Review: Bicycle Times Goes Out with the Soma Pick-Up Artist

"The Pick-Up Artist is a great deal at $1,500. The list of compromises for the price is not long.

Less expensive steel makes a heavier overall bike, but what's a few more pounds when you are carrying 50? ... It's a solid design that has the added benefit of being easy to step over. The bike absolutely did ot wiggle side to side, even with a lot of weight up front.... The [front rack's] slimness is often an asset as the bike can squeeze between cars and other obstacles easily." Read the complete review in Bicycle Times Issue 29 or click here. (Oct. 2013)

Ewald 257GB Multi-fit Rack

Check out what arrived at Soma HQ today! Wald's new cargo rack.

This thing is sweet! We've talked about Wald stuff before, and this rack is one of the coolest products they've ever put out. We've seen couriers hack off the tops of Wald delivery baskets so we asked Wald if they could make a sturdier option that would fit all our bikes. And this is the result.

The clamp is adjustable to fit 25.4 to 31.8 bars. The stays are adjustable too, so you can get the platform at the right angle.

This thing measures a generous 19" wide by 13" long. The front of the basket is open it can accept large objects like long boxes. You can use bungee straps to keep them in place. The rails on the sides keep your load from slipping off when you make a turn. This rack is great for pizza boxes or if you want to attach a storage container to it. You could even attach a Wald Giant Delivery basket and have an extra sturdy setup.

Wald is one of the oldest companies still in the business, and one of the very few companies making affordable american made products. You can read about Grandpa Ewald and the history of the Wald company on their website here http://waldsports.com/index.cfm/waldheritage.html. We will be getting a big shipment of these racks as soon as they are available, so stay tuned.

Coming Soon: Soma's New Porteur Rack

We left the MP3 player at home for our weekend ride.
Instead we loaded up an old radio one of us had collecting
dust in the garage --- onto a prototype of our Porteur Rack.
(Click on images to +)


The rack has a 12 x 14.2" platform. The "fence" shown
here is an optional attachment.
Rack is height adjustable and mounts to the axle,
but there is a workaround if you want to attach it to
the fork tip eyelet.


The radio was solid-state and bulky. Bungies would've probably
worked fine, but we got creative and fastened it down with
a mini U-lock and speaker wire.

The horizontal strut under the platform will fit a Zimbale
or Carradice roll bag and perhaps a pannier with
narrowly space hooks.



It is made out of CrMo steel. We found CrMo less temperamental
to work with than stainless steel. It is also stronger, stiff and
easier to repair than SS. Will be available in
black or chrome-plate -- by the end of the month.
Price to be determined.

Back in town

We survived Vegas, and there is never a better time than Interbike to make lots of new friends and catch up with old ones.

We won't go into any serious coverage, because there is no shortage of that sort of thing on the interweb already. Favorite so far: Urban Velo's coverage. Just the week before Interbike we got a visit from Brad from Urban Velo when he swung by our office, and he is an all-around solid guy. We ran into him at the show but didn't get a chance to grab a beer; he was off to post web coverage. Brad and Jeff are a couple of the hardest working guys in the bike business, and when you grab (or download) a copy of Urban Velo, it shows.

We had an opportunity to meet some of the awesome folks behind all kinds of different projects. Shorty Fatz was on hand with a bunch of their beautiful and unique hand-built frames. They were sharing a booth with Phil Wood.

Soma saddles and forks on three of their bikes (they dig our straight-blade track fork)






















Ortlieb's booth was full on innovative and well-executed products. They had a new medium brown colored version of their Back Roller Plus which will look great with a classy touring build or a more rugged "get lost in the mountains" build (as well as being highly functional). Their removable harness allows panniers to be used as an off the bike backpack is another awesome feature, and watching them demo how the whole assembly snaps together quickly made me wonder what I had been doing commuting without the system. We of course can't neglect to mention the awesome treatment they gave our Buena Vista frame:























































Those are actual wooden rims, and Chris over at Ortlieb took the time to fill in the lugs at the seatstay junction and crown with silver paint, as well as some gold on the Nitto S-83 lugged seatpost.


A couple of us were riding bikes around the show, and getting them there was a time-consuming and costly affair. Here is a box marked fragile with directional arrows, and the subsequent care shown by baggage handlers. (This resulted in a couple spokes getting broken on a DA track wheelset):



Couple random videos from Vegas:

Pro men's crit final corner, last lap where the race leader goes down for the lose:



Jason from Superb, barspinning his department store cruiser that he happily returned at the end of the week:



How can you talk about Vegas and not mention racks? Hey-oh!

More seriously, we brought home some of the new Gamoh front cargo rack.

- Tough black powdercoat
- Wood slats
- Bottle opener
- Made in Japan

Cardiff Cowhide Saddles in White

The SomaFab Shop just picked up a handful of these new offerings from Cardiff. White has been popular with the roadie and track crowd as of late. Let's see what those who are jonesin' for a more 'classic' (vintage, whatev) look for their bike will think of these saddles. The Cardiff Ltd. website is finally active if you want to investigate furthur.



Just to show this blog isn't just for schlepping bike gear, we offer this public service message: Get out to your local library. Check out and listen to CD's, view DVD's for free. Read books. Amazon and B&N shouldn't be the first places you think about when looking for books.

This cute bike rack is located outside the newly remodeled Richmond District Library in San Franciso off Clement St. Pick up some dim sum at one of the Chinese delis, or a Vietnamese sandwich and spread out on the fresh lawn with a good book.