Hello friends! The annual Bike Craft Fair is coming up this weekend. What is it, you may ask yourself? I said previously that it’s…“a bicycle-themed take on the traditional (or truer to form, the hipster version) craft fair”, probably the world’s only bicycle-centric holiday gift fair. It has occurred every December since 2005 (with the exception of 2016), and I’ve tabled most of them (every single one from 2005-2011, then 2015, then 2017.). It is the biggest sales-related event that I do annually.
It’ll be happening this weekend, Saturday December 15 and Sunday December 16, 12 PM to 6 PM both days. Bike Craft will be at TaborSpace – 5441 SE Belmont (which is located in Mount Tabor Presbyterian Church.) There’ll be 30ish vendors, listed here – everything from warm winter bike gear, stuff decorated with bikes, bikey coloring books, art made out of bike parts, and so much more!
The above pic of me is from Bike Craft 2011, taken by Tomas Quinones. If you come to visit this year, I’ll be most likely wearing a tie and sweater, but will lack the floppy hair and Greg Nortonesque mustache from this era. Also, those awesome screenprinted posters are gone.
As for myself, I’ll be selling comics, zines, postcards, buttons, Postcard Club memberships, and Society of Three Speeds memberships–bascially anything you can get in my store.* So if you are local, swing on by and avoid paying postage and fees!
Hope to see you this weekend. And thank you for your support!
*I won’t be bringing posters. But if you are local and want one, let me know by mid-day Wednesday.
Hello folks! Thank you so much for all your support! Since my Society of Three Speeds membership kit pre-order went live almost three weeks ago, I’ve gotten over 20 new and renewed memberships! You folks like the three speeds, I can see. And while many elements are now in place, like the patch, buttons, and stickers, there’s a few more things I am working on before the kit goes “live” in January 2019.
So, I’ve decided to extend the pre-order sale ONE MORE WEEK. Now you’ll have until 11:59 PM Pacific Time on Friday December 14 to get the kit for the price of $15 plus fees and shipping. After that date, the regular price will be $20 plus fees and shipping. And no, I’m not going to extend the sale after this point!So get in on it now! The only two ways I’ll be discounting memberships after the sale is over will be:
At in-person events
If you successfully complete a challenge like Three Speed Adventure April or Three Speed October.
And what do you get with the Society of Three Speeds kit?
The patch!
Two 1 inch buttons of the design
Three 1 1/2 inch stickers of the design
One year of Postcard Club. You’ll get about four unique event postcards sent to you!
A subscription to the Society of Three Speeds email list, where you will be notified of upcoming SoTS events and other items of interest.
Some other special goodness!
And of course, your membership card with your membership number!
And to clear up some things that have been asked:
If you are already a member, you will still retain your member number, you will not be a “new member” per se. (And no, you can’t get a new number if you are an existing member.)
At some point (January), existing members will be able to purchase individual stickers, buttons, and patches a la carte. However, I’ve designed it so that the “best” deal for current and new members alike is to get in on the pre-sale. So don’t wait, order the kit!
You can “gift” folks a membership. In the notes of the order, please indicate full name, mailing address, and email address of the giftee. If you want me to let them know who gifted them the kit, indicate that as well.
Membership to the Society of Three Speeds is available to everyone, anywhere in the world. You do not have to live in the Portland area. While you won’t be able to go on the rides I put on in and around the Portland area, you will still be part of a larger global organization of three speed enthusiasts. We have members from all over the world!
Speaking of rides, yes, please do a Three Speed Ride in (insert your town here.) I can’t be everywhere, and while the idea of having a ride in Kansas City or Winnipeg is appealing, I’m not going to be the one to make it happen. But maybe you can? Let me know what you’re planning, and I can try to help.
You don’t need to own a three speed…yet. You do not have to currently own a three speed bicycle when you join the club. But you should definitely be into the idea of them, and pursue getting one in the next year or two.
In other news, today is the last day of the New Old Stock 333 pre-order. Purchase NEW OLD STOCK 333 until 11:59 PM Pacific Time tonight, Friday December 7, get it for just $3! (plus fees and shipping) The regular price will be $4, so you save 25%! Purchase it here.
