We are the very fortunate recipients of a pair of prototype Batavus BuB bikes (that you may have seen at Interbike). These bikes will make the rounds and reviews to a few well-know blogs like Commute by Bike, Bike Shop Girl, and Bicycle Design — but we get a little play-time first.

Of course in our unabashedly biased opinion, the BuBs are great. They are the next evolution of the classic omafiet design … unique and pragmatic, but with a hint of whimsy. These bikes are no long distance commuting rigs; they are short distance transportation designed to take the daily punishment dished out by the mean streets of [insert your town here].

And if there is any question about the design (as interpreted by our well-honed American aesthetics), this is the bike that never fails to make children smile and wave. It just feels right.

In Other News …

You may have noticed that we have updated our Home Page to include little blurbs like this — kind of a What’s New following our Welcome section.  To the regular reader, this might be a little redundant, but we’re just trying’ to keep you in the know.

And if you have any questions, comments, or cuss words about our website, we would love your input via … just visit the Contact Page.

This entry is a 3.7 on the Ritcher scale of multipart series (if Murphy’s Law has anything to do with it) on upgrading an old Schwinn Collegiate to a practical and pleasing daily bicycle for transportation.

It never fails to amaze us how quickly a bike can be disassembled.  What probably took meticulous hours to carefully construct (well, if we were building it), is reduced to a heap of parts in around half-an-hour. And in this particular case of working with a 30+ year-old Schwinn, nary a problem … not even a frozen bolt in need of penetrating oil.  Amazingly routine really.  Splendidly simple.

The most significant revelation was that we should nickname all of our projects with some sort of negative connotation. Since The Murphy’s Law Project has been anything but a folly of misfortune, we will hither forth use an ironic naming convention to ward off the evil gremlins that can bog down an otherwise enjoyable project.

A short list of future project names:

• Bad News Bear
• Stepped in It (or Steeped in It)
• Funny Bone
• Blackhawk Down
• Crying Shame
• Lightning Strikes Twice
• What Have I Done to Deserve This?
• Root Canal

And a personal favorite:

• I Was Drunk the Day My Mother Got Out of Prison

Anywho … the only distraction in the whole demolition process was hunting around for the proper kickstand removal tool.   No dice, so we’ll use the ole “cut pipe & clamp” trick.  Otherwise the whole process went off without a hitch.

The good news is: We’ve organized and Ziplocked all of the old parts (not that there was all that much to keep track of, but it nice to have everything in one place.)  The bad news is: We need to move on to the less environmentally friendly segment of this whole rejuventaion process, the “Chemical Peel and Paint” section.

We’ll cover this in our next thrilling installment titled, The Murphy’s Law Project — Part [Clever Title].

If you have visited Renaissance Bicycles before, or have read some of the News Updates posted on this blog, you realize that we encourage the ideals of the Slow Bike Movement (and Slow Food Movement, the Slow Fish Movement, etc.)  But there is one case when fast is better … Cyclocross.

This year we have the pleasure of sponsoring CrossTown Velo, a couple of local athletes who participate (and sometimes win) in the grassroots sport of Cyclocross.  For the uninitiated, Cyclocross is a sport of European descent which combines the cardiovascualr workout of cross-country running with the finess and technique of mountain biking.  In a nutshell, take a skinny-tired bike and a local park or field, add in some man-made obstacles, and churn out the laps with 20 or so of your friends … basically that’s Cyclocross.

As part of our sponsorship, we (well … really the guys on the team) help put together a local training series before the start of the North Carolina Cyclocross Series.

And apparently the training has paid off.  In the first “official” event of the local race calender — the Mud, Sweat, and Gears opener in Kingsport, TN — both Will Black and Ned Dowling took positions on the podium in their respective categories.  Congratulations guys!  Way to represent CrossTown Velo and Renaissance Bicycles!

In the big picture, we are interested in Cyclocross simply because it still retains that “down home” feel.  Rivalries on the course can still be friendships away from competition, prize money is irrelevant, there is a definite sense of combined suffering from the participants, and at the end of the day, the riders are happy to pitch-in to help out the organizers.  In other words, this is what racing should be.

We’ll keep you posted of the guys’ exploits when the North Carolina Cyclocross Series officially kicks-off at the end of October.