American Cyclery Tent Sale - This Weekend!

Hopefully you already know the San Francisco shop with the most Soma stuff is American Cyclery.
They are having their annual tent sale this weekend. Check it out if you are in town.

We are having a spectacular bicycle tent and sidewalk sale. We have purchased some very interesting bicycles, frames, parts and accessories from all over the world. For this one weekend only they are on sale.

Track, Fixed Gear Vintage, Classic lightweight, and tomorrow's classics all on sale. Many vintage bikes and stuff unearthed from our world famous basement. Some great project bikes and many one of a kind finds. 1950’s 650B Poteur and City bikes from France, British Rudge, Hercules and Raleigh bicycles. Vintage Campagnolo, Shimano, Huret Suntour components. Rare track stuff from 1950’s thru 2011. Lots of fun Single speed equipment.

We have a number of Waterford built Track frames, SOMA frames, Pake and Cinelli framesets at fantastic prices. Lots of great closeouts and one of a kind items. Many great American Cyclery Blow out Specials and lots of great deals on closeouts, demos floor models and last year's stuff.

ay April 1st sale item Preview from 5-7pm (no early birds)

Sale Saturday April 2nd from 10-6pm (no early birds)

Sunday April 3rd from 10 to 5pm.

Monday April 4th let’s make a deal!

Meet Ralph Lauren's newest model: The Soma Double Cross DC

photo c/o Citizen Chain Cyclery

We just got word that our good friends at Citizen Chain Cyclery in San Francisco recently built up a Soma Double Cross DC for the Ralph Lauren store downtown for their window display highlighting luxury sportswear (yes..LUXURY). The guild lines mostly concerned color--luckily we coordinated... Thanks Citizen Chain, it looks gorgeous!! Can't wait to see it for myself! Check out Citizen Chain's flickr for more pictures...

Click To Enbiggen

Just added a slew of photos to our Flickr stream.
Some stolen off our Facebook group. Others are owner submissions. Here are a few.
See more here and here.


"Retroscool's" Juice 29er w/ Titec H-bars and Surly Larry front tire



Jeff's Stanyan, which replaced a big brand aluminum road bike.
Wishes he replaced it sooner.


Soma ES from Dream Cycle.


Soma Double Cross from Dream Cycle. These are NOT custom matched
fenders! Amazingly the "beige" SKS Longboard fenders made from
recycled PET water bottles match our Ivory paint pretty closely.

Spring has sprung(so we've heard)!!!

Birds LOVE this frame!! (I don't want any comments saying it's for the birds...)

The word from chillier regions is that many of our riders are finally experiencing a spring thaw!! How exciting! I hope you all are polishing your steeds and taking to the roads!

In San Francisco, the season is also beginning to bloom! We've got some exciting events coming this weekend!!

Pizza, Music and Bikes! Oh my! Its an exhibit featuring frame builders in Northern California..very cool! These are people who make handmade bikes so unfortunately we won't be exhibiting but with brands like Sycip and Rock Lobster you can be sure there are gonna be some really sweet bikes there..here's more info: http://soulcraftbikes.blogspot.com/2011/02/una-pizza-napoletana-and-soulcraft.html

Pre-Pizza, Music and Bikes you can get your bike on at the first Sunday Streets of the season..

the Embarcadero route-classic. They have the whole 2011 schedule up on their website be sure to check it out.http://www.sundaystreetssf.com/event-info Very exciting!! We love Sunday Streets!

We hate to end on a sad note but we wanted to say goodbye to Race Face, you'll be sorely missed in the bike world!!

Bicycle Times Magazine: First Impressions on the Buena Vista

Karl Rosengarth, gear editor at Bicycle Times has been reviewing a Buena Vista for three months now. He shared his first impressions back in January, but we forgot to re-post it. Please check it out HERE.
The build is also sporting a number of other Soma goods including New Xpress tires, Euro Trip fenders, Ensho saddle and Sparrow 560 bars. Oh...can't forget this.... he also has our "Burrito Powered" Hell's Bell.

Second Coming of the Soma B-Side

Only MD and LG sizes available now.

