a guide to heritage clothing, canvas bags, steel bicycles, and Japanese web shops
Lavenham, a UK based brand specializing in custom horse rugs and quilt gillets, is everywhere these days (per Instagram). The predominant Lavenham visual in my feed is the new reversible quilt gillet designed in collaboration with Labour and Wait. Today, I spotted a fetching new collaboration between Lavenham and Narifuri (a Japanese urban fashion + …
I have a thing for cycling breeches and plus fours (aka knickers). When UK outdoor custom clothier Hebden Cord closed shop, I bought up ten pairs of breeks in assorted fabrics (cord, tweed, ventile) on eBay. True confession: I admire these garments more than I like to wear them. In practice, on my bike, I …
I will be offline for a few weeks while I’m away participating in Paris-Brest-Paris for the second time. And randomly, NPR included a sound bite of me during a random report onthe sport of randonneuring. If you are curious about randonnering, a form of ultra distance cycling w/roots in France, here’s an NPR report on …
Handy Bag will release its first cycling-type musette in July. Our first Handy bag batch is in production at T & J Custom Sewing in Springfield, Oregon. Our first model will be the Handy Musette, a simple, functional, cycling-type shoulder bag made from canvas duck, sturdy hardware and cotton webbing. How do you buy a …
It’s always fun to match a fave brand to its foreign, brick and mortar store. During my recent trip to Japan, I visited Cycles Grand Bois, a venerable bicycle company known for its elegant handlebars, polished bike parts, custom frames, and 650b tires. Thanks to a rando pal who knows how to navigate Google maps in …
I tried watching the 2016 Tour de France but lost interest after the first week. I miss the panache and personal style of cyclists from the past. Now, I can barely distinguish one game piece from the next (logos, lego shaped helmets and mirrored shades drown out the personalities of the individual riders. I much …
Occasionally, an eBay watchlist returns a pleasant ping like these original Hebden Cord Touring Shorts. Alas, they are sized too large for me but I still want to document for my archives. In a few years, all memories of elegant, tailored, non-technical cycling garb will most likely disappear from our collective memory. Here is a …
Did you catch Chris Froome sporting a logo free musette during the Olympic road race in Rio? I always love catching glimpses of this little retro style bag in a sea of state of the art garb and bike technology. While modern cycling musettes are made of cheap synthetics (designed to be discarded), my favorite vintage versions …
Last month, I traveled to the UK to ride the 1400k randonnee, London-Edingburgh-London. I survived the ride but couldn’t really tell you what I remember. After pedaling for 4.5 days on about 8 hours of sleep (total) I recorded and erased most of the experience. I did manage to take a few snaps of the …
Ok. I love our cotton duck, Archival Musettes. They were designed as functional, more durable iterations of the classic pro peleton musette. Though I own a lifetime supply of musettes, I still shop for novelty models on ebay. Here are some great looking, Bob Jackson & Jack Taylor branded musettes via this ebay seller. I …