esteban Sabar: First Friday's Art Murmur epicenter, Esteban ran the best art gallery in Uptown Oakland. His departure from the physical space and art scene, along with partner artist, Marty McCorkle, signified a sad decline in the Uptown Oakland Art Murmur. Esteban brought charisma, class and refinement to the Pabst white-trash gentrification of Uptown. But I'm not complaining about the gentrification, really. It's still better that the scary ghost town that preceded it.
- Euro Tuner Magazine: A link to the VW Double Down article that my brother and I were featured in a full color seven-page spread written by famed The New York Times author, Richard S. Chang, and photographed by Wes Alison! The absolute heyday of the Import Racing scene in California, pre-Fast and Furious. The article was first published in Super Street April 2001, and later published in a second run for Euro Tuner magazine. The link is now broken - Euro Tuner and that whole segment of import mags has undergone so many editorial and publishing ownership changes, I lost track long ago.
- Fresh Jive: What used to be a clothing company for the hip and trendy two decades ago has dissolved. The site is up in a different direction having become a tree hugging environmental movement? However, the splash page flash movie is a rude awakening, who has the source to that humdinger?
- Glutter: Hong Kong democracy girl, behind the original artwork of Chairman Mao wearing a SARS mask, started a family down south and I think she had to put her rebellious ways aside. A long time running blog with quite a reputation in Asia.
- Heywire: Has since become Artst. Although pitched as a guild and community, it continues to pimp Pharrel's photos and his "art", with the community artists offering phone snaps of their finger nail paint if that says anything of the level of art exhibited.
- House Arrest Events: The streaming DJ mixes from past events at this Chicago nightclub featuring House DJs like Derrick Carter, Green Velvet, Diz, Hiroki, Kid Koala, Louie Vega, Doc Martin, Mark Farina, Sandy Rivera, East Coast Boogiemen, and the list goes on! Unfortunately, it's a dead link. Someone has to pay for this service! Support it or die, and I've been around long enough to know that House music is underground 'cause it's broke!
- Jamie Doom: Once part of the Sinosplice network last seen roaming the vast ocean in 2007. 403 Forbidden, son!
- Jeff Jones: Maker of the trickest titanium mountain bike to date ran a blog showcasing his builds for customers in which he chronicle the full build, ride, disassemble and ship the completed bike. Then a report about a customers bike being jacked in the UK - an $8000 build no less! Went into a cold spell and has since reported technical difficulties although the main site is still published.
- Just Jared: A celebrity Hollywood site that did it with just a wee bit more class than Perez Hilton. But who am I kidding reading this bullshit.
- JTuned: Followed "Wilson's Import Racing Mix" to the tee in formula, represented for a year, found out the hard way there ain't no money in feeding eye candy to a bunch of pimple faced teenagers! And without passion, you get JTuned.
- Original Made: See JTuned above.
- Perez Hilton: Like reading a magazine on the shitter, I would bemuse myself with the latest gossip while eating lunch. But the last time it was bemusing or entertaining was when Perez was a fat queen bragging about hanging out with Paris Hilton and broke - it was rude, raw and underground. Then it became mainstream, diluted, and got passed off to assistant(s) writers, turning PG in the process, and needs to be dropped off the face of the planet.
- Stereo NYC: Cigarettes being choked on inside the club. That's VIP New York for you.
- Watch Movies: Used to provide streaming movies that were newly released. Like getting the $3 bootleg DVD sold at the hamburger stand, but for free, on your computer, on the same day as the film was released!
- NJS Frames Supermarket: It was the hotness and source to score an ex-racer NJS frame direct from Japan. Since I ride 58-59cm, I mostly viewed, for amusement, $1000 used steel frames (many times rusted and/or dented) being purchased direct from Japan like hotcakes. One time, a sparkling iridescent blood red 58cm came onto the market at $1300 but with the plethora of boutique builders in the United States that would build a truly custom bicycle at the same price, passed on that. The blog then turned into a store and dissolved into the nothingness of commerce.

As the saying goes, "No News is Good News!"



