Bikes, beer and beards - all were in abundant supply this weekend at the second annual Sacramento Bike Games, which lasted all of Saturday evening. A select group of people received phone calls Saturday morning from the event's organizers telling them where to meet up for the first event, a skid-stop competition held on the American River Bike Trail at noon. After that, the action moved to Discovery Park, where the Pick Up, Footdown and Trackstand events were held. While Footdown and Trackstands have been explained in previous articles in this storyline, Pick Up is probably unfamiliar to readers. In Pick Up, objects of successively diminishing size have to be picked up by players riding

  A few days ago, while I was eating a gigantic hamburger at Nationwide Freezer Meats, I noticed a flier advertising for the second annual Sacramento Bike Games. This upcoming Saturday, March 28, was given as a date, but no location was revealed. My interest was piqued, so I checked the MySpace address listed on the flier, only to find the games’ location listed as "TBA." Viewers of the page were encouraged to check back regularly for information on where the games are to be held. However, other pertinent information was revealed. The games focus on fixed-gear bikes, with events like Bike Polo, Footdown (essentially chicken played on bikes), Jousting, and several other bike maneuvers. S

Friday evening, you may have run into a crowd of cyclists pedaling their way downtown, uptown, and back again. The racing term for this group is a peloton. These rather enthusiastic riders were in the midst of the Sacramento Alley Cat bike race.  The Alley Cat is an unsanctioned bike race, checkpoint-to-checkpoint, where the emphasis is placed not on speed, but on knowing the layout of the city. Races are always open course, taking place in street traffic.  40 riders took off for the five checkpoints of the race which stretched from Lucky Lefty's on 16th Street all the way to West Sacramento and back.  Many others who came chose not to race, but remained at Lucky Lefty's, watching a bik

Recently, fixed-gear biking has become rather popular among young urbanites.  Some readers might be asking, 'what exactly is a fixed gear?'  To answer their questions, I put together a brief FAQ on the subject.     So what makes a fixed gear bike different from any other bike? The most distinguishing and easily identifiable characteristic of a fixed gear bike is that it cannot coast like other bikes, because the bike's single gear is directly connected to both the chain and wheel.  Whenever the wheels of the bike are moving, the pedals are moving.  Because of this, it is possible to slow and stop the bike by applying rearward pressure to the bike pedals.  Most fixed gear bikes are track

It was a Tuesday like any other or at least that what I thought as I worked my day job board as can be watching the people pass by on J St. When I got word of a large fixed gear ride that night and I knew my day was looking up. As I sat longer at work I started to hear more and more word of mouth about this ride, and that this was no regular ride. But a race rather and not just any race a scavenger hunt race, once I heard this there was no way I was going to miss this. So some friends and I showed up around 10pm to see what was happening with this ride. When we rolled up there was about 45-50 people so all of us were pumped for this ride, and couldn’t wait to hear the rules. So turns out t

http://www.sacbee.com/740/story/1399234.html    Its getting harder and harder to be heard since yellow journalism reared its ugly head. YOU MUST HAVE CONTROVERSEY to sell fishwrap.  Sorry for the loudness but its important to the above story. Might as well rename the article "how to create a mob."   You see day in and day out I'm amazed on how much kindness and room I get on my daily bike commute. Despite the cruddy roads we are given.  Does that become a story?  Nah no controversy in it!  Doesnt rile up the masses! Open letter to the writer of this piece  Try finding a moment and writing about how great we are despite all our differences. How my daily commute is the thing I look forwar