Hey, I am in Colorado With bikes

Two days of driving landed me in Lyons CO, a town of ~2000 just north of Boulder.

Dave Chase, of Redstone Cyclery, invited me to join the regular Tuesday night ride, which has been going every week, year-round, since 1999.

Being it is the first week of daylight savings time we had glorious sun for the start. Twenty riders gather and roll off to Hall Ranch. This is a daytime-only county park, so up and down before dark. The main feature here is the Rock Garden, up the natural rock of the ridge. A challenge in both directions. I was suffering with engine trouble on the climb, though the On-One Carbon 456 with Mary Bars was handling it well. Felt better coming down--with three step over the bars endos. Need to blame the cockpit nut again!

Wednesday again was a pleasant day. Chad was my guide for Picture Rock Trail, again starting from the bike shop. Fairly smooth easy grade, then the rocks started again. Colorado has rocks. Rocks in the Rocky Mountains, who'd a thunk? But I like rocks. Just takes some getting use to. There is a different rhythm to rocks I find fun and interesting. On the Titus FTM Carbon with On-One Midge dropbars this time. First ride out and I seem to have hit the suspension setup fairly well. Ran the Pike U-Turn fork at 120mm and never changed that on the trail. No crashes. A few Woo-Hoo moments, and a break to help a cute woman with a broken derailleur hanger/RD.

Tomorrow is the Front Range Cyclist Bicycle Show in Colorado Springs. I will be setup with six bikes, frames and bars from On-One and Titus. Stop by and we can trade stories.

Titus Factory Store Now Open

Visit the new Titus Store.

Titus has new owners. As part of our plan to grow the company we are clearing the old frames from an incredible $999 (+ $223 for a custom-tuned Rock Shox Monarch shock.)
This should give you something to chew on whilst we line up some new bikes for later in the year. Please bear with us, quality takes time.
The New Titus Team

Do you Know Where Your Towel Is At?

I am rarely without my towel.

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels...

"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

quotation from The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams www.douglasadams.com

I love the HHGG. And I love the usefulness of the towel. I think it can be applied to a lot of things in life.

See you Out There -- with a towel,

-shiggy

Monstercross or 29er, circa 1993

In the early '90s I spent a year or two riding my Trek 750 Multitrack cyclocross bike (steel using Trek's 26" MTB lugs) as my mountain bike. 45mm tires just fit in the rear, though I usualy ran 42mm for clearance. Rode that bike everywhere and loved how it rolled over things.

Dreaming about full width mtb tires (and 2.0" tires were still considerec the normal width then) for it inspired me to design this bike.

It was a mountain bike then. More likely to be called a monstercross now. And similar to my current favorite bike I had built a few years ago, "Hermie".

I can do almost anything on Hermie. From road rides to back country trails. If I could have only one bike, this would be it--or the one that will follow it.

See you Out There,
-shiggy

Titus Rockstar 29 Review on 29er Online

The crew at 29er Online recently put the Titus Rockstar to the test in North Carolina.

See their thoughts and video about the full suspension 29er here

Titus Cycles Sale Coming

The sale of the remaining new-old stock Titus bikes is about to begin. Great prices and full warranty. Details to follow soon.

The new Titus lineup will be available after mid-year as we choose from the best of the old and the new models.

It Is Not All About the Bike

Me, Out There, sitting in a lake.

I think my friend, Brock, shot this.

I was enjoying the cool water of Indigo Lake during the 2008 Sawtooth Struggle. Part of your group was on top of Sawtooth Mountain, the peak behind me.

Nice break to just sit, think and feel the high country of the central Oregon Cascades.

Was the first long ride for my On-One Inbred (26" slot drop), and the last. It was stolen a couple of days later.

Logos for the "Out There" Van

It is not easy to apply vinyl at 15 degrees F. At least the weather is dry. I am still working an removing the raingutter company lettering from the sides. Five hours of heating and scrapping almost (almost) cleaned off one side. I really need to get a good heat gun. Not a big deal as I am waiting for the black vinyl for the new side logos.

I do have plenty of white vinyl. Perfect for the windshield logo. Ended up half obscured by the tint, but I like it.

The rear doors also received the logo treatment. I did have just enough black for the back.
On-One Bikes, Titus Cycles, shiggy's Out There logos and a PSA:
"SEE BICYCLES  //\\  Ride Bicycles"