The Culmination of the Trip

With a little over two weeks to go before I head to Tokyo things are coming to a head. I figured it would be good to put out a sort of last call for those who would still like to donate towards the cost of the trip I am asking for those to come in, in the next week or so. I greatly appreciate everyone support, it means a lot and the support I have gotten has been awesome. This would not be happening if it weren’t for everyone, so thank you again. If you would like to donate through PayPal you can via my account sbilek@journalsentinel.com. Otherwise contact me at the same email address about donating physically.

The new bike finally came!!!

Last Thursday I put together the bike I was given by Eighthinch.com to race on and help promote the brand. (See photos below) It looks sharp but I need to get used to it, but that’s why I have it now instead of in two weeks. This thing is definitely going to do what they want it to do…be noticed and have people asking about it. Already it has gotten quite a bit of attention around town. I have also been strapping it to my car while running errands too; just to help a little bit more. I don’t always have to be on the bike to promote the bike; all I need is for it to be with me, which meant I went grocery shopping twice over the weekend with the bike on the car. Anyways, I’m incredibly grateful for the guys at Eighthinch.com for the bike.

Friday night was also night 1 of 2 for the Bicycle Film Festival, which has never come to Milwaukee before. The guys at Cog and the people at the Bike Federation helped to make it happen and they put on a good show. Pete from Cog was nice and comped me a ticket to the show Friday night in lieu of canceling his alley cat at the beginning of August. I rode the Eighth Inch down to the show of course and took in some interesting bike related films. After the showing there was supposed to be a race from the cinema to the after party, the race didn’t manifest, instead we did a huge group ride to the bar.

The after party was held at Stonefly Brewery in Riverwest where they had Goldsprints set up. I was pretty happy about this since it gave me the opportunity to try them out before doing them in Tokyo…and I’m glad I did. I went head to head with Captain Jake of Milwaukee Bike Polo and got beat. I didn’t feel to bad about it because he pulled the best time at that point of doing the distance (I never found out the distance) in under 21 seconds. I clocked in at mid 24 seconds but might have gotten a little better time if I would have kept the rear wheel from skipping on the roller. I was cranking so hard and didn’t have enough weight on the saddle that the tire wasn’t fully contacting the roller, thus not registering an accurate speed in the beginning. I might have been able to pull off a 23 second time otherwise. Also, halfway through I had been sweating so much I had to pull my glasses of and clench them in my hand while I cranked. So…for Tokyo I now know; take the glasses off and keep as much weight on the saddle as possible all while spinning my legs as fast as I can and go until they tell me to stop. It was fun. Pete from Cog ended up winning in the end, which is awesome because he was probably the oldest one there doing it.

Last week the TKBMA, the organization that put together the CMWC’s in Tokyo, released a detailed map of the race route, found here. Today they also posted the rules for the race, here. Now it is time to study the map and study the rules and try and figure out mentally how best to do this. I still don’t have all the pieces of the race puzzle, but those I will find out at the start of the race, which is part of what this is all about. This race isn’t going to be primarily about speed, all about efficiency. I can’t wait.

Click on the pictures for a larger view.

One Month to Go!!!

With exactly 1 month until I land in Narita airport outside of Tokyo everything is falling into place. The good people at Eighth Inch are putting my bike together as we speak so I should have that by sometime next week, I'm expecting. Can't wait to see it and I have been getting used to the handlebars that will come with it.

In another great turn of events the sales rep we deal with at the shop from Chrome (the company who made my bag) donated one of their Hip Pouches to me as well to take with to Tokyo. So thanks to Steven at the shop and the Chrome rep for the help!

I also took 3rd place in the 4th annual Shaggy 815 alley cat this past weekend and due to the coolness of Eric from Cog he traded me his winnings for mine as mine where a pair of swank Chrome Knickers that I would never be able to wear since they were mediums for his prize which was a Dank Bags hairnet 'helmet'. Now, much like the classic leather hair net helmets, this one doesn't actually save my brain from any form of trauma. What it does provide is a very portable 'helmet' that meets the helmet requirements for CMWC and NACCC. So instead of trying to figure out how the hell I am going to fit my Bern helmet into my messenger bag along with some of my clothes I now have a helmet that actually won't save my life but will let me race! I'll have to post a picture sometime for the helmet, because Dank Bags doesn't have a website.

Eric told me that people would be all over me about the helmet, wanting to find out who made it. He said everyone was mobbing him over his 'helmet' at the NACCC's (North American Cycle Courier Championship) earlier this month in Boston.