It's a sign of the times when the newspaper racks report yesterdays news and are half empty or half full depending on your outlook. These abandoned newsracks litter the metro city landscape. RACINGMIX photographed in Downtown Oakland, 19th Street, BART train station.

2010! Peace to the 'Aughts and hello to the modern adult. "The Generic Man" doesn't need branding and logos to make him feel confident or stylish. He understands quality construction, clean refined lines and the significance of simplicity.




First week of November 2009: Sold the Volvo on Saturday night. Gone car-free, it feels 'effin fantastic to lose 3,000 lbs. Equipped with my single speed steel bicycles, no more pumping gas that feels like money in the bank; movement is powered by the heart, not combustion. I look out on the five-lane freeway from atop the BART platform, the freeway is congested like an ant trail with flashing brake lights, one car after another in file formation. Ironically, I fail to see the "freedom" that the car has been associated with for its marketed life. For excluding myself from the commute of grief, I spread a beaming smile cheek-to-cheek and step through the doors of the BART train. Not the first nor the last, a self-righteous elitist mentality it may be, but I can accept that in exchange for the pros. As the two things that connect me to the lowest common denominator have been eliminated from my daily ritual: the television and the car.

P.S. Thanks to Dave F. of Santa Cruz for showing me the light - we miss you in Concord. Miles' dedication and commitment to Wheels of Steel. Fossil Fuel and Rock the Bike for making me sweat it out Halloween night in the Mission. Thanks to the White brothers of Lafayette for the inspirational proof of cycling's pros for the physical and behavioral. Cotton of Walnut Creek and his essential commuter tips, looking forward to headwinds and rain. Thanks to the family for their support. Respect to those who are green, walking-the-walk, car-free; not anti-car, just pro-bike!







"Since Wisconsin is also the home to Waterford, the makers of Schwinn bicycles, Paramounts litter the streets and are falling from the sky. You just have to catch them before they hit the ground." - Prolly, January 2010"

"Norcal makes L.A. look and feel like Tijuana. - Buscemi, Gourmet, December 2009

"There's an evolution in media moving toward digital. It is just the way of the world. Newspapers performed a huge function for many decades, but the world has changed now: video, photo galleries, all born of immediacy. When people get things on demand, publishing cycles do not work. So it is not a contest of print versus digital but an immovable, unstoppable force." - Harvey Levin, TMZ founder, November 23, 2009

"You are wrong, I'm bone thugs in harmony." - Tiger Woods, October 1, 2009

"I think the better thing would be to save your visual impact for select moments when you want to make a statement. It's all timing. You want to save your moments." - Syd Mead, visionary, September 13, 2005.

"I believe Americans should be forced to work harder and sweat more. Worse, we continue to delude (deceive / dishonest) ourselves. Dunkin' Donuts slogan is 'America runs on Dunkin.' This is ridiculous. The truth is, America isn't running anywhere - America sits on its collective scranus and gets fat on Dunkin. The problem with commuting by bicycle isn't that it's too strenuous; it's that it's too dangerous. Straining makes you healthy. Danger kills you." - Bike Snob NYC, September 24, 2009.

"A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it and you know it.” - Andy Warhol, 1975.

"As in other fields, women seem to break through the glass ceiling just as the air-conditioning is being turned off in the penthouse office suites." - Alessandra Stanley, Good Evening America, The New York Times, September 6, 2009

"Craig Newmark, without wavering, believes craigslist works because people are good. Whether you accept it as true will depend on your standard of goodness. By eliminating marketing, sales, and business development, craigslist's programmers have cut out all the cushioning layers that separate them from the users. Any right they have to teach lessons in public service comes from the odd situation of running a company that is directly subservient to the public. Here's the lesson: The public is a motherfucker." - Gary Wolf, Wired, August 24, 2009

"Michelle Obama does not need to be rescued. She does not need you commenting on the finer points of her body. And she most definitely does not need our permission to wear shorts." - Kate Dailey, The Human Condition, August 17, 2009.

