Do you need a good reason to bike? After reading this article I never want to buy another drop of gasoline again. Check it out here: How America is being bought by Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Funds! It was written by Matt Taibbi, a journalist for Rolling Stone, and probably one of the journalists I trust most at the moment.  It's kind of depressing when the state of the media is so bad that the people I trust most are Rolling Stone and Comedy Central.  

I always though nothing cool came from the east coast.  Mostly because Washington DC and New Jersey are located there. Thankfully I've been enlightened on both fronts by two things, the fabulous TV show "Jersey Shore" (i also highly recommend watching the South Park parody OMG its a Snoooki!) and and the awesome bike builders, Independent Fabrications.  

The Cannondale onBike straight up pushes the bike design envelope. Cannondale replaced the seat and chain stays with an enclosed single sided chain case. Pretty awesome.  The chain case is made of machined billet, so they bascially took a hunk of metal and machined it into a chain case.  The bike is a 9 speed with internal gears and disk brakes.

Cable cutters are an integral part of any bike mechanics tool box.  You know this if you have ever tried to cut a brake or shifter cable with out a proper cable cutter.  Also works good for trimming cable housing.  

This is an early episode where Jim goes through parts of the bicycle.  Jim starts with the front wheel, rim, tire, tube, spokes and hub, then moves on to the fork and brake and brake calipers. 

Next he checks out the handlebars, brake levers, and bar tape.  On to the stem, and headset which transitions into the frame, which consists of the headtube, top tube, down tube, seat tube, chain stay and seat stay. 

Which brings us to the seatpost and saddle.  Moving on to the drivetrain made up of the crank, chain, cassette, rear derailleur and front derailleur.  What allows the crank to turn is the bottom bracket and that's pretty much what we're working with.  See you on the road, bitches!

Joe's much less suave, and much more annoying rendition of "Part's of a Bicycle":

The Phil Wood Spoke Machine is every wheel builders wet dream.  It cuts and threads spokes with one revolution of its magical manual crank.

The machine is designed to cut and thread 1.8mm (15 Gage) and 2.0mm spokes (16 Gage) and place 10mm of 56 TPI (Threads per Inch) thread on the end of the spoke. Butted spokes and aero spokes may be cut and threaded on that portion of the spoke that is full diameter. Rolling the thread on the end of the spoke does not remove material as would occur if the thread were cut on the spoke. The thread is cold forged onto the spoke. It is recommended that high quality spokes be matched with this machine - such as Phil Stainless Steel Spokes.

A metal file is a great tool to have in your mechanics tool box. If you are building your own handlebars or cutting spokes a metal file works great for cleaning up the imperfections and sharp edgers.

A measuring calipers is a great tool to have in a bike shop. It helps you accurately measure things like hub diameter, seatpost diameter and other things that require exact measurements.

Missed a few weeks. Mostly was trying to get my shit together and watching Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But here is a BOTW to redeem myself, if that's possible. It's the Affinity Kissena, a sweet and sassy track ride I'd like to wrap my thighs around.

A collaborative effort between Independent Fabrication, Boston's Bodega and Portsmouth's Bailey Works.