5.1.2012 von Ines.

Two Natooke bike polo teams as well as our own Natooke bike polo coach went to Taiwan last December. We had a Natooke men and a Natooke girls team. Today I saw the official video of the Takao Cup of Asian Hardcourt Bike Polo Championships 2011 in Kaohsiung Taiwan. Watch on youtube.

I also stumbled across another video of our Natooke team dancing away and trying to get others to join in. it is hilarious. It is always fun with the Natooke guys! Here’s the link

My pictures from the bike polo cup are all on the Natooke website in this gallery.

Geschrieben in Natooke, Bike Polo, Cycling, Fixed Gear, Asia, China | 1 Kommentar »

2.1.2012 von Ines.

Last year we have been busy all kinds of amazing custom bikes for so many people. As we are re-doing our Natooke website I am uploading pictures of the bikes we built for customers, as well as our happy customers and friends. Here are just some pictures of Flying Banana bicycles.

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

1.1.2012 von Ines.

First of all: Happy New Year!

It has been many months since I last regularly wrote blog entries. Because some friends and some fans complained about that I decided for the year 2012 I will try to update my blog.

Natooke shop has been very amazing last year and I hope we can continue the same way in 2012. I am happy to have met so many interesting people that just walked in either by coincidence or because they had read about us or seen us on TV. Let us have lots of fixed gear riding fun together in this year.

New Year’s Eve we had a Natooke fixed gear bicycle ride to end off the year 2011 and greet the New Year while cycling along Beijing’s streets. We waited for the countdown on a huge clock near Xidan.

Recently we have some really enthusiastic girls come to rides and events. Keep up the hard riding!

Beijing is getting colder and there are not many people on the streets at night. That made for a huge space for us cycling especially on the extremely wide bicycle lane of Chang’An Boulevard that goes right through the center of Beijing.

The remaining group did a very brief stop on Tiananmen Square before the guard came to tell us to keep moving on.

Then we went to get some early morning food at a small Chinese restaurant. We just stacked our bikes outside of the restaurant. Unfortunately a drunk driver in a SUV drove past and drove too close to our bikes so his car must have touched the most outside bike and the drove over that bikes’ back wheel.

But we figured a bent wheel in the first hours of the year brings good luck. More pictures are all in this gallery.

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

26.11.2011 von Ines.

There is a nice German article on “China Heute” about Natooke shop, fixed gear events that we organized in Beijing, bike tricks and me in the German edition of the online magazine called “China Today”. Read it here.

I also saw the printed article in the Spanish version of the magazine called “China Hoy”.

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

18.4.2011 von Ines.

Here are some amazing videos from the April 16th Beijing Lining Bikeboy event.

The first video is done by Shannon who had his camera mounted on the fork of his bicycle and got some amazing shots.

The second video is done by “Niurenku”. There team had come to film during the event. I like that they went to 4 of the 5 stations and filmed there too as well as of course the beginning of the race. But I need to improve my Chinese.

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

16.4.2011 von Ines.

It was hard work organizing the Bikeboy alleycat with such short notice but it was fun and a huge success! All of the Natooke team worked very hard. I uploaded various pictures of the day. Here are some of the preparation and before the start of the race. Big thank you to all our volunteers and cycling friends also for setting up a small booth with Natooke products such as bike frames, rims, wheels…

The start of the Beijing Bike Boy Alleycat fixie bicycle race was like this: We started running from inside the Iberia Center for Contemporary Art out to our bikes that were laid in front of the entrance. There were 85 registered racer and it was amazing that no one stepped on anybody’s bike. Alleycat Race Start pictures

As Natooke team was requested to race and later asked to organize the Bikeboy alleycat we had to do it the way that the checkpoint locations are communicated in advance. There was a start and end location plus 5 locations scattered across the city to make more than 1 possible route. At each checkpoint there were Alleycat Checkpoint Games.

All racers of the Beijing Bike Boy Alleycat had to come to the Natooke shop checkpoint where there was a ping pong game. Some came running without shirt.

Lining Bike Boy Alleycat fixed gear race through Beijing ended at the Iberia Center for Contemporary Art in the 798 art district on the North East side of Beijing. The racers came back sweaty, dusty and tired but happy. Alleycat Race Finish

By the way, we have all the manifests at Natooke now. So if you want your manifest back as a souvenir, just drop by the shop.

Natooke as the organizer of this bike race held the prize ceremony for the Beijing Bikeboy Alleycat race. The categories were women living in Beijing - Ines Brunn (Team Natooke) won, men living in Beijing - Ben Wareham (Team Natooke) won and men not living in Beijing - Jacob Klink (Team Natooke) won. The prizes for the winners were all sponsored by Lining. Alleycat Prize Winners

Here is a picture of all the April 2011 Beijing Bikeboy Aleycat winners. Congratulations!