"Because technology keeps moving, it keeps the tension alive between free and expensive, so it never stabilizes. In a sense, this rewards the innovative and punishes those who cannot innovate or change rapidly.” - Stewart Brand, Futurist, 70 years old, July 20, 2009.

"Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, said when he was a college student along with Larry, they invented Google based off of open source, Linux. Morally, Sergey wants to give back to the open source community because it enabled Google. This business would not have existed if it were not for open source technology. So what other businesses can you create on this type of technology? Google has a role is mentoring businesses get off the ground. I think in a very broad view, different from a traditional CFO focused on bottom line and incremental action - not an incremental vision but a many-year, long-term vision. That is one of the reasons Google is successful today, and will continue to be successful. For that reason, I agreed to come work at Google. As an entrepreneur, Google's leadership doesn't block, but rather, enables every one of my visions." - Andy Rubin, July 17, 2009, CNN Money.

"Life is pain and anyone who tells you different is selling something." - William Goldman, The Princess Bride, 1987.

"Sitting at a cafe in the alps and the two dudes next to me are drinking beer. It's not even 10am on a Monday." - Lance Armstrong, Twitter, June 29, 2009.

"We (Founder Craig Newmark and Chief Executive Jim Buckmaster) both know some people who own more than a billion dollars and they're not any the happier. They also need bodyguards." - Craig Newmark of Craigslist.org.

"Shima is known for how and where he does his royales. Brian Aragon is known for his robotic and smooth style plus he's the spin king. Richie looks like he's always about to fall but he is actually so under control. Franky...well, he's Franky! Murda is a weirder black version of Aragon. Broskow is just weird - and solid. Bailey is just stupid because he has a unique style in the craziest spots." bladerboy201, Shima Killer Boots, YouTube.

"I feel like a wall covered in graffiti. Anybody can just run up and leave a mark but the wall underneath remains solid. I need to wash off all the marks - I feel so saturated with everybody's bullshit...I need to get clean again." - David Flores, Artist, Santa Barbara, California, May 26, 2009.


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Stella pictured on Lower Haight Street in San Francisco. You can see the last of the showers in the concrete. Peep the size 13 waterproof gore-tex SB Dunks (vintage 2007). Stomping 2009: good news, those close and in contact know just how stoked I am. It's been 5 years in the making. I consider it a more significant accomplishment than my bachelor's in Literature at Santa Cruz circa 2001. To think that factually, 10% of the population are college educated, yet having a University of California bachelors is dime-a-dozen. It's like the 10% rule: 10% create and contribute, the other 90% just shit on everything.



Finally, the snow base is over 100" and the powder fell from the skies and blanketed everything into a crusty white coral reef. Just waxed my board for the second time this season. If you're headed to South shore Lake Tahoe, Heavenly season pass ticket holder here, so hit a brotha' up!

Tags: Doze Green, Lib Tech, 2006 Pacifier, Lindsey Whittaker, Dragon Motif, Secret Saturdays, RACINGMIX, Deep House Soldiers, Metrotuned, Opus One, 8-Bit Generation, Duck Foot Stance, Fakie Rider, Heavenly Mountain, Bay Area Riders of the Storm.

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"I've always been somewhat disillusioned with the educational system. Some people have said it was originally based on the idea that we're training factory workers, so it was very important to teach them to do some repetitive task for eight hours a day. What's going to be really exciting is when this Nintendo generation gets a little bit older and starts becoming teachers in schools. I think that's going to make a bigger difference than any kind of educational reform ever will. In the future a lot more learning will happen in the home." - Will Wright, Inventor of SimCity, Wired Magazine, January 1994.

Re: BART Police New Years Shooting Fruitvale station subsequent riot protest.
I'm Pissed and Want a T.V. Let's Riot.

