photo via Takuya/New York Bike Dreams

As the Boston producers of the BFF, we wanted to make sure we caught all the meetings and got a sense of how Brendt Barbur and the NYC team put on a show.  We headed down Thursday eve to catch the end of the Producer’s Dinner AKA vegan Chinese food fight at the 88 Palace in Chinatown.  Somewhere around 4am, we  settled into our luxurious accommodations at the BFF’s Chelsea office floor after a late-night snack.

Friday saw us scrambling to get all the pieces  in order for Goldsprints at Clemente Solo Vélez on the Lower East Side.  Jamie, Mando, Jon, Jeremy, Vic and the boys at Affinity helped a ton as we worked to get all the bugs in the new Sprints software worked out- the races started a bit late and ran into the wee hours with Prolly MC’ing and the NYC kids tearing up the rollers on the custom Quiros Frames sprint bikes.

A beautiful Manhattan afternoon was in store for us at the BFF Street Fair on Saturday.  We passed the day hanging out with the crowd, seeing old and new friends, and watching people rock the ramps and street course.

Finkle from I Love my Bike Book.

Maurice and Abe from Outlier

Victor sez: "Don't take my pic, bro!"

Jeff from Continuum Cycles repping OPEN

Prolly making fun of Marty's moustache.

Following the fair, I caught the new Lucas Brunelle / Benny Zenga helmetcam / documentary mashup, Line of Sight:

It was a miracle that no one was creamed by a taxi after riding away from the screening- Brunelle’s films always get the crowd psyched to mash through the city.

Sunday was the hotly-anticipated premier of Empire.

Empire Premiere at Bicycle Film Festival 2010 NYC from Empire on Vimeo.

Over two years in the making, Empire was 45 minutes of some of the most exciting and well-shot & edited riding I’ve ever seen.  Luke and Crihs claim that the film isn’t at the final edit yet, but in my opinion, the version the sold-out screening saw this last weekend was superlatively done.

After missing the last bus back to Boston, I not-so-resignedly made my way across the Williamsburg Bridge to the East River Bar for the last BFF afterparty.  A relatively quiet evening was followed by an awesome ride back over the bridge and into Harlem to crash at Jeff from Continuum Cycles‘ sweet apartment.  After two nights of sleeping on Willis’ floor, the couch uptown was amazing.

Jeff made coffee in the morning and we rode down into the Village to check in on Fritz and the other boys at CC.

Waiting in line for the bus (finally) later on that day, I ran into Matt from Budd Bike Works.  We absconded to Noho for a couple quick drinks and I finally made my way out of the city and back to Boston.  Big thanks to Mando, Jamie, Jeremy, and Jon-Boy for all the transport and help, Willis for letting me crash on his floor, Victor for everything, and Jeff for the awesome accommodations and tour-guide service.

We’ve been hustling along all week getting ready for the Bicycle Film Festival’s 10th year anniversary in NYC- we’ll be running GoldSprints on Friday night and be in attendance at the Street Fair on Saturday.

The shop will be closed those days- come join us in New York and find us when we re-open on Sunday!

Filming Myself #3 from Paper Fortress on Vimeo.

Our good friend (and my new roomie) Stebs just released another BMX self-portrait.  Ever-capable of connoting those often indescribable notes and colors and subtle feelings of space with his medium, Stebs documents his determination and finesse around the neighborhood.  Check out the Paper Fortress website for more….

If you didn’t know already, our good friends and local power-duo Matt Finkle and Brittian Sullivan have found a publisher for their I Love My Bike Book!  OPEN is hosting a Boston area meet-up today, to be followed by a ride and photoshoot on this lovely Memorial Day- get here!

We’ve been running all over the Northeast arranging the final touches for the new shop.  Our socially-conscious design vision (and our long-since-over-budget build-out allowance) compel us to recycle and reuse as much as possible in our transformation a 40-year old barbershop to a clean and functional shop.  We found dozens of recycled steel shelves (from a now-defunct RAD Fabrications) up in New Hampshire to organize our stockroom and make room for all the new product coming.  A blisteringly fast shot down to south Connecticut scored us a few made-in-NYC vintage oak library ladders for our roomy upstairs (cool story on the Putnam Ladder Company last year in the NY Times) and a rush hour crawl back.