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

11.4.2011 von Ines.

Soon will be the Beijing Li-Ning Bike Boy Alleycat Bike Race (http://www.natooke.com/en/home/coming-event-bike-boy). It will be held on Saturday April 16^th starting a 2:30pm in the Beijing 798 art district at the Iberia Center for Contemporary Art. It will be a fun race through the city to 5 different check points and then back to the starting point. There will be prizes for male and female racers from Beijing as well as separate prizes for male and female racers from other cities. So if you have a fixed gear bike then quickly register (http://bikeboy.natooke.com) and come on out and have fun with us.

After the alleycat bike race there will be a Li-Ning fixed gear party at the 798 Iberia Center for Contemporary Art. The party includes guests like Sam Lee, 24 Herbs from HongKong, Taiwan MC HotDog, Japan T19 Fixed Gear Team, American FTC Fixed Gear Team (http://t.sina.com.cn/liningbikeboy) and also the STC JisuPK race system http://stcbj.com/en/jisupk.

In preparation for the alleycat race let us do a bike ride on Wednesday April 13^th starting at 8pm at Natooke shop (http://www.natooke.com/en/where-to-find-us). Natooke shop is one of the race check points. Let us ride to all the other check points so that we know where they are. If you do not have a fixed gear bike then let us know as we have a few for rent. But please book one in advance to make sure we are not booked out.

Alleycat race registration ends on Wednesday April 13^th 11:00pm so please be quick to register: http://bikeboy.natooke.com

Looking forward to seeing you on your bikes! Let us blast around the city.

Ines and the Natooke team.

Natooke&李宁Bike Boy野猫赛与极速PK和派对

骑死飞的车友们大家好，
北京李宁Bike Boy野猫赛就要开始了(http://www.natooke.com/en/home/coming-event-bike-boy)。本次比赛将在4月16日星期六下午2点30分正式开始，起点是798艺术园区的伊比利亚当代艺术中心。这将是一次有趣的比赛，你要寻找市区内的五个检查点然后回到起点。本次比赛还设有本地组男子和女子奖项奖品及外地组男子合女子奖项奖品。所以如果你有死飞车的话，赶紧来http://bikeboy.natooke.com注册报名然后和我们一起玩吧。

野猫赛结束后，还会有李宁死飞派对，也在伊比利亚当代艺术中心。派对邀请了李灿森SamLee和他的朋友香港24HERBS，以及台湾MC HotDog热狗，日本T19车队，美国FTC车队（http://t.sina.com.cn/liningbikeboy）。当然还有比车牛的极速PKhttp://stcbj.com/en/jisupk。

为给野猫赛做准备，让我们4月13日星期赛晚上8点在Natooke商店集合进行一次夜骑活动(http://www.natooke.com/zh/where-to-find-us)。Natooke商店也是野猫赛的检查点之一。让我们一起骑车找到其他的检查点，这样我们就知道他们都在哪里了。如果你没有死飞车，我们也可以借给你。但是如果要借车请提前预约。

注册野猫赛的截止日期为4月13日23点，所以请尽快注册哦：http://bikeboy.natooke.com 很期待在你的自行车上见到你！让我们在北京城里风驰电掣一下吧！

伊泉和Natooke团队

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

28.3.2011 von Ines.

My friend Berta had worked for a while on getting enough footage with her Canon 5D Mark II digotal SLR for this video project. She accompanied me to different performances and had to cope with bad lighting and strange strange backdrops. But I think it came out really nice.

Here is the beautiful video on vimeo and on youtube.

The best thing about it is the music to it that was all played by Zac Courtney with his drum sticks hitting my trick bike and nothing else.

And here some websites and blogs that featured it:
Locked Cog
Fixed Gear Hungary
Takeover LA
Pedal Consumption
Froots Fukuoka
Mad Motion Track
Cyclonesia

Geschrieben in Natooke, Media, Performers, Cycling, China, Fixed Gear, Beijing | 2 Kommentare »

31.1.2011 von Ines.

The Global Times newspaper reporter Ming Yue had come to our Smarter than Car (STC) indoor roller racing event (JisuPK) on Jan 22nd at Decathlon store. Here is the link to the article. And here is a copy of the article and the pictures taken by our fixed gear and road cyclist friend Ricky Wong:

Stationary speedsters

• Source: Global Times, [10:08 January 31 2011]

Race to the start. Photos: Ricky Wong

By Ming Yue

Bicycles used to be the most popular mode of transportation in Beijing, but in recent decades they’ve largely been replaced by the car, taxi, bus, subway and pedicab. But Smarter Than Car (STC), a Beijingbased bike culture advocacy group, is trying to make bicycles cool again with a series of indoor races on stationary bikes, and so far 61 people have risen to the challenge.

