25.5.2010 von Ines.

Wow, I have my first customer that asked how to attach a bottle cage to the frame so that he can carry water bottles when he rides. He is not a person focuses on the simplicity of the bicycle. Because what did made me laugh was the kickstand that he had now mounted onto his Natooke fixed gear bike. At least it was not a real Flying Banana but just the cheaper frame.

Geschrieben in Natooke, Fixed Gear, China, Beijing | 1 Kommentar »

25.5.2010 von Ines.

A friend of mine sent me the link to this great cartoon called Yehuda Moon & the Kickstand Cyclery. It is all about urban cycling and life owning a bike shop. The strip of yesterday is about fixed gear bikes and that there is no need to worry when they are stolen as many people cannot ride them.

Here are some more cartoon strips that I really like:

• There is fun in winter commuting but it is hard to understand for those that always drive cars
• This one reminded me of my luck this winter that each time I cleaned my bike it snowed again
• If you want to be a hard core daily commuter then you got to stick to it
• Is it better to kill others or be in danger of hurting yourself
• This one gives great marketing advice for any bike shop owner – the shop runs better after Yehuda paints illegal bike lanes all around the city. And with that he has the nice bike lanes that he can use for his daily commute.
• The current speed on Beijing’s road makes it look like they are walking their cars, or maybe better call it parking
• This one is as if they had taken my concept of having Natooke a place where cyclists hang out. I love this. Even though for some it is hard to understand this concept in the beginning.
• It is really tough to get up at 4:30am or 5:00 am for a bike ride, but it is worth it, especially when we start riding from my shop.
• I have seen some Chinese cyclists with so many fancy and weird gadgets on their handlebars. Shannon met a whole group of them in Beijing with walky talkies signaling each other that the traffic light turned red or there is a pothole ahead.
• I ride both fixed as well as road bike so I have two sets of cycling clothing, on the one hand the cool urban bike fashion and on the other hand the “real cyclists” lycra (spandex) jerseys. You just have to dress to go with the style of bike your ride.
• Big corporations started introducing the casual Fridays where you can dress business casual rather than formal. Should I also introduce spandex Wednesdays at my Natooke bike shop because that is usually the day where I do the early morning road bike rides and am already wearing the spandex? Or should I follow the suggestion of friends and wear a nurse costume instead?
• How great! The cartoon even has a female engineer that used to work for a big corporation now work at the local bike shop. This is so cool! It reminds me of myself
• Encouraging words to people that cycle every day especially on those days where they nearly got hit by a car.
• Why is it more difficult to get a city to make bike lanes compared to making roads?
• If you ride with road or mountain bikers you usually only see them in their bikes clothes. This is so typical.
• Convinced cyclist running a bike shop
• Fede has bike bags and I do not. Recently he had bought a new one and our conversation was exactly like this one.
• I also have heard bikes after a long break rattle. Chocolate also makes the same sound when feeling lonely in the kitchen.

Well there are many other good ones. I love Yehuda Moon, Joe, Thistle and the Kickstand Cyclery!

Geschrieben in Entrepreneur, Cycling, USA, China | Comments Off

15.5.2010 von Ines.

A friend Hacene threw a great birthday party in a huge amazing design studio where he has his office. His friends decided to make lipstick kiss mouths on the birthday cards. But not from girls.

Other guys were pretending they were busy so that they did not get any lipstick.

Geschrieben in China, Beijing | Keine Kommentare »

14.5.2010 von Ines.

Today a fan came. He said he watched my TED speech and he is now my fan. Then we took a picture together.

He then asked me to sign on the backside of a picture of a girl and put it back in his wallet.

Geschrieben in Natooke, Cycling, China, Beijing | Keine Kommentare »

13.5.2010 von Ines.

Today we finished another pink aluminum urban Natooke track bike for a customer. This one for Hao does not look bad either.

Today was the goodbye dinner for Nico & Katiushka before they leave for their 20 day bicycle Tour de Chine. We had it at in the Dim Sum place near the Ditan Park.

As they are going back to New York after their bike ride they distributed their last belongings like this flashy hat/lamp.

Then we went to my shop as Nico still did not have a helmet and I had a huge one that I donated to him. Doesn’t he look really fast with it. And now having a helmet he thinks he can ride bike with one eye closed.

Katiushka had the feeling her bottom bracket was loose so Nico did the final adjustment with love.

And then they were as merry as ever.

As I still cannot smell Julien convinced me to drink some beer. So here a unique and never seen before picture:

Geschrieben in Natooke, Cycling, Fixed Gear, China, Beijing | Keine Kommentare »

12.5.2010 von Ines.

Yeah, finally! Elaine finished to convert her bicycle to fixed gear.

That was after a lot of trouble. Especially with the bottom bracket. But with Fede’s great idea we did finally manage to get that fixed. And also things like the seat post that had this very special size of 25.6 mm so that the more typical 25.4 mm would just be too small. The frame is an old steel road bike frame made by the American company Ross. Elaine got it from her good friend in New York City that wanted to throw it away. In memory of her friend and husband she is now calling it the “Hot Sash”. And it is beautiful.

