Coffee & Cassette: An Interview With Kaiko Shimura

Don't recognize the name? Three words (four if you don't count hyphenation) should clear things up for you. Pedal-Strike. Cassette. Embrocation. Was that a glimmer of recognition I saw in your eye just then? These three seem to be Shimura's main forms of artistic expression right now.

...Oh, and being a lawyer. Yes, that's right, all this isn't enough for this Tokyo-raised, fixed-gear riding, art-making, bike-shop-loving cycling dynamo. There's also law school. At BC.

Oh, and did I mention she makes her own cycling caps? No, I'm not saying she can make a hat. I mean, she is an artist with a sewing machine. She makes cycling caps. The real thing. They sell them in bike shops. Where hip people buy their lockrings and stuff.

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I'd be doing you both a disservice if I didn't send you to her own writing, so please check out these links:

PEDAL-STRIKE BLOG
CASSETTE DESIGN



RK: What's Your Favorite Book? Why?
KS: I have too many! My two current favorites that I'd read over and over again are Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go" and Bill Strickland's "Ten Points." Though the former's fiction and the latter non-fiction, both tell the kinds of stories that I think will always be relevant, wherever you are in life.

RK: What's your favorite place you've ever traveled?
KS: Yakushima in southern Japan (it inspired the forest in Princess Mononoke). It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and having lived most of my life in urban environments, it was incredibly surreal to hike through an ancient forest.

Miyajima near Hiroshima is a close second but for entirely different reasons.

RK: Do you have a hero? Who?
KS: Sakamoto Ryoma is an all-time favorite. He was a savvy political negotiator who was able to mediate an alliance between the Choshu and Sakamoto provinces in the 1800s. He also saw the importance of modernization for then-feudal Japan. What can I say, I'm kind of a history geek.
 
RK: Do you do things other than cycling? And/or what other sports do you participate in?
KS: ... another sport I've been obsessed with is horse-back riding. I was never very good at it but I can probably still ride half-decently. I still absolutely love horses, too.

RK: Who helped you the most, to get where you are in this sport/industry/craft?
KS: First, my parents for raising me to be an insane perfectionist and to never settle.

My sister for providing formidable sibling rivalry/competition and always raising the bar.

Mike Spriggs and Jeremy Dunn for believing in my abilities as a writer and (gently) pushing me to write more, ride more, and design more while still retaining my sanity. I couldn't have done half of what I did this summer without those two.

RK: Do you have any sort of religious background? What about now?
KS: I'm technically Shinto and Buddhist but that pretty much just means I go to temples and shrines once a year or so. Nothing too serious.

RK: Tell us about your favorite bike you've ever owned... is it your current bike?
KS: Well, I've owned three in my life and the first one was one I owned about 12 years ago. I can't choose between the Bianchi San Jose (the trusty, reliable, all-around hard-ass commuter) and the Dolan Pre Cursa (pretty, twitchy, light, fast track bike). In terms of aesthetics, it'll have to be the Dolan but the Bianchi has gotten me through a lot.

Always Something Cooking: An Interview With Dave Nice

I first heard about Fixie Dave in an article that Outside Magazine did about the Great Divide Race.  Perhaps you've heard of this endeavor?  You start at the US border with Canada, and you end at the US border with Mexico.  And you race down the spine of the nation- from one side the water goes East, and from the other, West.  The Divide.  Lots of people had their full-suspension, disk-braked bikes pictured.  And then there was Nice.  Rigid fixed gear mountain bike.  As in- if the wheel moves, the pedals are moving.  As in, one gear.

Was this guy nuts?  I liked him already. I could go on about what happened in that race, but if you're interested you can google Dave and the GDR.  The rest is in the questions below.  My Q is the bullet points, Dave's A is in bold.

• Why fixed?  Single speed I get.  Rigid, I understand.  But off-road fixed- why?

I really enjoy the connected feeling I have with the ground. I have to focus and it becomes almost a sort [of] meditation. 

• Tell us about your cooking credentials.  just how serious a chef ARE you?

Cooked on and off at a few places growing up.  Went to cooking school of the rockies in 2000 and spent a month or so in France cooking and have worked in a few other places on and off since then.... Too stressful for me now and I prefer to cook for friends and family and be more creative.   Pitched an idea to Food TV in 2005 for a camping/travel / adventure cooking show.   Never heard back.

• Top 3 favorite bikes you've ever owned.  Include at least one you no longer have.

Ti GROUND UP built by Eric Barr is current fav, Followed closely by my steel SIREN John Henry..... hummmm...-  then a Tie between SURLY Crosscheck and VASSAGO Jabberwocky.   Currently only own 2 bikes...

• As of today, 37 days until you ride the GDR, this time from South to North.  Why hasn't it worked before, and why is it going to this time?  :)

It hasn't worked for me before, due to freak injuries, getting sick, and having gear stolen  (outside of my control?). 

[In]  2009 I started south and got to my folks' place (their land in Colorado, the route goes right through it) well in 2009 i was solo TT'ing it and I recently had a friend named Anthony Sloan, that I felt was a very kindred spirit, die in his sleep.  And then I was guiding a ride on Little Creek Mesa near Hurricane, UT and had one of the guys I was riding with get separated from the rest of the group and we found Joe unconscious a few hours later- and then he stopped breathing and his best friend and I performed CPR for over an hour till SAR [Search & Rescue] showed up... He was pronounced dead by the Flight For Life medic... It was a lot to mentally deal with being alone on the bike,  so when riding by my folks place, the bike just steered itself to a warm bed and Mom and Grandma cooked meals.  As it was, I got very close to getting 1400 miles done in 12 days..