So, with everything almost in place I am just waiting out the time before I leave to face the world. I want to thank everyone for their support, financially, logistically and personally. It is awesome that so many people have rallied behind me on this event and I don't plan on disappointing. The next target on the list is at the end of the month. On August 28th and 29th at the Times Cinema in Washington Heights will be the Milwaukee installment of the Bicycle Film Festival. After the Friday night showing there will be a race from the theater to Stoenfly Brewery in Riverwest where the after party will take place. There will be Goldsprints at the party, which I'm incredibly excited about and am very happy to be able to test the competition out in a home crowd before I do it in Tokyo. So, I encourage everyone to come out to eh film fest and hand out at Stonefly afterward for good drinks (and if the grill is open awesome burgers).

Timetable for the CMWCs and the BFF

Time has been crazy lately with life and in getting prepared for Tokyo. The fine people at 8^th Inch should be sending me the new bike by the end of the month. They asked when I needed it by and I told them I would like to do at least the September First Friday race as a field test. I have been riding on the exact handlebars that will come with the new bike and am adapting nicely to them…they are quite a bit different then the drops I was riding for the past year.

The TKMBA (Tokyo Bike Messenger Association) has updated the website for the event and listed the rough timeline for everything…in Japanese. Luckily I can wing it with the Japanese and get some idea of what is going on. Registration is between Noon and 9pm starting the 21^st at a place located in Shibuya Tokyo called B1. It looks like they will have registration open for the first 3 days. On the 20^th at a bar called Club Asia, which is also in Shibuya, they will host their welcoming party where they will be doing Goldsprint competitions. I’m pretty excited about that since it’s something I have wanted to try for a while know and thankfully will be getting my first taste of it at the end of this month in town (more on that in a bit).

It doesn’t seem like much is going on the 21^st, but that will probably change. The 22^nd is the start of the race, with test runs and the qualifying rounds happening between 11am and 5pm. They will also be doing the backward circle competition at this time. After these events it looks like they will be doing some group photos, followed by people competing in best backward circles.

The 23^rd is the final day of the main competition, starting off with the final rounds of the main race and the skid and sprint portions. Later in the night will be the award ceremony then the party…which apparently goes until the 29:00 hour!! Not only will I be biking on the opposite site of the road but I will also be experiencing times I have never experienced before.

While I have not written about my First Friday races for a while, and probably will continue on that path, this months race is of note. Friday, August 7^th, saw cool and rainy weather. I rolled to the bar earlier than usual because I was working late and opted not to go home first. I sat and drank and chatted with O’Gallagher, which was fun. He questioned whether he was going to race if it was raining and I wasn’t so sure myself. Eventually a few more people showed up, waiting for the race to start. Every August now Pete from Cog has put the race on, dubbed the Aqualeader Race, after his old messenger call sign. Eric from Cog showed up to tell everyone that Pete had called off the race and everyone who showed up would get a free ticket to the up coming Bicycle Film Festival. I also found out that there was going to be a race on the 15^th, the 4^th annual 8-15 race by Shaggy, who is an ex-messenger and messenger bag manufacturer. I was unaware of his race last year but after hearing about the one from two years ago I had wanted to do his race…so here’s my chance for some insanity.

In addition to that, after writing Pete and email about the ticket, he told me that there would be a sprint race from the theater the fest is being held at (which is in my neighborhood) to a bar in Riverwest for an after party and Goldsprint competitions (thus my chance to test the system out with people I knew. The Bicycle Film Festival is taking place August 28^th and 29^th at the Times Cinema, so go check it out and maybe stop by the Stonefly Brewery for some after party activity, Goldsprint mayhem and one of the best burgers I have ever had on the 28^th.

Riverwest 24

This past weekend (July 24th-25th) found me and about 350+ other cyclists in Riverwest competing in the 2nd annual 24 road race that was created to help bolster the eclectic community. The 'race' takes every and all cyclist possible, given that they are over the age of 18. There are 4 race categories; Solo, Tandem, Team A (2-6 riders, 1 bike) and Team B (2-6 riders, many bikes).

I, with 3 other riders, competed in the Team B category under the name Bus Bait. My teammates where, Jordan (from the bike shop and also fellow First Friday racer), Matt (fellow First Friday racer) and Chris from my day job at The Paper. While Matt, Jordan and myself are all experienced fixed gear anything goes road racers, Chris on the other hand is used to closed courses and was daunted at first at the idea of riding in open roads with traffic, stop signs/lights and bar time. He quickly lost his trepidations once we did a group ride of the course and understood how the route looked.

We went into the event with no real set goal other then to just ride and try and keep a man on the field lapping as much as possible. Our goal wasn't to win, but to do it and have fun and see how far we could go. After 24 hours of random shift changes between all 4 of us we had covered 68 laps (awesome hussle from Matt on the final lap!!) making up around 340 miles worth of distance travelled. While all of us got about 1 to 2 hours of sleep the entire time of the event we all kept a good pace and help on until the vary end. It was an awesome experience and would not have been as comfortable or enjoyable with out the logistical support from my friend Pat the PAT who brought out his camper and hung out the entire time.

