China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

Natooke Build Bikes

November 14th, 2010

The weather is getting cold in Beijing and most people still do not have heating but they still come to our shop to buy bikes or juggling equipment. Thanks guys! Today was busy and because I was out at the show I only took 1 picture of 1 of the fixed gear bikes that we built in Natooke.

Red and Black Flying Banana

Currently most customers chose our beautifully hand made steel frames – our Flying Banana frames. I like how the red rims and tires on this one go so well with the Oury grips. It is an elegant and cool choice.

The Customer and his new Bike

After that Julien and I went to our friends home for a typical French Raclette dinner. We brought the 5 kilogram pig leg – I mean the remaining 5 kilogram of the ham. Akiko told me that when she was back home in Japan she met a friend of a friend who loves cycling. She was amazed that he knows me for my trick bike abilities from my online videos. And of course he was amazed that she is a friend of mine. The world is so small 🙂

Posted in Beijing, China, Fixed Gear, Natooke | 1 Comment »

The Chi of Shaolin – The Tale of a Dragon

November 14th, 2010

My friend Elyse Ribbons who runs the Cheeky Monkey productions knows Zhao Yan Yan who was a gold medal Chinese acrobat. Her father was one of China’s bike acrobats. Yan Yan now runs a company producing shows with Chinese artists for the USA market. The newest show is called „The Chi of Shaolin – The Tale of a Dragon“ which she is producing together with Guy Caron who was the Director of Creation for Cirque Du Soleil’s productions of KA and Dralion.

The Chi of Shaolin - The Tale of a Dragon Poster

Elyse was invited to a special rehearsal performance for Guy Caron who had just flown in to see the progress of the rehearsals. As Elyse and I are foreigners we were picked up by a car with tainted windows and brought to the rehearsal theater. We were about 20 people there to watch and we had chairs on the stage just 1 meter away from all the action.

Shaolin Monks

The men were all trained in Shaolin temples with amazing kungfu abilities.

Shaolin Acrobats

The girls are from circus schools with the traditional acrobatic skills.

Foot Juggling

For example the juggling with the feet or the traditional synchronized diabolo routine. I liked the foot juggling and spinning of cloth with the costumes and colors.

Cloth spinning with feet and hands

The group of 8 Shaolin guys and 5 acrobat girls have 1 more week of rehearsals before they head out to Reno Nevada USA for shows. I wish them good luck! Here is a picture of them with Yan Yan and Guy.

The Shaolin Acrobats Group

Posted in Beijing, China, Juggling, Performers | 1 Comment »

Dupree’s Bike and STC at „mini“ Pecha Kucha

November 9th, 2010

Finally we are working on Dupree’s fixed gear bike. The wheels are finished now he started installing the bottom bracket on his matt black Flying Banana frame.

Wheels for Dupree’s Bike

The next step was the headset. As his frame is lugged he is installing a Italian threaded headset.

Dupree’s Headset

This year we are celebrating our 4th annual event series of „Greening the Beige“ GTB10: Plant Your Seed. Warming up to the full month of „green“ creative thinking and doing, there was a 1st-event „mini“ Pecha Kucha Night at The Bookworm, hosted by Beijing Green Drinks and Greening the Beige.

Presentations included the following:
1) GTB’10: Plant Your Seed (annual Greening the Beige event series)
2) Shannon Bufton, Smarter than Car STC
3) Philip McMaster, World Sustainability Project
4) Bertil Weil & Tulipos Fan, 51Give.org
5) He Bowen, Dynamic City Foundation, Sustainable City Project
6) Patrick Augenstein, Environmental Education Media Project China

Shannon spoke about hear an idea for re-inventing Beijing’s roadside bicycle repair stations which was really interesting.

Shannon at Beijing Pecha Kucha

After that Julien and I took his father for a goodbye dinner at a Beijing style hotpot restaurant.

Dinner at Hotpot

Posted in Beijing, China, Cycling, Green, Natooke | 1 Comment »

Vote for me to be on the 2011 Spring Festival Global Gala

November 9th, 2010

Beijing TV has arranged various auditions in search for performers for the 2011 Spring Festival Global Gala. Yu Changqing and I had applied and made it through the first 2 rounds of auditions with our bike tricks.

Ines Brunn and Yu Changqing for BTV Global Gala

Now we need your help to vote for us. So please vote for us (德国选手:伊泉中国选手:郁长清表演自行车特技):

http://vote.btv.com.cn/baixing/interspring/toupiao.html

I am in the 2nd row, the 2nd picture from the left. To vote click the small box below the picture of me on my bike. Then scroll to the bottom of the page and click before 匿名 (it is on the far right side) for
voting anonymously. Then you have to enter the 5 digit verification number and then just click on 提交.