The race, called Jisu PK, is divided into 20-second rounds where three riders face off on special refitted bicycles. The front wheels are nonexistent, and the back wheels have been fixed to the spot and fitted with sensors that can track the rider’s speed. Participants race for 300 meters, and whoever is the fastest is the winner.

“Today we did the 300 meters for the first races, and for the fi nal races we do 500 meters,” said Ines Brunn, one of the STC’s founders and also a bicycle lover.

The race on January 22 at Yizhuang was actually the second stop in STC’s Jisu PK series. The first stop was held January 15 at School Bar in Wudaoying Hutong.

“In China people think the bicycle is uncool and the car is cool. This event is to put bicycles on the stage and make riding bicycles cool and fun. We do this with a DJ and cool bicycles,” Shannon Bufton, one of the founders in STC said of the idea of Jisu PK series.

In the January 15 race, most of the participants were expats, but the champion in the men’s division was Sun Zhe, a 22-year-old Chinese student. “I’ve been doing road races for fun in my spare time for three years. But last time was my first time to experience Jisu PK,” he said at the Yizhuang race. For Sun, his championship was totally a surprise. “It is a really short race, and not quite tiring. I think it’s a test for the burst of strength.” But, since the fi rst bite, Sun obviously fell into Jisu PK and registered for the second stop in Yizhuang.

According to Bufton’s introduction, about 99 percent of participants preregistered for the Jisu PK Yizhuang race were Chinese, which was opposite to the situation at School Bar. However, Brunn says they still have a lot more to do. “Each time we do it is getting better and more Chinese people hear about it and get interested,” she said.

At January 22’s event, STC prepared 100 preregistration places, and people passing by in the market could also come in and have a try. “Hopefully members from the public will come in today and participate in the race. We have small bikes and big bikes. Even the kids can have rides,” Bufton said. “Though the average age of participants was probably about 23 or 24, there are also quite a lot of people over 40 or some are over 50,” he said.

The first name on the signing board was Shen Jingchao, a 54-year-old man living nearby. Having been a member of a bicycle club for three years, Shen has abundant experiences in biking. In summer, he rides his bike to his work place at Xiaoyun Lu from Yizhuang, a distance of about 28 kilometers. However, he said he came to this event just for fun. “If the races are based on di. erent age groups, I may have a chance to win,” he said. “But I came just for fun.”

Wang Xiucun, a 56-year-old woman, was quite easy to find among the group in front of the stage because of her bright red bicycle gear. She has been racing bicycles outdoors for 10 years as a hobby, but after trying out the stationary bike, she said it was totally different from riding outdoors, and she hadn’t yet grasped the best technique to achieve speed on it. In addition to Shen and Wang, there were quite a few participants over 40 in attendance. The final winners on January 22 were two young participants, but that was not the most important thing on that day.

The third Jisu PK race will be held on February 26, and the schedule is available on STC’s webstite, www. stcbj.com. In addition to the Jisu PK series, there are also some regular riding events, such as Friday Light Rides held by STC and the cooperation riding project, Bike for A Better Beijing, between STC and Low-Carbon Transportation Project of Friends of Nature.

For more information see: www.stcbj.com or http://greentransport. blog.sohu.com/

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

13.1.2011 von Ines.

Today the Flying Banana bike frames for the Jisu PK races arrived. They look so beautiful. We ordered them in the Olympic colors (except black). We are going to build them up for the first race that will be held on Saturday Jan 15th organized by STC. Natooke is sponsoring the bikes

Shannon put together this cool JisuPK promo video from some of teh events where we set up this kind of race last year. But last year we used cheaper bikes. I am so looking forward to JisuPk with these new frames.

Also a few weeks back Beijing TV came to film about “Smarter than Car”. I was not there, but you can watch the STC BTV special footage here.

Today was also one of these typical days at Natooke. A lady walks in and says “I write for the magazine “Business Times”. Please do some tricks on your bike now”. It is nice to get this attention from the media, but I do have to smile when I get asked to do bicycle tricks like that. Of course I was wearing my high heel boots and not really the clothes for tricks. But it is enough to do stunts to impress the photograpgers and editors or cameramen. I never would have thought that my 21 years of practice would be so useful one day  If I would have said 5 years ago when I did one of my last bicycle competitions that “One day I will be doing bike tricks on the streets of Beijing for business magazines” nobody would have believed me. Life is fun!

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