"After watching the news this morning and seeing the people rioting and looting in Oakland, allegedly for justice in the BART shooting, I want justice too. (Justice is what I'll name my new T.V.) I'm organizing a riot at the Best Buy in Dublin to protest. I'm not sure how destroying the neighborhood and private property, stealing merchandise, and lighting cars on fire is a protest to what happened. It doesn't matter. The people doing it didn't know either, but if it means that I can get a new 52" 1080p 120Hz Flat-Panel LCD HDTV with DNIe (Digital Natural Image engine), wide color enhancer and CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp), and 2 built-in 10W down-firing bottom-mount speakers then I'm all for it. So here's the plan. Email me and we'll figure out what time to meet up at the Starbucks next to Jamba Juice. We'll probably "get our pissed on" when everyone arrives and start the riot right there. We can start this riot right by smashing some coffeehouse windows, setting those paper sleeves on fire, and looting some white chocolate mochas. (It's gonna get cold out there.) With our bellies full of caffeinated brewed goodness we can move our angst and desire for "Justice" across the parking lot to the Best Buy before the cops get there. When they do finally get there we can "hoot and holla" about nothing in particular while we jump up and down on their cars and smashing windows and stealing more stuff. Gonna be great. We'll need someone to make some signs on 8"x11" pieces of paper making reference to the BART shooting to really make this legit. And if anyone knows how to use an espresso machine, that'd be great. Once they see how angry we are, the Starbucks employees will probably flee. See you tonight! P.S. Will need at least one more person with the ability to lift 80 pounds. Thanks!" - Rants and Raves, Craigslist, January 1, 2009

"Hip Hop used to be about being fearless, standing out. Now it's all about fitting in. Hip Hop is like a big high school. That's why I respect people who can do whatever they want to do. - Kanye West, November 19, 2008, MTV Raw.

"We now have a "Clean House Depression" - you know that TV show where pack rats fill their houses from floor to ceiling with junk they never use or even know they have. The US has plenty of houses, cars, computers, TV's, Appliances, Cell phones, Game consoles and other Junk, most of which were made in China. Some people actually managed to own their junk by runs around the system - most bought their junk on credit that will never be repaid. So we can turn off the Chinese Factories for 10 years until some of the junk wears out. But all those workers will starve. The solution to the infamous depression was to blow up the world's cities and put people back to work building new ones. A mismatch between productive capacity and consumption. Computers and robots will do all the work but robots don't buy the stuff they make, they work 24/7/365, plus faster than humans." - Jet, Nov 22, 2008.

"John McCain said he cannot even send e-mail! We need a President who can send e-mail. I think that sort of thing is important, don't you?" - DJ Z-Trip, 944 Magazine with Shepard Fairey.

"At the end of the day, we are responsible for our own lives. Once you learn that, you're on your way." - Isaac Hayes (1942-2008)

"But I know that time reveals truth and heals wounds. I definitely do miss the Fugees. We were a crazy bunch. We used to do some wild things, we had a lot of fun. But the funny thing about liberation is that once you get it, anything other feels awkward." - Lauryn Hill, August 26, 2008.

"Respect is not creative...Chanel is an institution, and you have to treat an institution like a whore - and then you get something out of her...I'm only interested in my own opinion. If I have a project, you like, or you don't like. There is no second opinion. If you are not 100% sure about what I want to do, you ask someone else." - Karl Lagerfield, August 24, 2008.

"I guess it's bittersweet, you spend half your life trying to become larger than life and the other half trying to just live a real life again." - Kanye West, July 6, 2008.

"Please note that saying 'someone' needs to do 'something' will not be any more helpful on that issue. We are already well aware of that." - Michelle, Drupal.org, June 19, 2008.

"U.S. officials repeated their call yesterday for China to stop subsidizing fuel for its citizens, arguing that it contributes to surging demand for oil and thus higher global prices. Since Chinese citizens pay a fraction of the market price, they have less incentive to pull back in their use of gasoline and heating oil. But while China's population is larger and consumption is growing at a much faster rate than in the United States, the Chinese note that the average American consumes about 14 times as much oil as his Chinese counterpart." - The Associated Press, June 18, 2008.