If you get a window saying „投票成功！！！“ your vote has been successful. But it seems you need Internet Explorer (IE) for that, it does not work for me with firefox browser. 🙂 Thanks.

Ines Brunn and Yu Changqing for BTV Spring Festival Global Gala

Yu and Ines on BTV Website

Posted in Beijing, China, Cycling, Fixed Gear, Performers | 1 Comment »

NATOOKE shop on Facebook

November 4th, 2010

Finally we have a page on facebook for Natooke. We have pictures of the bikes that we built up in the Natooke store in Beijing. Please check them out!

Posted in Beijing, China, Fixed Gear, Media, Natooke | 1 Comment »

Fixie Revolution in Bangalore

Oktober 29th, 2010

Bhaskar had bought a fixed gear and singlespeed bike at Natokke. He chose our Special Edition lugged Fixed gear Revolution II Flying Banana frame. We boxed it up for him as he took it on his flight back to India. In Bangalore he brought it to a nice bike shop Bums On The Saddle. The owner Rohan took these amazing shots of our Flying Banana bike. It is the first Fixie Revolution bike in Bangalore. Check out the whole set of pictures on flickr.

Fixie Revolution Flying Banana Bike in India

But I am happy to see that there are already fixed gear riders in Bangalore!

Posted in Fixed Gear, Natooke | 1 Comment »

Beijing TV Global Gala Audition on TV

Oktober 25th, 2010

There was a short clip about the second audition for the Beijing TV 2011 Spring Festival Global Gala shown on TV 2 days ago. Here is a link to the TV video. The section about me and Yu Changqing starts at 3min 18sec. I hope we can be selected to perform our bike tricks for the big gala show during Chinese New Year.

Posted in Beijing, China, Media, Performers | 1 Comment »

时尚座驾 Trends Car Magazine

Oktober 24th, 2010

STC participated in an event organized by the Trends group for their „Half Car“ green initiative. I did a performance in front of famous Chinese people. Here is a picture of that in the October issue of the Trends Car (时尚座驾) magazine.

Trends Car Magazine

Ines Performing in Trends Car Magazine

Posted in Beijing, China, Media, Performers | 1 Comment »

Flying Banana Fixed Gear Bikes

Oktober 22nd, 2010

After a few days break we met up again this morning for some bike trick training. 74 year old Yu Chang Qing managed to do this trick he had not done since around 1990:

Yu Chang Qing Amazing Bike Trick

Yesterday some of the customer special ordered frames arrived. One of them was the special metallic orange Flying Banana track frame with Columbus Thron tubing for Echo. She wanted to learn how to build up her bike so she came to the shop. She started with putting inner tube and outer tire on the 50mm deep wheels (wow they look nice 🙂

Echo working on the 50mm deep wheels

Dupree brought his former military jacket for working on bikes. We think he looks like a Min Gong (migrant worker) wearing that.

Dupree as our shop min gong

Dupree, Chris and I then decided that better let Echo do all the work and us stand on the side and just give our comments.

Echo working and the others watching

And look how happy she is with her finished bike.

Echo and her Orange Golden Bike

The gold and black goes well with the metallic special orange color she ordered. All the parts closer to the frame are golden, the further away parts are black.

Full Modern Style Track Bike

Bullhorn Handle Bars

Flying Banana Bike with Columbus Thron Tubing

Our Flying Banana bike frames are made using Italian Columbus Thron tubing. It is nice to see Echo so happy about her new bike.

Echo and Ines

Today was very busy in our Natooke fixed gear bike store here in Beijing. I am sad I had to send some of the Korean fixed gear riders away that just wanted small modifications. It was not the right day with other customers waiting for the bikes to be built up. Like this one that we finished around 6pm.It has glow in the dark Oury grips.

White and Black with Pink Hub

Glow in the dark Oury grips on Flying Banana

We also finished another great track bike for Ren Fei. He had requested to have his name added on the frame. He was also very happy to pick up his fixed gear bike. He even asked me to join him and his friends for dinner but unfortunately I had already an appointment with friends visiting from France.

Ren Fei and his Flying Banana

Ren Fei’s new fixed gear bike

Posted in China, Cycling, Fixed Gear, Natooke | 2 Comments »

Puerto Rico Fixed Gear

Oktober 20th, 2010

I found an entry about myself on the Puerto Rico fixed gear webpage. Thanks! Greetings from Beijing to you Puerto Rican fixed gear riders!

Posted in Cycling, Fixed Gear, Media | Comments Closed