Feel much more mentally prepared than I've felt the previous attempts.   Outside of that I've trained better, and have my gear/setup more dialed.

Dave's pink Siren.

• I've often written about mens' relationship with pink, and was personally pleased when my daughter brought a little father's day questionaire home from preschool about me, saying that her dad's favorite color was pink.  I know at least one of your bikes is pink (the Siren)-- care to tackle the whole men and singlespeeds and pink thing?  Your thoughts?

Purely to provoke a reaction? ;)  Because you can't be slow riding a pink bike? I dunno its a color and i like it =)

• Back to GDR- how do you train for something so long?  Is it even possible?  Is it just a matter of making sure you're prepared, and the fitness coming along as the "race" happens?  How much is physical endurance even a part of this?  Or is it all mental?

Ummm get this one a lot.... Ride A lot ;P

I think it was one of the Brit finishers who said his way of knowing he was ready for the divide was to do back to back gravel hundies [100 mile rides] on the weekend and have a spring in his step at work Monday... I think that's a good way of telling other then I say camp out all those nights as well...

Not owning a car helps tons, i think, as well...

• I know you have endless time to think on the GDR- what are you thinking about while you're out there?

I think a better question is what do I NOT think about?

• What do you NOT think about, then?  

I try not to think about food or how much it hurts.

•  Why South to North   (the traditional race is from Canada to Mexico)?

More light , less snow, and less crowd at the start.... also I like the desert start 

• Finally, do you ever get 'rider's block'?  

Not really sometimes iI don't wanna go all day but rarely do i ever not wanna be on a bike

 

 

Nontrager!

Check THIS out.  It's a bike at the Museum of Mountain Bike Art & Technology.  But more than a bike, it's a great story of small neighbor framebuilders working together as corporate buyouts were going on. Kinda one of those art triumphs over commerce things.

It should be added to the above that Keith Bontrager has always said that he was nothing but happy about being bought out by Trek, by having the financial burden off of himself, and also about the kinds of power working with Trek brings.  If I may paraphrase, he said that putting wheels under Lance Armstrong in the Tour De France is not a little thing.  (he helped design Lance's race wheels...)  So appreciate the above link, but certainly don't feel sorry for Bontrager the man or the brand, or feel like Trek is some corporate giant stepping on the little guy.  I think it's pretty small-minded to hate on Trek.  They do good things and have been generous on a personal level to me, and on a large level to good organizations like IMBA.

Collected Cellphone Images That Need To Get Off My Phone!

My kind of Ferrous Wheels.  From a secret trail I'm not at liberty to divulge...

Seen at Richardson's...

found in the shop...

New Name

Hey, check out the new name.  I had a poll question going on FB for awhile, but it turned out many of those names were taken.  I like this one, sounds a little more like a novel title or something.  It gets across who I am as a cyclist, but also the non-negotiable aspects of riding here in NE as well.

The Question All My Friends Are Asking: Lance And Drugs.

Friends often ask me:  So, does Lance do drugs or what?  This is as close as I can come to an answer (just like everyone else)

I hate cycling for making me write this.  I hate becoming some quasi-expert on doping methods- on how they'd hide it, what the dope does, what each one is:  I don't want to be a sports-doping doctor, I want(ed) to be a cycling fan- of the sport!

This is not about investigative journalism.  I'm just trying to collect info together for you to make up your own mind.  Or not.  Whatever you want.  Much of this stuff is heresay, read-between-the-lines type stuff- you know, internet stuff.

When Lance won the TDF in 1999, here's who rode with him, and what has subsequently been said by or about them.

The 1999 Tour De France US Postal Team

1. Lance Armstrong
2. Frankie Andreu
3. Kevin Livingston
4. Tyler Hamilton
5. George Hincapie
6. Christian Vande Velde
7. Peter Meinert- Nielsen
8. Pascal Derame
9. Jonathan Vaughters

Lance is our athlete in question.  You can search the internet for plenty of articles about him if you want.

Frankie admitted to using EPO.  At the time another teammate admitted using EPO but spoke on condition of anonymity.  That could be any of the following people...

Kevin  has not been rumored to or convicted of doping.  If we believe rumor and innuendo, then
"In that infamous IM between [Vaughters] and [Andreu], JV states that Kevin Livingston said that he was astonished when he got to T-Mob to find no doping program".  He was apparently named in documents taken from Dr. Michele Ferrari.(an Italian doctor involved with doping).  But not charged with anything.


Tyler has recently confessed to using EPO on 60 minutes.  He was convicted a few years ago of blood doping.  You remember?  The twin defense?



George  Accused by 60 Minutes which quoted unidentified sources to say that Hincapie saw LA use EPO, as well as using it himself.  On his twitter, GH denied this.  He has also been accused of doping by Stephanie McIlvain (an Oakley employee during the tour-winning years).  And there's this.

Christian VV has never been accused or convicted.  If anyone is clean (if!) it seems to be him.

PMN tested positive for doping earlier in his career, in 1993.

Pascal D. said recently that he wasn't in LA's inner circle and saw no evidence of doping.

Vaughters, though he runs perhaps the cleanest team in cycling, the Garmin/Chipotle/Slipstream, etc. team, has said various insinuating things about drugs over the years.  He never finished a tour- after dropping out close to the end rather than taking the meds for a bee sting, once.  But read this.

Colourway

A Hint:  When a product is displayed with a bike as obviously low-rent as this one, might be suspect.  This is a roll-up cafe table for cyclists who can't be bothered to leave their bikes.

This on the other hand, is a classic old Ibis which happens to have the exact color scheme of my own bike (BSNYC would refer to this as a 'colourway', but I think that only applies when a co. designs it that way.