3rd Dispatch from Midwest Correspondent

Hello from MN. I've got a couple of half-baked post ideas mixed together here for your viewing enjoyment!

In October I went out to the Witches Hat tower and the river to see some fall leaves:

This is the nice skyline view from Prospect Park.  After the park I rode over to the Franklin Avenue bridge.

Also while riding around this fall I caught a few bike mural pictures at current/former bike shops: This is  Freewheel Bike on the West Bank.

And Sunrise Cyclery on the Greenway.

And The Alt

Penn Cycle on Lake Street with a nice Pee-Wee Herman homage

And  the CRC Coffee Bar (RIP)

Next post will show my winter season bike conversion and maybe some snow-- stay tuned!

Cycle Letters 4

The best fixed gear shop in the world.

A couple of weekends ago we joined up with Fixed-in-Nara and ventured out to Osaka, starting things off right with a coffee stop at the mighty Giracha...

Giracha Coffee

Suitably caffeinated we headed north, taking in a bit of street art on the way...

Art.

Naturally stopping to shoot some cool #LockedUpBikes...

Kuwahara 24" BMX cruiser.

It was a beautiful spring day and Osaka was being so Osaka...

Osaka Style.

Our destination was OVE who were hosting the fourth Cycle Letters exhibition...

OVE

An exhibition/event where local bike friendly companies and cyclists come together to show off new products and teach various cycling related things including cycling photography, leather work, printing and more...

Cycle Letters.

Local Osaka shop Palm Garage had a nice display of products...

Palm Garage

Including their very cute NJS chain key rings...

Palm Garage key rings.

And custom Kashimax saddles...

Kashimax

Brooks

Araya had some nice city bikes on display...

Araya Swallow.

Araya.

A gorgeous, Shiga made Macchi Cycles road bike was being used to show off the stunning Modoru Kikaku bike stands...

Macchi Cycles X Modoru Kikaku

Local accessories and parts brand Adept Works had some really nice bits of kit on their stand...

Adept Works Arclock

Adept Works

Adept Works skewers 6 clamps.

Corner Bikes were showing off Keisuke's stunning new CX bike, that Salsa homage paint job was done by the masters at Cook Paintworks...

Keisuke's custom Corner Bikes. 

Munieq had some cool little bits on show like these folding coffee drippers, perfect for that #CoffeeOutside ride...

Munieq coffee drippers

Moca were showing off some stylish leather products...

Moca

Obiviosly there was a fair bit of bike porn parked outside the venue...

Little and large EBS.

Vigore.

Cannondale.

Gorgeous vintage Misonoi.

One of our favourite bikes in Osaka, Takeshi-san's Surly Troll.

KHS.

A big thank you to Brad, Sayaka, Shouichi, Adept Works, Takeshi and everyone at the Cycle Letters event for what was a really fun and friendly bike centric event. There will be more bike photos from the day posted here soon.

Giracha Walnut Club

38 Special Crew

Whilst down at Bicycle Maru a few weeks back we asked Kentaro-san if he could source any of the now discontinued tanwall Panaracer 38 Special tyres. After a bit of searching he came up with some. We shared this news with F-i-N and Mikey and somewhat unwittingly became the 38 Special Crew. Nerdy as fuck? Yes. But these tyres were kind of legendary and they look fucking sweet especially on Mikey's Fairdale Weekender...

Mikey's Fairdale.

And so last holiday Monday morning we met up for a coffee and a local cruise...

Ready to Roll.

A pit stop at Bicycle Maru was needed as designers make shit mechanics, meaning someone needed new pads...

Baaw at Maru.

Shooting people shooting bikes...

Gettin' that 'Gram.

And then we headed south...

Street life.

Through the quiet backstreets and farmland of Koriyama...

Backstreets.

To the wonderful K-Coffee...

K-Coffee

A quick  #BAAW opportunity...

Baaw at K-Coffee.

And then back up to Nara before the weather turned to shite...

Deserted.

Cheers to Brad, Mikey and Bicycle Maru.

All City Cycles Osaka Nightride

All City Cycles are in Japan on tour! On Tuesday they had a night ride through Osaka, we went along and took our usual blurry night ride shots...

Party Brand overload at 1Jyo

Hooking up with the IPA Crew for a quick coffee at Nakazaki Eights...

Sonic X Cappuccino. 

 Before meeting up with the Motocross International & All City crews for the ride...

The meet up.

 Starting off heading downtown...

Track stands for days.

Through the Christmas lights...

Neon lights, shimmering neon lights.

Andrew, still standing.

Rolling into Dotonbori.

Macho Man meets Glico Man.

F-i-N at the crossing, waiting to sell his soul!

A few photo opportunities in Tenno-ji...

BAAW!

Art.

A real photographer.

 The essential combini stop...

Combini life.

Parking.

 And back out on the streets...

Waiting.

Rolling into Shitenno-ji.

Corner boys.

Just before the hill climb sprinting began, check out Masahiro's knowing smile.

Ending the night with beer and pizza...

F-i-N takes his whiskey very seriously.

A truly amazing night. A huge thank you to Brad, Andrew, Nate and Jeff from All City, The Motocross International crew, Masahiro for his navigation and guidance, the Toyo Frame crew, Spark Scone & Bicycle, Yoko, Taigood, Takeshi, Kenhi81 for planning the very cool route and everyone who came out for what was a fantastic night of riding.