Sheldon Brown memorials

Be sure to visit the Sheldon Brown memorial for your comments. People are also leaving comments at Sheldon Brown's MySpace page as well as his Facebook page. Harris Cyclery says a memorial service will be scheduled for March. I'm sure it will be huge.

One of the best obituaries I read came from Sheldon's friend John Allen, who is himself a very well regarded cyclist advocate in Massachusetts and a director at the League of American Bicyclists. Chico Gino posts Allen's words at his blog. Rich Kelly recounts his personal encounter with Sheldon Brown at Interbike, including some great photos of Sheldon proclaiming "IT'S ALIVE!" when asked about 3 speed internal hubs. Jenna Wortham mentions Sheldon in the WIRED blog yesterday, with links out a couple of other blog mentions (among hundred posted this week) and info about a planned memorial ride.

Here's a badge from Chico Gino who was inspired by Jim G (click on the image for different size options):



And from John Prolly.

Jennifer Aniston was a bike messenger

While she worked Off Broadway in New York City in the 80s, Jennifer Aniston supported herself by working as a bike messenger among other menial starving actress jobs. So says Wikipedia, this online biography, and this interview in Elle.

Jennifer Aniston's new $12,000 bike

Wow, I wish Courtney Cox was my friend! Courtney bought her friend Jennifer Aniston a shiny new designer $12,000 one-of-a-kind Chanel bicycle after Aniston expressed an interest in hitting Los Angeles’ bike lanes. According to "a source," “Jennifer said she wanted to start bike riding because it’s such good exercise. So Courteney sent her the new, ultra-chic Chanel bicycle.”


The bike features eight speeds, weighs 36lbs and comes complete with a quilted leather seat and saddlebag emblazoned with the famous Chanel ‘CC’ logo.

The source continued: “Courteney only sent Jennifer the bike two weeks ago but she already loves it! She goes out riding all the time.”

Canada buys Cannondale, Sugoi

Dorel acquires Cannondale - Two distinct bicycle divisions to be created

Possible move to Asian manufacturing?

Dorel Industries Inc announced the acquisition of Cannondale Bicycle Corporation of Bethel, CT. Dorel -- which owns the U.S. based Pacific Cycles which in turn markets Schwinn, GT Bicycle, Mongoose, Pacific, Dyno, Murray, RoadMaster, PowerLite and InSTEP brands of bicycle products -- also announced the creation of an Independent Bicycle Dealers division to differentiate the Cannondale and GT bikes from the mass merchant retail products that the other brands primarily focus on, with Cannondale the "crown jewel" of this new division. Sugoi Performance Apparel (which is already Canadian, but who's paying attention) is also included in the purchase from the investment group that currently owns Cannondale and Sugoi. Pacific Cycles will be a stand alone division focusing on the mass merchant channel. The purchase price will be somewhere around US$200 million.

Dorel stated they are seeking acquisitions of of similar high quality, performance bicycle companies to join this new IBD group.

“Dorel recognizes that doing business with the IBD and mass merchant categories is two very different things and requires distinct strategies and specialized people selling the best products for those channels. We clearly realize this and are making the necessary adjustments to best meet the needs of our customers,” said Dorel President and CEO Martin Schwartz.

Cannondale's insane foray into motorcycles bankrupted the company in 2003. After the sale of company assets in a bankruptcy auction, the company sold off its motorcycles operations and was able to turn itself around with a renewed focus on bicycle design and production.

Margins are signficantly higher than mass market bicycles, but Dorel also recognizes that dealing with the IBD channel is "vastly different" from the mass market. "We need to focus much more on quality and innovation," said Schwartz. "Relationships and personal contact are much more important for the independent bike dealers."

Cannondale's manufacturing and assembly currently is done in the United States and Europe; Dorel's management said they'll look at how much to move to Asia. With Cannondale's acquisition and the current business from GT, Dorel hopes to be the number three player in the IBD channel behind Trek and Giant.

Via; props also to Jennifer for the heads up.

Carolyne's dog

Meet Carolyne's puppy dog, Major Tom G. Warrior.


Read more about Carolyne in issue 4 of Urban Velo Magazine. Photo by Jeff the publisher. And for goodness sake somebody buy Urban Jeff a pro account for his Flickr account.

Remember all, I'm pandering to all pet lovers out there. If you post a cute photo of a pet with a bike and link to Cyclelicious, I'll post back to you.

Crazy bus passenger

A whacked out bus passenger on the 91 commuter express between Watsonville and Santa Cruz, CA grabbed the bus steering wheel and crashed the bus into the adjacent hillside in Santa Cruz County.

The unnamed passenger saw his girlfriend's car in -- get this -- a suspected DUI accident on the side of Highway 1 south of Santa Cruz. He demanded to be let off immediately, but when the bus driver told the passenger he would be let off at the next exit, the passenger grabbed the steering wheel and steered the bus into the hill. The passenger was arrested almost immediately, I'd guess by law enforcement officers who were already at the scene of the earlier accident. What a piece of work. Read more in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

I had a nice quiet ride home on my commuter bus this evening :-)

Sheldon Brown

Sheldon Brown aka "Captain Bike" aka Carapace Completed Umber passed last night of a massive heart attack.

I've communicated with him numerous times on Usenet and via email, but the closest I came to meeting him was seeing him from across the floor at Interbike. The man was a wonderful wonderful soul, very giving and kind with his knowledge and expertise and with a fantastic sense of humor.

I'm saddened to hear of his loss; I feel like I've lost a close friend.

In his last journal entry last night he endorses Obama for the Massachusetts Democratic primary. In his last post on BikeForums, he's helping somebody out with a question on freewheel threading.

Via numerous sources, though I think I saw it at Jim G's blog first.