Well, physically I am back at least. After a longer than normal product development trip in China I am feeling drained, not to mention a bit jet-lagged. It was a great trip, but it will take me a while to get caught up and back to normal (at home and at work), so expect short…

In my recent post about integrated seatposts, I mentioned three bikes that are among my favorites currently on the market, the Ridley Noah, the Giant TCR, and the Cervelo P2C. That post got me thinking about other bikes currently being sold that I really like. I haven’t ridden most of these, so my opinions are…

This may be a bit off topic, but a recent post on Cyclelicious caught my attention. The post points to an article about bike commuting on The Paceline, a Discovery Team sponsored website. In his post, Fritz says “usually, there doesn’t seem to be much in common between professional road cycling and transportational cycling besides…

In my last post, I brought up the idea of integrating seats into carbon bicycle frames (probably not the most practical idea, but something I just wanted to throw out there). I failed to mention the current crop of road bikes on the market that use standard saddles but have seatposts integrated into the frame.…

It has been a while since I have posted any sketches, so here are a few rough ones. These are quick little pursuit bike forms that I sketched last night while I was watching the Olympics on TV. I probably would have scrapped this page, but I kind of like the shape of the frame…

If you like photos of racing bikes (and I assume that many of you do), check out the Tour of California coverage on steephill.tv. They have the best gallery from Sunday’s prologue that I have seen with many close-up shots of the teams’ bikes before the race. Great stuff; I’ll be following their coverage all…

I just saw a short bit about this on Pez Cycling News. Prior to the Tour of California, the Phonak team is testing riders in a wind tunnel for the very first time. Over the course of three days, Floyd Landis, Santiago Botero, and Miguel Angel Perdiguero are pedaling in the San Diego low speed…

Anyone who has been interested in cycling for very long is certainly familiar with Columbus tubing. Good old SLX used to be the tubeset of choice for many of the best frame builders. When I first started cycling seriously in the late 80’s, I aspired to own an Italian made SLX frame. Now, I have…

A few days ago, I had a great conversation with Michael Downes about the role of design in the bicycle industry. Michael is the Senior Industrial Designer at Giant Bicycle in Newbury Park, California. That means that he designs, or at least has some involvement in, 80 percent of the bikes that Giant makes for…

Rollers don’t seem to be all that popular anymore. I don’t know why; I like riding mine much more than the stationary trainer. Rollers are not as hard on the bike and, in my opinion, are a lot more fun to ride (of course fun is a relative term when talking about indoor riding). Last…

Garmin has the best looking new heart rate monitor on the market with the Forerunner 305. OK, it is really more than a heart rate monitor because of the GPS capabilities; they refer to it a “personal trainer”. Still, I’d rather keep calling it a heart rate monitor and at over 350 bucks, it’s a…

In an earlier post, I showed a picture of a few homebuilt mutant choppers that I saw in New York. Though bikes like these are very different than the ones that I am typically interested in, I must admit that it is a lot of fun to look at them. The Bikerod and Kustom Gallery…

Yeah, I know this is a little off topic, but I can’t help it. My last post about Greenville, South Carolina had some design content (at least it mentioned the bicycle industry and product development). This follow up, I must admit, is just a blatant plug for Greenville as a great cycling town. I am…

This weekend, I picked up my copy of the Greenville Journal and read the headline, “Greenville lands national cycling championship.” By now, that is pretty old news to most cycling fans. Still, I thought that the article and the accompanying photos were great exposure for the local cycling community. I was even more interested in…

Anyone who is interested in the design of full suspension bicycles needs to check out Hannes Fleischer’s new simulation tool for mountain bike kinematics. A free light version of the online software is available so you can try it out before you buy. It is fun to play around with simulations of the most popular…

I just read a great article that I feel the need to share. I’ll refrain from much commentary, just suffice it to say that I really enjoyed Tim’s interview with Scott Nicol (aka Chuck Ibis). Check it out here at Shut Up and Drink the Kool-Aid.