"Pay respect to the elders and take the suggestions of the intellectuals; treat them as your teachers. Consider those who will not flatter but always criticize you. Because good and bad, kind and evil, and right and wrong are not easy to tell apart. Some things are similar in appearance but different in nature. For example, green bristle grass seeds can look like rice. The hide of the cow is the same color as the tiger's. Bone can be mistaken for ivory and worthless stone for pure jade. All of these are apparently right, but actually wrong. So if you want to distinguish between them, you must observe them carefully." - Duke Wei-Wen, Tang Dynasty Official

"Gavin Newsome + Mary Jane = True Love" - Sarah Hromack, April 16, 2008

"The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low, that every person of sense and character detests and despises it” - George Washington

"...Boning you on my helicopter." - John Mayer, March 7, 2008

"Real mixtapes. Once cassettes died, the music started dying, both literally and figuratively. Mainly, the cassette tape forced the listener to appreciate an artist's entire album of work. None of this skipping-around CDs introduced. And now, you can completely ignore a musician's finished volume thanks to iTunes and single-downloading. You can even forget about the artwork, since the music vendors are threatening to pull tangible CDs off the shelves. So yeah, let's bring back the cassette. The only problem: No one has a tape-player!" - Bobby Hundreds, April 4, 2008

"As humans, we are subjected to an overload of sensory stimulation every second of everyday. We are bombarded with millions upon millions of images and sounds. Yet, we can only comprehend things as they happen. There is so much to take in, even when things seem calm...that is when I wonder, what is important? You can hear, see and feel the most incredible things when nothing is happening at all. The most common occurrences can become events of such magnitude that seem as if they taken years to orchestrate, and who is to say that they did not? Thoughts move through my mind too fast for me to get them down on paper. These thoughts end up manifesting themselves in dreams that make sense only to me. When you spend enough time watching, listening and thinking, you can almost transcend to a place where you believe in anything. It keeps me continually engaged with the pleasures of life." - Jacob, designer & photographer.

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I'm excited about today's opening of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. From what I've heard from friends in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou, they are excited just to have the Olympics over with as the publicity and fever tension of the marketing campaign is exhausting. Either way, having the Olympics on 08-08-08 at 8:00pm is about as blatantly "lucky" of a moment one will ever witness in this lifetime.

Yahoo's Flickr photo hosting website canceled one of my freshly paid pro accounts with no advanced notice, literally erasing 2 years of titles, tags, descriptions, groups, sets, and connections. Of course I have the original photos, but the order and the information I attached to each photo was lost. The portfolio had 400 photos and was viewed over 50,000 times. It consisted of photographs of custom design furniture after it had been delivered to the customers home - a real portfolio of original photographs. When is a collection of photos not a portfolio, not selling something (your lifestyle, skills, style, view, yourself?) The official response from Flickr was: "Don't use Flickr for commercial purposes. Flickr is for personal use only. If we find you selling products, services, or yourself through your photostream, we will terminate your account." If you surf around Flickr and through your contacts, you'll find that the majority violate the terms and that's not a bad thing for the Flickr community. When my Flickr renewal notice came up, best believe I thought doubly about renewing my RACINGMIX Flickr pro account. History of image production output 2006-2008, especially in 2006 when Mr H. Saba sponsored RACINGMIX. Psst: Zen Photo. - wilson@racingmix.com 080808

Deep V Battle by Wilson Tai for metrotuned & RACINGMIX



Single speed bikes are an obsession: two wheeled bicycles, welded in steel and powered by a pair of legs - simple, pure, effective. Beyond the freewheelin' single speed is the fixed gear bike. (There is also coaster brake single speed; think 1980s Toys R Us special BMX with bar pads and plastic 5 star rims, ripping 20 ft. skids with the pedals locked back) Although single speed and fixed gear share a common trait - one gear - the fixed gear lacks a freewheel or freehub, thus coasting is not possible. Simply put, when a rider is on the bike, the rider is constantly pedaling in motion either forward or backward or at standstill, a balancing act called a "track stand". To simplify matters, fixed gear purists use bare minimum essentials, less parts, free of cables, derailleurs, cassettes, shifters and even brake levers.



