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« May 2006 | Main | July 2006 » June 29, 2006smoothies, tattoos and a guy named doug.That all earth friendly mega corp called Starbucks (in Washington) has a bicycle powered blender and the customers make their own drinks, while drinking half cap ventes and logging on to the world
June 27, 2006Spherely living large...
The Robot Assemblage Creativity ContestWe just launched a siiiick sticker design contest: Giving away tons of rad prizes from Sticker Robot, Zoltron, Swobo, Peel magazine, SEEN studios, Sticker Robot and Zoltron present The Robot Assemblage Creativity Contest. We've teamed up with Peel magazine, SEEN studios, Pinpops, Fudge Factory Comics, Swobo, Strangeco, Robots Will Kill, and Blood Wars Magazine. Winners will be handsomely rewarded with various forms of epic swag, and will receive their art printed, published, and produced. Prizes go to the artists with the top 3 winning sticker designs. Winning entries will be printed by Sticker Robot onto heavyweight vinyl stickers and published in the next issue of PEEL magazine. Strangeco is throwing in a limited edition designer toy.. Actually, 27 designer toys. SEEN, the grafitti legend himself is dropping one of his limited skate decks. Masterclass designers at Pinpops will take the winning entries and create custom 1" pins. Renowned Bay Area clothing company, Swobo will add a T of choice. Heavyweight artist, Travis Millard, custodial supervisor at Fudge Factory Comics will append some creative glory. Word has it ther'll be a Z-Shirt or two from the enigmatic Zoltron. Robots Will Kill is kicking down a year subscription to their newest venture, "RWK sticker pack of the month club" as well as a grab bag of random stickers to all winners. To top it all off, the winning design will be included in series 4 of robot assemblage street sign enhancement kit. Robot admins are the judges. Cash bribery will not be tolerated, unless it consists of multiple digits.
June 26, 2006Guess who and win a prize...
June 23, 2006A Wednesday night ride of our own.
(right) Eddie Manchild wonders where it all went wrong. (below) Dan ponders his teeths future.
Maybe it was inspired by the Minneapolis Mafias tireless commitment to their own Wednesday night rides, or maybe it was Ferrentinos recent article on underground racing, or maybe it was the memory of Northern Californias Crusy Cup single speed races of days past. In reality, Id say it was a little bit of all of those things that got the fire lit to have our own Wednesday night events here in Santa Cruz. The long and the short of it was, yesterday after work, I loaded up the BOB trailer up with probably more beer then the poor thing was rated for, hitched her up to the Hunter cross bike, and made the long haul to Twin Gates to prepare for the crowd. The course for the event was simple enough..A ten minute redwood shrouded single track loop that the racers would have to complete. Upon crossing the start/finish line, the individual would then have to slam a can of beer, and then proceed to retrace the course in reverse. Racing skills were obviously a must, but as the event unfolded, derbying, and drinking prowess became equally important. Each cyclist had to complete the course, back and fourth, a total of four times, upping the crash factor on each lap. Not to exclude the non drinkers in the fold, I generously provided three dizzy bats that instead of drinking, the racers would have to spin around five times on, before clumsily remounting their bicycles, and swerving back into the woods. (One of which was chucked, Spear-style into a giant poison oak bush.. Thanks Brian.) Truth be told, the most blood was spilled on our descent down through Wilder on our way home. The most spectacular of which was all 7 vertical feet of Kirk going ass over tea kettle, legs sprawling over arms, sprawling over wheels, amidst a giant clowd of dust. Second to that, Dan emailed me today and said that due to a sensational post race dismount, he woke up this morning with a freshly chipped tooth. So long modeling career. It was a smashing start to what will hopefully be many more wednesday night rides for us here. If you find yourself in Santa Cruz, come on up to Twin Gates around 6:00 pm, and dont forget to bring your mouth guard.
June 21, 2006Here we go!!!!So we're cranking on the movie-go-ers, so that's a good thing. Many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to write a short note, and show us your stubs. A lot of people are hearing some of this info for the first time...so education can be a powerful thing. We think this is a hot burning (no pun intended) issue that needs some attention. Bikes can help solve some of this...so ride your bike to work, or on your next beer run. Thanks for listening to our rants, and keep the stubs coming!! Here's a photo of Matt fronting some stub....
June 17, 2006Al Gore and our Organic Cotton Baggy KnickerKeep reading...because there's an opportunity for 50 people to get a pair CHEAP!... We get a lot of email requesting that we bring back the messenger knickers that we once did in a galaxy far, far, away. And although this falls slightly outside of the How to Avoid The Bummer Life context, I do have a meaningful, not so capitalistic, reasoning behind showing you where we're at with this particular product. Keep reading and you get a Scooby Snack....