Elaine wrote her own impressions here.

Many customers come to my Natooke shop and are overwhelmed by the fact that they can chose their own colors and parts for their own very unique bike. Dong Dong is one of them but I think she is coming closer to finding what she wants. Here is what she is thinking of because it reminds her of a special tree in Beijing that currently has that green color and such pink blossoms:

Today we also finished a bike for Ran. He would have likes a different color frame, but we are out of cheap frames so this pink one was the only option. But I think with the blue and black and white it actually looks more male.

Geschrieben in Natooke, Fixed Gear, China, Beijing | Keine Kommentare »

11.5.2010 von Ines.

Elaine came and continued to work on her nice road bike from the USA. Today the main issue for converting it was the bottom bracket. The cartridge style bottom bracket just did not want to fit inside. Elaine was already feeling a bit down at this point:

My cycling friend from Chile is preparing for his 20 day bicycle trip in South China. He came the store today to show me his bike (which he converted from fixed gear back to multispeed road bike) with the paniers for the trip.

And then we had the Beijing TV come, Guo Yan and a cameraman. This time it was  北京电视台生活节目: 生活面对面编导. They wanted to do a feature on fixed gear bikes, what they are about, why people ride them and how to ride.

So some of  the Beijing fixed gear group came but had to wait for a while until Guo Yan finished interviewing me.

Then we rode to the Olympic village and the TV lady and cameraman drove there by car. We cyclists arrived so much earlier then them. By the time they came it was already dark and not so good for filming.

Then Guo Yan decided to try out my track bicycle with a huge crowd of Chinese watching.

After that we went for dinner back in the city.

And guess who also came to have food in the same restaurant: Cui Jian. The founder of rock music in China! He is the guy in white hiding on this picture.

Geschrieben in Media, Natooke, Fixed Gear, China, Beijing | 1 Kommentar »

10.5.2010 von Ines.

I do like old bikes that are converted into fixed gear. Probably because I like vintage bikes in general. Well despite the issues that Elaine is currently having Ricky decided to convert a Chinese road bike.

The problem is you never know what issues you would run into. The first one that Ricky had was while trying to open the threaded headset the fork broke off! Then we realized that this second hand bike must have had a crash as the fork was completely bent backwards.

Geschrieben in Natooke, Cycling, Fixed Gear, Beijing | Keine Kommentare »

9.5.2010 von Ines.

Today we packed up all the equipment for the goldsprints bicycle race and loaded it onto our Natooke tricycle.

Jib cycled with us on a unicycle getting even more attention than the foreigner on a tricycle.

It was a beautiful day today to be in the Ditan park of Beijing and set up our stationary bicycle race on my fixed gear bikes. This was already the second day of the annual Folk music festival and Beijing’s best folk rock music bands were playing on this sunny Sunday.

This is already the third time that we are organizing a goldsprints event in Beijing. And this is also the third event in all of China as we STC are the first ones to organize these fun bike races in the kingdom of bicycles. We call it JisuPK which means roughly high speed challenge and gets the Chinese interested.

I have more pictures of today’s goldsprints event here. I was happy to see the Chinese having fun at this despite the fact that it is a bicycle

And it was even better to see Chinese woman race and ride hard and fast. Go girls go!

Geschrieben in Cycling, Music, Fixed Gear, China, Beijing | 1 Kommentar »

9.5.2010 von Ines.

The Tianjin TV documentary about my thoughts to a greener Beijing and blue sky that was broadcasted last year is now online. You can watch the full 30 minute film at this link: 单车天使 Fairy on the Wheels - Ines Brunn 伊泉. It shows my participation in the 2008 Greening the Beige event with my bicycle performance, how I cycle everywhere in all kinds of clothes, and how we started the Beijing fixed gear group. As well as my efforts to promote cycling for a better environment and blue Beijing sky.

一个德国女孩，一段绿色环保的旅程。伊泉，这位世界一流通信测试仪表公司驻亚太区的经理，已在北京骑行4年的她，无论是街头、巷尾，还是剧场、舞台。风驰电掣的身影，交错转动的车轮。这个人们眼中异样的女孩，脚踏着车轮，追逐着梦想—永恒绿色的主题。她和她的自行车就犹如一个符号，述说着新旧的故事，也承载着不断的希望。

Unrelated but interesting: Bobby Spokes made a comment on a South China Morning Post newspaper letter claiming that bikes are in the way of Porsche and Ferrari drivers in Hong Kong. He wrote: “You can throw a bit of science in. Cycling can take a quarter off a person’s perceived age and a third off the emotional and metabolic age. …”. I did not know that. And I could not find any scientific evidence yet. But that is probably why everybody thinks I am so young. You should cycle more too I also found an article in China daily about cycling in Beijing.

Geschrieben in Green, Media, Performers, Cycling, China, Fixed Gear, Beijing | 1 Kommentar »