Define fixed gear lifestyle? Ride or die! Just like import racing before it hit the mainstream (pre-2001 The Fast and The Furious), you would instantly connect with complete strangers in the niche - interaction, communication and human emotion achieved through riding, sharing a common passion. You'll find "fixies" on the BART train, local city streets, and if you're lucky, you'll witness a "wolfpack" collective mashing through San Francisco to Los Angeles or (insert your local metropolitan city here) and zippin' around a lit landmark at a midnight session, complete with barspins, skids, wheelies and bunny hops.



You can identify the hipster species for the vintage flannel shirts, all-over-print hoodies or t-shirts, sideways crooked hat, tight jeans (circa 1980 heavy metal mascara smeared lead singer), anodized carabiner keychain attached to the rear right jean belt loop, Vans sneakers (thanks to influence of super producer personality, Pharrell), and a wicked controlled recklessness that is borderline finesse and vulgarity, mixed with a dash of danger.





It's not so much the fashion but the function, after all. For example, out-of-saddle climbing, then bombing down Ygnacio Valley Rd., a massive four lane hill road intersecting Concord and Walnut Creek, in a 42 tooth chainring versus 17 tooth cog, hitting 30mph, the threshold where no longer can the rider maintain the hyper cadence at speed, into a locked skid with cars 2 ft. to the left and sidewalk curb 2 ft. to the right, and living to tell about it. That's an element of fixed gear lifestyle. Thus, the appeal.



Rim trend: I'm not a bicycle parts designer but a custom furniture industrial designer. As with most eye candy, I am intrigued by sexy bikes, and currently, the latest sexy is the "Deep V Battle" targeted at the single speed fixed gear biker. The aesthetic and fashion comes from the super deep dishes seen in the velodrome track bikes or in time trial bicycle races; think Lance Armstrong and his infamous hot twitter'd Tour of California TT bike. The ability to slice through the wind, transfer power stiffness, and feather lightness are ideal traits - thus most deep dish rims are made of carbon fiber.





Because the style looks "damn cool" and because the carbon deep v's cost close to a thousand dollars each, they are appealing to the street riders. To meet the demand, cheaper aluminum versions rocking the deep dish have become the hipster standard.



To add fuel to the fire, I am in the market for deep rims as I possess a pair of 36H Phil Wood & Co. blue anodized disc hubs (hubset), freshly renewed by Bruno @ Phil Wood, and am ready to lace up to rims with "ill steez" that Phil exemplifies.



But because these are going on a single speed mountain bike, I am seeking a wider rim for a wider footprint. Because I'm not pumping the tires to 100+ psi, a narrow rim has a higher likelihood for tire roll off. At the top of the 29er MTB list are the Halo Freedom Disc's, the MTB specific choice at 28mm wide and 25mm deep, stainless eyelets. Considered deep, but not deep enough!





Behind-the-scenes chatter with the big three in the deep V battle, Velocity Australia/USA, H Plus Son China, and Dodici Italy, I can assemble there will be quite the heated competition in the summer of 2009.

The newest kid on the block is the Velocity B43, designed to be the deepest at 43mm deep, built on the proven pedigree of the original street weapon, the "Deep V", at 30mm deep. Not deep enough cried the progressive urban riders! The B43, named after the nuclear bomb, is 43mm deep, 700+g weight, triple chambered for strength, a high spoke count (48 holes versus 28 or 32 holes), and the standard flaming colors (bubblegum pink, antifreeze green, popsicle purple, etc.). Inching it 1mm over the next deepest competition, Velocity B43 will be a huge hit.



Velocity was provoked to release the B43 in direct retaliation to "formidable" H Plus Son Formation Face rims, which destroyed velocity's original champion 30mm Deep V with an astounding 42mm dish (12mm more than the 30mm Deep V), 600g weight, and quality construction (welded seam, G609 alloy).



Then the single, isolated incident of a Japanese fixed gear rider blowing out an H+Son rim destroyed the reputation about as quick as it had stormed onto the market. This was a pre-Domino's Pizza viral social media nightmare on a smaller scale.