This last week I went to go see the new Al Gore movie, An Inconvenient Truth. There's a link to the movie trailer in our VIDEO section located over there on the left. Check it out. http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_classics/aninconvenienttruth/trailer/ I'm not going to get into details, but I want you to go see this movie. What we're going to do is give wholesale pricing on these to the first 50 movie stubs from this flick.Starting right now, and going till 50 people send me their ticket stubs. We'll be collecting these stubs, and when these Organic knickers are ready to roll, you'll get a fat discount because you got off your ass to go see this movie. Not a bad deal. Once you've seen it...let me know what you think of this flick. Send Stubs (or email a scan) to: Swobo, Yellow Ferry Harbor, Gate 6 Rd. No 10c, Sausalito, CA 94965
please hammer, dont hurt 'em
June 15, 2006Leave me alone.
Swobo T by ParskidCheck out some new artwork that artist Parskid has made for us. You can check out the rest of his scene at this world wide web location / destination. Tell us what you think, and look for more "one off" designs coming soon.
Can we all just take a moment?
June 12, 2006Joni didnt love Chachi...
like Jonny Pacific loves Chachi. This is a true story. Names have not been changed to protect anybody.
June 11, 2006Bow down to the Dirty Dancing chainguard
Feel the fancy-ness at the Bike Works NYC Chainwheel archive. http://www.bikecult.com/works/chainwheel.html
June 10, 2006WELCOME
How To Avoid The Bummer Life is a back room meeting place of ideas and concepts that we (meaning you also) slap up on a somewhat daily basis. You'll have the opportunity to send us photos, videos, event information, new ideas about bikes, politics, music, Budweiser, the Environment, Design, da "Industry", and anything else that moves the ball towards avoiding the bummer life. The links up above will give you instructions on how to send us stuff, so check those out first. It's fairly simple. HTATBL is also a left handed, red headed, step child of Swobo. Every now and then we'll also be updating you with items that we have in design, and even be asking everyone for some feedback. This is the part of the site where we give everyone the opportunity to arm chair quarterback our design process. Swobo has been a collective movement driven by the fringe, and baffling to the mainstream. In our suicidal,capitalistic thrust towards global domination, we welcome you to jump in head first with us. Safety in numbers. Thanks for stopping by, and bookmark this page for any future enlightenment and sustainable, planned obsolescence. Forward...
June 08, 2006The Monkey Chow Diaries Vol 1-7Meet Adam Scott. He is on Day 6 of a 7 day Monkey Chow Diet. From Monkeyboy: The first thing I will be doing when this is over is eating a large steak and drinking a glass of milk. The chow/coffee/vodka smoothie is a brilliant idea and currently under consideration. Yes, I use a bowl to soak the chow in and I drink from a mug. That's pretty minimalistic, so I don't consider it outside the rules. Anyone who disagrees can take it up with the rules committee of the International Monkey Chow Federation. Somebody did a lot of research into all the nasty things that can appear in animal food in general. I'm not a scientist. Even my health and science advisor (the aforementioned Scooby who talked me into this) isn't a scientist. So I don't know much about chemicals and diseased meats. My theory is that monkeys are almost people, so monkey food is almost people food. Science is over-rated. No, neither Leno nor Letterman have contacted me. Not sure I would go anyway - I hate that airplane food. A post from a guy named "random biologist" actually reassured me a bit about the viability of the diet. I've placed my life in the hands of an anonymous internet user. What could go wrong? Lots of people are suggesting I eat some fruit, which I agree is a good idea. But do I seem like the kind of guy who pursues good ideas? That's it for now. I'll answer some more tomorrow. Time to crunch into some MC.
National day of SLAYER recap
A small but determined group showed up to the Santa Cruz Bikes warehouse this past 6/6/06 for the first National Day Of SLAYER ride. On first glance, an uninformed bystander might believe there was far too much metal in the air for these true believers to handle, but on further inspection, one would take notice of the evil grins, and the devil horned hands locked upon handle bars of every style. Upon dirt worthy steeds, towing trailers full of budweiser and boom boxes blaring Slayers 'Devine Intervention' we were truly a sight to behold. Through the town, and onto the local trails we rolled untill or arrival to the site of the final homage of all that is sinister. A beautiful little ribbon of quiet single track, snaking through the woods was about to be filled with the laughter of the dammed. The starting guns shot rang out, and the race to the finish was underway. It was upon crossing the line, that the warriors of all things dark had to drop, do pushups, and begin the race again in the opposite direction. There was nudity, there was drinking, and of the small handful of participants, there was an unusual amount of blood. Half of the devils atheletes were bloodied due to spectacular crashes, or in one case, just standing there, doing nothing at all. Spouts of crimson appeared for no reason whatsoever. Its was as if the dark lord had reached up from below and scratched the unsuspecting celebrants legs himself. As the sun set with an eery red glow, and we began our trek back to the land of the living, we could have sworn we heard an evil growl of laughter through the dark woods, inviting to do this again next week.
June 06, 2006Name this man, win a spritzer.Name this gentleman and his profession, and Rolo will take you out for a spritzer.