We dropped by Sean Milnes’ lovely house in New Haven to relax a bit and pick-up Sean’s wheels for repair.  Turns out doing this:

Leads to this:

(Photos via Ride Tyrant’s Flickr)

Sean’s off on a East Coast trip with Shop Cultur on what may be one of the first FGFS “pro” tours this June, and we spoke a bit about what the scene is shaping up to be.  Manufacturers are making new product to meet the evolving demands of riders like Sean and enterprises like Shop Cultur signal the rise of FGFS in the ‘burbs and smaller cities that don’t have shops like OPEN to cater to their needs.  Inevitable schlocky bandwagoning aside, it’s a win for everybody when a small group of committed pioneers create something that gains mass appeal and support, and we at OPEN are constantly looking in to new product, events, and education to encourage this growth.  Sean is a genuine, kind, and focused person and is exactly the kind of individual who personifies our philosophies and attitude.  We’re super happy to have him as part of the family.  Be sure to check him out on the tour (details TBD) and at the BFF 2010 in NYC this year (OPEN will be there for the films, races, comps, and street party, as well).

Last note / shameless plug:

Chorus Gallery, formerly adjacent to the old OPEN shop, is getting ready to occupy new (and larger) space down the street and is holding a pop-up gallery and live-painting fundraiser at  Trina’s Starlight Lounge, May 12th, 2010. Drink specials, good art, and fine people will be in abundance. Come out and support Chorus Collective as we move towards reopening in Union Square.

All that being said, keep an eye peeled on this site / RSS / word on the street as we rapidly approach our re-opening.  The shop is looking good, the weather is getting consistently clement, and we’re becoming terribly excited.

Filming Myself in the Snow from Quarter Productions on Vimeo.

The mastermind behind Quarter Productions was out filming himself on his BMX bike during the snowfall today. A few short hours later, a brand new video appears.

You can find him at: iloveqp.com

Walking toward the shop from our ritualistic AM stop at Sherman Cafe with coffees in hand and laughing in the late morning light, we spotted a distinguished-looking gentleman wheeling what was obviously a classy track bike down the train bridge.  Waving the fellow down, we were introduced to Tim Dixon, bike-lover, furniture-builder, and Imron-sprayer extraordinaire.  Hailing from California and the heyday of West Coast craft builders, Tim was dropping in to show us this extremely elegant Sam Cotten track bike and chat a bit about his new wet-paint operation in Boston.

Sam Cotten, he explained, was a friend of his who had a part time framebuilding operation in Hollywood, as well as being an actor and amateur philosopher.  Tim cut some Cinelli lugs into delicate shapes and had Sam build him this frame, which Tim then painted.  The result, with the perfectly-matched C-Record kit and Cinelli bar/stem combo, is about as classy as they come.  Yes, that is an extremely rare semi-sloping Cinelli track fork crown.  Yes, those are Record Crono tubular rims.  No, we’re sorry, but you can’t ride it.

Tim is starting up his spray operation again here on the East Coast, and we’ll be offering his services through the shop.  Please do drop in to gawk at his ‘90 Cotten and start dreaming up your new paint scheme.

It seems my earlier prognosis about rod brakes has come true.  Yielding to the demands of the times, Open is clearing its stock of fixed gear bikes to make room for some shiny new (or rather, crusty, old) roadsters.

Well, maybe I exaggerate again; the fixed gears are staying. But the roadsters are coming too.  If you attended Spoke Count, you are probably acquainted with the 1936 Raleigh Lady’s Tourist that hung suspended from the ceiling. And if that wasn’t enough, Open is collaborating with the newly formed Boston Retro Wheelmen to develop a programme of workshops aimed at vintage IGH bikes.

Why? Because vintage three speeds are good. Built like tanks, they withstand pretty much anything the city throws at you. They are easy to ride and easy to maintain. They love you and they want you to love them back. So if you live in the neighborhood and have an old, forlorn 3-speed that needs resuscitating, bring it to Open and it shall be cared for in the manner it deserves.  Restored vintage 3-speeds are also occasionally available for sale.

[pictured above: Somervillain and Biking In Heels tend to their steeds during a Boston Retro Wheelmen meeting.]

Spoke Count is a Chorus Gallery-hosted collaborative installation featuring 100+ small works about bikes by various artists from the community.  The show is open submission- that means you, dear reader!  Your work can be on any type of media and in any genre or format- we only ask that there be some reference to bicycles in the piece and the finished work be 8″x8″ and able to be hung.  It is estimated that there currently exist over one billion bicycles in the world- this show will attempt to visualize this (growing) mass of our favorite revolutionary transport.

Submissions are open to anyone- complete the form at the Chorus Gallery website to participate.  Deadline for work is 5p January 7th- show reception is 7p, January 9th 2010.

More info on BFF Boston:

The official page

The Twitter page

The Facebook page

The Volunteer form: