No Tour for you!

Ok, so I was really looking forward to the Tour de France this year, seeing as how Lance is FINALLY gone. Now we have a chance to watch real racers compete against each other. Racers that have been racing all season and not just training for one, single event. Nothing against Lance...

Ahem. But, now Ivan Basso and Jan Ulrich have forfeited their spots in this year's Tour due to a recent doping scandal... I guess it just gets better and better for my boy Floyd Landis!

Check these articles:
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/tourdefrance2006/story/0,,1809456,00.html
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/tourdefrance2006/story/0,,1809681,00.html

While you're at it, you should check out Doper's Suck too.

Keep it clean,
Mike

New road bike!

Yesterday I got my new road bike. It's a 2006 Giant TCR Limited. Full composite carbon fiber frame and fork, Ultegra 10 speed groupo with Truvativ Giga X Pipe bottom bracket & Rouleur crankset. Soooo niiiiiiiice. I love the geometry of this bike. So far I've only ridden it home from Broadway Bike Shop and I had my fixed gear slung over my shoulder for that ride, so I really haven't had a good long ride on it yet. I hope to put in a good 40 or 50 miles soon though.

The best part about this bike is that it was basically free... I got it in exchange for designing Broadway Bike Shop's website. It was a great deal if you ask me!

I love the head tube junction area on this bike...

... and the seat junction area...

Truvativ Rouleur crankset with GXP bottom bracket...

Everything but the cranks are Shimano Ultegra 10 speed :]

- Mike

Dream Shants...

Last night, at H&M, I bought a pair of shants. (very long shorts/very short pants.... "manpris" if you must) In my opinion, Shants are, by far, the most comfortable riding wear there is. I don't like riding around town in shorts and I got sick of rolling my pant legs to keep them from being eaten by Mr.48T up front.

Up until last night, my shants were always of the home-made variety; regular ol' pants with about 8" of the bottoms hacked off. I actually spent money on a pair of these last night, except they were hemmed. Ooooh... fancy!

Buying shants made me wish that I had the means to design and produce a pair myself. Chrome makes a very cool pair of knickers but they still don't have what I think a good pair of shants needs to make it in the urban world of messenging and all day city riding: My life.

So, click the image and see what I think the Ultimate Urban Riding Shant should be.

-Mike

It stopped raining!

After three days of almost non-stop, sogging, demoralizing, demotivating and destructive rain, the gods of precipitation called it quits. Had a great ride to work today. It was sunny. It was cool. It was, down right, enjoyable again! ... and I played in the puddles.

-Mike

Happy Birthday to me!

So I'm the big two-eight today. Honestly; I never thought I'd live this long. Life is good.

- Mike

Soaked again...

Above: A quick stop by the bank on the way home; happily soaked.

Above: just cruisin' home.

Yep, soaked on the way to work and soaked on the way home. Lovely. But at least it was warm rain. I didn't really mind. I'll be takin' the track bike tomorrow seeing as how my road shoes have been claimed by the Soggies.

-Mike

Soaked.

I got soaked this morning. I should have taken rain gear, but I said screw it, and just tossed an extra pair of socks in my bag with my regular change of clothes and pedaled off. About half way to work I started getting pelted with big ol' fat rain drops. (that's when I took this picture) The fat rain drops were followed by buckets; then sheets and, lastly, hammers and anvils. 

My shants and shoes are drying on the a/c unit here in my office. Ought to be dry by the time I pedal home. 

Good day to be a duck,
Mike

Engagement, Housewarming, Birthday Party.

Yesterday my fiance and I hosted a big party with our close friends to celebrate our engagement, new pad and my birthday (which is really Tomorrow). It was great. Lots of cycling friends and art pals showed up and we all had a good time.

Chrissy was feelin' the love last night.

Our place is finally coming together. All we need is a nice couch and we'll be just about set. Here are a few photos I took right before we kicked off the party:

Photos of the new pad.

-Mike

Been doin' some web work.

It's been a hell of a long time since I've posted anything on here... I have been pretty busy lately with helping my fiance plan our wedding and various other things of relatively major importance. One of those things is getting a website done for a local bike shop here in Baltimore. You can check it out if you want, it's hosted on my server for the time being but will be up on it's own two feet once I get the go ahead to launch it. Feed back is always appreciated!

Broadway Bike Shop by: Mike O'Hara

Riding to work again...

It's just good to be riding to work again.

-Mike

How happy am I?

This happy. (to be riding again)

-Mike

My first Photography class.

I signed up to take a very basic, beginners, class at MICA. I'm taking Foundations of Photography. Last night was my first class and man I'm stoked about this class. It's going to be all about black & white film photography dealing only with available light. So, most of my photos will probably be outside, but who knows. I was really stoked to finally be able to wrap my head around some things that I'd always only kinda' sorta' knew about. (relationships between f/stops, shutter speeds & film speeds) I've got a good understanding of it now, but we'll see how well I can use that understanding when it comes time to take pictures. I am hearby surrendering my digital cameras and will be using nothing other than a fully manual Pentax K-1000 SLR. Wish me luck!

Oh, I should also mention that I learned about this awesome photographer Abelardo Morell. He has a whole series of Camera Obscura photos where he basically would rent a room, and black out all the light coming through the windows except for a very small hole; essentially turning the whole room into a pin hole camera... then he'd use his large format camera to photograph what was projected onto the walls through that pin hole (lens) via a very long exposure (hours). Pretty rad eh?

-Mike

Bicycle removed...

I put a new short clip online. A little disclaimer before you download this 66 seconds of wrongness: This bike frame was locked up outside of our place for a few months before we moved in. One of it's seat stays had popped it's weld and it's front wheel was missing. The rear wheel was cracked in a few spots. Slowly, little by little this dying frame was robbed of this and that... Rather than bust the U-lock I did something terrible... you'll just have to watch to find out.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE! (3.98MB)

40 Miles... Hallelujah!

Man, it felt great to get out and pedal yesterday. A friend and I rode 40 miles out into the county NW of the city. This was my first ride after not riding at all for 4 weeks. My love for the road bike has been rekindled. (especially after a quick tweak of the rear derailleur - no more skipping) I have to say, I am so happy that my guts didn't hurt at all. Looks like I've healed up just fine from my hernia surgery. As for my legs: that's another story. I'm sore today! But it feels good!

Hurts so good,
Mike.