Above: A photoshop'd soft taco in a truly taco'd rim, circa, Japan. What's crazier than popping your rim is wearing shoes three sizes too large - now that's deep, son!

H Plus Son is run by a father and son in the classic two generation old tradition vs new modern thinking cliche (I'm no stranger to this!) and sell globally direct from their website. Dodici Italy is run by an Italian vintage pista enthusiast, Jacopo Volpe, and he commissions the rims through Gipiemmi after Model 716. The whole rim line is the single Dodici rim, running 3 chambers, 768g weight with a 40.5mm deep section. Like the competition, the Dodici is 19mm wide.



In one swift blunt hit, the Velocity Deep V successor, the B43, will destroy the H Plus Son and the Dodici rim offerings. If you want to play the geographical game, it's Australia/USA for the win over China and Italy. The problem still lies, what about the wider width for 29er mountain bikes? Big hit!

I was considering ordering 1,200 rims from Dodici Italy with custom XL width and height but thank goodness someone did it before I jumped. Soon to be released, the Velocity Chukker is 32mm deep and 24mm wide and was designed for bike polo, hence the name, "Chukker", bike polo lingo. Though it's not as wide as many 29er riders would demand, it's width is equal to a lot of current 2009/10 29er mountain bike rims and ideal for my build.

A word from MD @ Velocity:

Thanks for your input on the blog and for the kind words. For the record, the B43 was designed for road use, aimed at the fixed gear rider that just wanted more rim. The Chukker is being made for the polo player. The word "chukker" is a polo term meaning one period of play in a match. We have been getting a lot of requests for a wider Deep V style rim with up to 48 hole, so we made one. We suspect the Chukker will appeal to the trick and free ride crowd as well because of its width and strength. Neither rim was designed for the MTB crowd specifically, but if an off road rider finds a use for it, awesome!

John Prolly, of Brooklyn, NY, was chosen to rep an early release of the Chukker's: Profile track hubs, Velocity Chukker's, MKE x BMW 700c urban BMX fixed gear street whip:





Metrotuned singlespeed 29er with production Velocity Chukker x Phil Wood MTB 29er SS wheelset.



Metrotuned: Geekhouse x Igleheart - new school and old school share more similarities under the sun and stay true with their unique principles! In pursuit of the custom rigid steel New England segmented fork. Two custom bike builders in New England push the style fork in their line of custom steel frames and forks.

Metrotuned: Geekhouse x Igleheart from metrotuned.

New School and Old School, both melding true school custom handmade steel bikes. Metrotuned filmed on site in Boston and Wenham, Mass.

RACINGMIX, created in 2000 by Wilson Tai, a Chinese American, native resident of the San Francisco East Bay. Presenting a vision of global Generation-Y lifestyle through original photography and image production. Read more...

- Black
- Bush Haters
- Buy American Cars
- California Recall
- Chinaman & Chink
- Cotton King
- Craigslist Fartist
- Deep V Battle
- Elevators
- Female Stereotypes
- Football Season is Over
- Girth of a Nation
- Import Racing
- Invisible Victims
- Men Should Know...
- Michael Jackson
- Muxtape
- NJS Keirin Fixed Gear
- Operation Al Fajr
- Pack Mentality
- Paul Cezanne
- Trevor Traynor
- Quarter-Life Crisis
- Revolution
- War at Home
- Z.Team Yossi

- April Showers
- Bachelor Life
- Birthday Bash
- Day to Conquer
- Defected Party
- Dragon Well
- Flower Pond
- Foreign Teachers
- Hong Kong 1
- Hong Kong 2
- Homebody '02
- Huang Mountain
- Jade Emperor Hill
- Junk Food
- Junk Food 2
- PuTuo Mountain
- Shanghai
- Sinosplice
- Taiwan
- Yangshuo
- Xian Warriors
- West Lake
- ZUCC Crew '03

- Bay of Plenty
- Reminiscence
- Skydive
- Tai Chi

- Airlie Beach
- Bondi Beach
- Brisbane
- Darling Harbour
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