The 650b MTB platform has not taken the mountain bikedom by storm. Are we surprised? Not really. Even back in 2007, we never thought or hoped it would supplant either of the more established tire sizes. We felt it had its place as the "happy medium".... a tire size that would be ride ideal for some riders... mainly those who felt (in their opinion) 29ers were a little to unwieldy and slow and were willing to give up a little of the 29ers rolling advantage to get back some of a manuevering quickness of a 26" bike. No doubt it has done just that for some mountain bikers. Some have said they won't be going back to 29ers or 26ers.
So that is why we are continuing with the B-Side, even if it doesn't sell as well as our Juice or Analog frames.
The version 2 B-Side still features our custom spec of double butted Tange Prestige heat-treated CrMo tubing. It does boast some notable upgrades, including Tange/IRD stainless steel sliding dropouts. These offer the rider single-speed and geared set up options with fewer hassles than a track-style "dropout" and lighter weight than an eccentric bottom bracket. The dropouts include eyelets for fenders, but there are no rack mounts. We don't expect too many to run fenders on this bike, but it doesn't hurt to include them.


We also tweaked the geometry so tall riders don't have to raise the seatpost quite as much (a comment from some owners). Some riders will still need a 400mm post. Other geometry changes include a shorter chainstays overall and a longer top tube on the 16.5". Integrated seat clamp is gone (again at the request of our fans).
The bike is still designed around the length of a White Brothers 80mm travel 650b fork; however we expect most folks to fit a 100mm travel 26" fork on the B-Side, which is about the same length.
If you are looking for top shelf hardtail option for 650b that's versatile, too, look no further than the new B-Side in its stately matte Gun Metal Blue finish. Sizes medium and large available now (no ETA on the other sizes) Geometry is posted below. We will not be including on the main site, until the new page design is ready. Sorry about that.

Happy Friday

We actually got some news to make this a Happy Friday.
Mike Hardy, the guy who was hit by a car AND got his Soma Rush stolen while the paramedics were attending to his shattered knee, has recovered enough to do a little riding. See more pictures of his new Rush on the BBG Kansas City fixed-gear team blog. Thanks David!

Soul Cycler's Soma Saga Review

"Greetings from Lake Tahoe! I've been home for about a week trying to decompress, and re-orient, after my 2,374-mile bicycle tour across India (From north to south.) There is alot to say, and right now, little time to say it. I've got another article due for the paper up here, I've just got back some sample chapter material returned from my editor for my book.

Anyway, there are several reasons I am contacting you. The first is to report that the Saga passed the test.....with flying colors.
I am not sure what you know about the riding conditions in India, but let me tell you, they are some of the toughest on the planet.
The Soma sucked it all up like a vacuum-cleaner, without so much as a shimmy. That said, as I reported in my last correspondence, there was a small bit of "operator error." Ironically, I'd cycled 2,274 miles across India without incident. This through traffic and roads so brutal, they nearly had me in tears.

Unfortunately, on the second to last day, I was hustling to keep my head above the vehicular current, and was passing a motorcycle, before rear-ending another parked motorcycle at about 18mph.
This with roughly 100 lbs. of gear on the bike. I assure you that any other bike would have folded. I was left with a bent fork. Though I had it bent back out, and proceeded to ride on it for the last 100 miles, it was toast. Needless to say, I am now in need of a new fork." (Disclosure: Rick Gunn was given his frame by Soma .... not for a review per se, though his feedback would be valuable, but for use of some of the awesome photographs he captures on his travels. Be sure read the journal of his jaw-dropping experiences in India – just updated this week – at soulcycler.com)


What's with that sign?




Rick's cohort on the trek relaxing.


Laundry slum


Lush beauty


The famous packed commuter trains
(All photos copyright of Rick Gunn)

More NAHBS: Independent Fabrications' Caffeine Racer Mixte

Independent Fabrications showed off a spectacular mixte at the North American Handbuilt Bike Show. It was built for company owner Gary Smith's wife Toni. Inspired by the cafe racer movement in motorbikes, this Barracuda Purple and black checkerboard beauty features an 8 speed internal hub, Phil-centric BB, a carbon and aluminum disk brake fork, Paul racer brakes in the rear, a dynamo powered headlight, and of course, a custom painted stainless steel coffee tumbler. Last but not least they put on a set of our chrome-plated Condorina "cafe racer" bars. (Photos by John Prolly and IF Blog)

We have to agree that speccing our Condorina Bar was a smart move.

Custom IF mug

Soma's tweeting!

Now you can troll the internet with us on our very own twitter!