The Daily Tweed – Riding Pretty Calendar of Tweed Events

Since the original Tweed Run in London inspired Tweed rides across the globe people have been on the lookout for Tweed events near them.

The lovely Riding Pretty has gathered all of this information together in The Tweed Report a constantly updated social calendar of all things Tweed from around the globe. From Sydney to Glasgow to London to Osaka she’s got them all covered.

It’s also a great place to take a look at all the event posters, here’s one I particularly like.

Why not take a look and find a Tweed ride near you?

New look blog

After we freshened up the look of the Rocket Fuel site last week the blog was looking a little sad so this week it has had a mini makeover with a new header

As always we continue to tweak the site and blog to make them more user friendly and display our handmade goods in the best possible environment.

Enjoy

Cycling Tips

Just before Christmas the ever helpful Cycling Tips named Rocket Fuel in it’s last minute gift guide.

We wanted to say thank you to Wade and encourage everyone who wants to be a better cyclist in 2011 to head on over and check out his fantastic blog.

The best blog posts of 2010 as chosen by Rocket Fuel

In no particular order the blog posts from 2010 that made me want to be more, work harder, be inspired and forever grateful that I learnt to ride a bike,

2010 Rapha Gentlemans Race Report by Grit&Glimmer

“suffering like a pair of pitiful, mutant bicycle siamese twins, we pedal on”

If Heidi’s account of riding a tandem didn’t similtanously make you want to never ride a tandem and vow to get out there and ride a tandem then I don’t know what will. (Truth be told I could have chosen almost any post from Grit&Glimmer for the entire year, inspiring beyond words).

The Stelvio and Gavia, Northern Italy by La Gazzetta Della Bici

“experience everything by myself, alone, the way I like it, freewheeling exhausted all the way down”

Simon has strength beyond measure and the way he speaks of his struggles so openly just proves even more the strength he has. This post on his ride up some of his favourite passes makes me want to dream bigger and achieve more and the struggle will only make the achievements feel even sweeter.

2010 Melbourne to Warrnambool by Cycling Tips

“a wall of 60km/hr winds and downpours of sleet and rain would hit us straight in the face”

This was a hard choice I couldn’t decide between this and the lead up posts to the Geelong World Championships that Wade did which were invaluable in planning our trip to the Worlds in Geelong. This post on the “Warny” won out because not only it is a great read on what must have been a horrible day in the saddle, but also because it celebrates a race in Australia that is as full of history and characters as many a European race. Proving that history is what you make of it and just because Australia is far away doesn’t mean there aren’t everyday hero’s riding right here.

This year has been filled with high’s and low’s and so many wonderful people, times and rides. Next year I’m taking Heidi’s advice setting some real goals and fighting for them. Hope you can all join me for the journey.

Harris Tweed on A Continuous Lean

My love of fabrics inspires much of what I do. The colours, the textures, weaves, prints, patterns just everything about it.

A Continuous Lean has done a round of up images and videos on Tweed production that is enough for me to go weak at the knees. Drop by and take a look on how this amazing fabric is continuing a tradition of quality hand produced fabric. Behold the power of Tweed.

Insideout magazine interview

A few weeks ago Rocket Fuel was featured in Insideout magazine’s blog along with other designers who were at the Winterland markets at CarriageWorks.

Here is my interview

ROCKET FUEL

Are you more creative in winter?
Yes definitely so, I love bundling up under a blanket each night and planning out my designs and work for the next day. I work with a range of vintage wool fabrics and in the wintertime, they seem extra rich and vibrant as they are truly in their element.

What’s your local (or at-home) winter inspiration?
With Rocket Fuel being inspired by and for cycling of all kinds – be it popping to the shops or full pro-racing – one of my biggest inspirations is the Tour De France. On a cold winter night here, I’ll be stitching away while watching some of the best cyclists in the world take on the most gorgeous scenery. It is really inspirational and makes me not only want to ride my bike but to travel and design and create – it’s just fantastic.

Where can people find you online?
http://www.rocketfuel.net.au.

Hatoholics Anonymous – A great read

Quite obviously we love a good cycling cap, the way they look, the fit of them and of course the history. So of course when I read today’s post from Breaking Belgium it left me in fits of giggles and smiles. Head on over to read all about it.

image source - Breaking Belgium

Sugar Spokes custom designs

To the ever growing list of custom designs the Rocket Fuel studio has made this year the latest addition is Sugar Spokes.

Sugar Spokes are a female bike crew out of Melbourne and chose to get 2 sets of caps. One all pink caps with white printing and tape and then reverse of white caps with pink details. They look very cute and I hope the girls enjoy riding with them and showing them off in Melbourne.

So far the caps have also caught the eye of Double Oh Two and Le Pista Resistance, contact Sugar Spokes if you’d like one of your very own.

As always if your crew, shop, club etc would like some custom caps made just drop Rocket Fuel an email and we’ll have you riding in style in no time.

Le Pista love

The lads over at Le Pista Resistance http://lepistaresistance.com/ gave our new coin purses a showing on their site. Thanks guys!

Check out their site for this weekends 3 part ‘race’ series they are organising as part of the Sydney Bicycle Film Festival.

We once owned Andy’s bike

I’ve been without the internet for a few days (don’t ask) but have been catching up on some blog reading and saw this over at Prolly.

Photo via Prolly via Speedbicycles

The weekly Merckz Mondays are enough to make me weak at the knees at the best of times but this weeks is extra special because this is  bike Andy Hampsten rode in the 1992 Tour de France Alpe d’Huez.
So that was special point number 1.

Special point number 2 is that ride of Andy’s up the Alpe was brilliant so gutsy and you just kept willing him faster and up and around those hairpin turns. Even the post race interview sticks in my mind with Andy gulping down what looks like milk and trying to explain what he had done on the ride.

Special point number 3 is that for a very brief time my dad owned this bike.

Yes that’s right my dad owned it.

It was a giveaway as part of a subscription deal with a magazine and dad won. I remember coming home from school one day and my sister holding a handwritten note out the front door saying ‘dad won Andy’ and both us us yelling and jumping up and down with excitement.

Unfortunately it was too hard and expensive to bring to Australia at the time and so it was sold to a collector who was a great guy and even sent a Giro Pink jersey that had been Andy’s as a thank you.

So there you go, the story of how for a brief time we owned one of the most beautiful bikes in existence.

You can see more photos of it here at the Speedbicycles museum.

Breaking News 1 – got this message – I do not think that is the right bike. It may have been altered, but Andy’s did not have both shifters on the bars. To save weight he had a downtube shifter to operate the chainrings. Dad

Breaking News 2 – go check the comments on Prolly’s blog and some of the crew there have picked up that it’s not the right bike as well.

Will continue investigating and report back with findings.