With the lap count alone our team tied with 4 other teams for 4th place, at the time of this writting we are awaiting the final count with the bonus points added to see where we truely placed in the Team B category. The event was entertaining and I think friendships were formed between us and other riders that might not have transpired normally. Now we are actually looking towards next years event and trying to see if we can't clamp down and win it, know that we know what to expect.

Check out www.riverwest24.com for the leaderboard, info and a link to a slew of photos.

Here is a photo someone snapped that centered on us having dinner before the race. Jordan, Chris and myself along with Flynn, co-owner of Milwaukee Courier Company, who hung out with us through much of the event.

Trip Finalization

So the trip to Tokyo for the 2009 Cycle Messenger World Championships is officially underway. I have purchased the plane ticket and reserved the space at the Youth Hostel for the stay. Now all I need to do is figure out a good way to train for it besides quitting my day job and joining a messenger company. For right now though my biggest concentration will be on improving my stamina and speed, I can work on package handling and negotiation easily enough, since the way it looks like is that the checkpoints in the races you have to approach by foot. So it's just a matter of getting quick at loading and removing packages from my bag.

Here is the website for the Youth Hostel I will be staying at, I couldn't pass up staying at a place called 'Ninja' and it is relatively close to the event.

In the blog for the event the planners seem to be having fun as well. http://cmwctokyo.blogspot.com/2009/07/only-in-japan.html

My anticipation is building and again I want to thank everyone for their support. If you get a chance come check me and my team mates out at the Riverwest 24 from 7pm July 24th to 7pm July 25th as we try to see how many laps we can put down in this 2nd annual 24 hour road race.

Registration and Anticipation

After trying twice with my work email I finally re-registered for the CMWC's through my home email and magically received the emails I needed right away. So, now I am officially registered and paid up for the race's and events. You can find me listed as 280 at the site. Next week I should be buying the plane ticket and working on reserving the youth hostel stay. Again I have to thank everyone for supporting me in this adventure, everyone who has donated and especially my corporate sponsor 8th Inch.

As I have been mulling over the idea of getting a complete bike from them I have started to become excited about it. Here are just some of the cool components I will more then likely have on the bike.
I want to see if I can get red crank arms with a white chainring and a red chain.


Here is a better shot of the handlebars. Im thinking these with either red track grips or red bar tape.



I'm most excited about these wheels, I wanted a pair for my bike before 8th Inch offered to have me promote them in Tokyo. So it will be cool to rock them and I should probably get a pair for my bike too. I'm anxious to see the other components available, their list on BLOG is pretty solid for components...anodized cogs/lockrings offer tantelizing options.

So again, thanks to everyone for their support so far. I am close to being where I need to be for the trip and a huge thanks for 8th Inch!!

CMWC Registration and Sponsorship

I have begun the stages of registering for the event. I'm waiting on a reply email from the event coordinators to complete my registration. If you go to the Registration portion of the sight and scroll down to the list you can see me as rider number 280. It's grayed out because I'm not completed yet. As of right now there are over 300 registrants. I signed up for all of the events with the exception of the 'Backwards Circles' and 'Skid' because I can't do either of them. But I figured I'd give a go for the 'Trackstand' competition and see how miserably I fail at that one, since I can only track stand for about 5 seconds.

Aside from the registration and pending plane ticket purchase (some time next week it should be finalized) I have exciting news from the sponsorship end of this race. I work part time as a mechanic at Wheel and Sprocket, which has a subdivision known as 8th Inch

What is really cool is that they are letting me select the components for the bike, so I will get to set it up to my liking based upon the parts available to me that will help to promote the 8th Inch brand. What this means is that I can set up a swank color coordination with the bike. As I figure out some of the components I'm getting pretty excited to see the completed bike. I have to wait a while though as the brand new model of their frame, The Scrambler V2, won't be shipped out from the manufacturer for a few more weeks. I'm thinking white with red accents.

So now that I am apparently corporately sponsored for the 2009 CMWC in Tokyo I will start paying homage to them in a more noticeable manor. that caters to the urban fixed gear rider. I shot them an email seeing if they would be interested in helping out with some small sponsorship while I was out there, hoping on possibly getting a set of the cool deep dish wheels they just came out with. To my surprise they offered to set me up with a complete bike as well as appropriate merchandise to take out there with me and spread the love with. So while I am slightly sad that my trusty Leader will not be taking the trip with me, I am very excited for this opportunity and the support from 8th Inch.