June 05, 2006Andy Zalan's Alley Cat in BudapestOur friend Andy Zalan from D.C. just sent this in... In Budapest, all of the women are gorgeous, there are bike lanes everywhere, beer is cheaper than water, nobody pays to ride the bus, and they have hardcore pornography on basic cable. Dental tourism is huge -- i got two wisdom teeth pulled for $100, and at a rescent critical mass celebrating Earth Day, 32,000 cyclist took to the street, crippling all traffic in downtown Budapest. To say that I am fond of this city would be an understatement.
But anyways, the point of this article is that this past may, I threw an Alleycat race in Budapest. The marketing savants over at Swobo saw the limitless potential of the raw, untapped Hungarian cyclist/hipster market and decided to send me off with a giant bag full of socks, hats, and other stylish sundries. Always ahead of the curve, those guys. Forward thinkers. Again, I digress. So I designed the race to more simulate the type of courier work i do in DC, where usually you'll get a bunch of short pick and drops at one time, as apposed to doing jobs one a time, the way they do in Budapest. There were 6 checkpoints. Each checkpoint had 2 packages you could chose between, going to different addresses, ranging in size and $ value. The longer or more cumbersome the job, the better it paid. There were envelopes, tubes, and at one checkpoint, they even had a bunch of old, dirty, smelly Ortlieb messenger bags to deliver. The rules were that you could go to the checkpoints in any order, you could only pick up one job at a checkpoint per visit, and you could only drop one package from any one address at one time. So while you couldn't bring two packages from checkpoint 'A' to checkpoint 'B' at one time, you could bring one package from checkpoint 'A' to checkpoint 'B' AND one package from checkpoint 'C' to checkpoint 'B'.
June 03, 2006Bummus Flavious MaximusAhh yes. The bummer life. This state of perpetual longing, this existence of amplified self denial, has long tormented both the greatest and weakest minds of humanity... It's condition has been pondered by many countries foremost thinkers, from Lau Ztu, who said of it " The butterfly has no wings. I like rice" to Jean Paul Sarte who commented in his work Nausea " This, perhaps, somehow, ahhhhh..how do you say, fucking really sucks cock?". But what exactly is this condition, how does it arise and, perhaps most importantly, how does one treat it? Many things can lead a person to feel bummed, (the remake of the Bad News Bears, visiting your favorite Glory Hole only to find it's been closed for an hour to be cleaned, playing dice with a sailor midget, talking to a comedian) but something else, something as rare as a bike rider who does not look like a Gaylord, occurs that creates the dynamic of a whole entire life bummed. I maintain, after years of careful study in both China and Hercules California that the iBummer State is caused by a certain chain of events, incidents played out in an exact succession, within exact environments, that send its hapless victims spiraling out of control. The bummed lifers have been known to commit the grandest of crimes and misdeeds, often without even knowing that they are under the grips of this insidious condition. Consider these case studies: 1. "Gary Ho" read every Harry Potter book and was overheard saying " These books are great, adults can read them too!" The snail trails of sadness and human wreckage goes on and on.... Next Week: How to spot the Bummed, and learning to love feces.
How to Build a Bamboo Bike
June 02, 2006Bike For SaleThis bike is a very light racing bike. Features include SLR Aluminum Race Frame, Manitou Mars front suspension, New FSA crank and chain ring, New Bottom Bracket, New rear cassette, nuke proof stem, Avid front and rear brakes, Shimano XT Rear derail. ,Shimano LX Front Derail., aluminum wheel set, and a pretty sweet wicker basket. The bike is in very good condition and is ready to race. Comes with a few bags of accessories.
National day of SLAYER
You truly can never go home.I dont know who originally said it.. I think maybe that Kerouac fella.. but on further consideration, I now know he may have been dead-on right.
This past week, my considerably better half, Demonika and I made a Quick trip to my home state of Colorado, and a two day visit to my home town of Evergreen. I thought now that we've been together for some time, perhaps a tour of the place that, for better or for worse, was responsible for making me the person I am, was long over due. Upon our arrival to Evergreen I was immediately overwelmed by all of the things I have long since forgotten. 'Behind that store, I found Five twelve packs of beer, which I sold for 60 dollars to some redneck teenager, and over there was where I felt my first boob, and down that road used to be this old creepy hotel where we'd go and explore, and right there is the church that my dad helped build an addition onto, and to keep me occupied, he bought me a set of water colors, which I used, and ultimately got in trouble for painting on the wall with....'
June 01, 2006F You and Your H2
Because it has a gross vehicle weight rating over 8500 lbs, the US government does not require it to meet federal fuel efficiency regulations. Hummer isn't even required to publish its fuel economy (owners indicate that they get around 10 mpg for normal use). So while our brothers and sisters are off in the Middle East risking their lives to secure America's fossil fuel future, H2 drivers are pissing away our "spoils of victory" during each trip to the grocery store.
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Ok, so heres the deal folks, June 6th 2000 and 6 will forever be known as the national...no wait, its gonna be internationally known as the day of Slayer. My plan is to duct tape a 'Reign in Blood' blaring boom box, and an 18 pack of coldies in the old Bob trailer, and take a leasurely spin through town, and onto the trails for what will inevitably result in a derby, bruised ribs, and a headache. I highly recommend you do the same.