This Saturday December 8, I’ll be having a pop-up sale! See me at Golden Pliers, N Skidmore St at N Interstate Ave, from about 10 to about 5. I’ll be selling my comics, zines, buttons, postcards, and more! (Basically, what you can see in my store.) Ah yes, @doubledarn will also be there with cycling caps! Thank you for your support.
Hello, friend of Three Speeds! This is the final week of the pre-order sale for the Society of Three Speeds membership kits! Until 11:59 PM Pacific Time on Friday December 7, the price of these kits is just $15 plus fees and shipping. After this date, the price goes up to $20. Act now to secure the good price!
The new SoTS Membership pack will feature:
The patch!
Two 1 inch buttons of the design
Three 1 1/2 inch stickers of the design
One year of Postcard Club. You’ll get about four unique event postcards sent to you!
A subscription to the Society of Three Speeds email list, where you will be notified of upcoming SoTS events and other items of interest.
Some other special goodness!
And of course, your membership card with your membership number!
Speaking of stickers, I just got a batch of them from the printer! These…
Hey folks! A bunch of you have already pre-ordered the new membership kit, thank you very much. I appreciate your support!
I have some good news: The sample of the patch has been made by Falls Creek Outfitters. It looks great! See it above. So if you were hesitant about ordering because you were unsure how the finished product was going to look, fear no more!
And there have been a few questions from people who are already members about the new kit. So, to clear it up:
If you are already a member, you will still retain your member number, you will not be a “new member” per se.
At some point (most likely January), existing members will be able to purchase individual stickers, buttons, and patches a la carte. However, the “best” deal for current and new members alike is to get in on the pre-sale. The prices…
It’s official: Friday November 16 marked my last day at the hostel. If you’ve been following along, you know that I transitioned out of full time employment in August, and have been working part-time since then. But that was never a permanent plan, it was a temporary source of guaranteed cash until I figured out another (part-time) gig. That gig is set, and I enjoy it more than the hostel. In fact, I still have been dreading my two days a week at the hostel. I knew it was over.
I feel relieved, like I can finally move on with my life, and reach the next step. I had that job for almost thirteen years (minus the year when I went on The Big Tour), and it’s been too long. Heck, I was done with the job the first time I quit in 2011, but came back to it after I returned. It was the Known Evil, and besides finding a job was pretty difficult in this town up until fairly recently. There were perks like paid benefits and generous vacation time (if you could use it), but they started to feel like gilded handcuffs than benefits.
I think the thing that got me the most was I couldn’t see what I was getting out of the job besides the aforementioned benefits, a paycheck, and a source of frustration. The hostel was fun at one point, when I was younger and closer to the base age of the guests, when we had other staff that I considered friends, when I didn’t have to take the job super seriously. But that’s the past. The biggest source of “fun” I found after all that was the bicycle tourists, but their numbers have been dwindling, and honestly some of the more recent ones I didn’t want much to do with.
There was nothing more I could learn in the job, there are only so many different ways you can answer the phone, check people in, make a reservation, etc. Most importantly, there was no room for advancement. I got as high in rank and pay that I ever could at that location, and getting a job with corporate never seemed in my realm.
Yeah, I’m a bit burnt. Which is a shame, because I used to be such a “believer” in what hostels meant. It’s never been perfect in America (oh, how many times would people walk in saying something like “I didn’t know that there were hostels in the US” yet we’ve had hostels in this country since 1934.) But I’ve seen it erode even more. Hostelling International USA seems more and more intent on forgetting its roots (cheap communal lodging for people who traveled “by their own steam”) by pursuing the “hip urban social-media savvy Millennial” demographic and concentrating on flashy urban hostels, rather than, oh, having a consistent network coast-to-coast.
And yet, there are these “old fashioned” hostels out there. When I did the Big Tour in 2011, there were many “wilderness hostels” in the National Parks of the Canadian Rockies. They were spartan: most didn’t have electricity, heat and lighting was from propane, water from a pump, the bathroom an outhouse (no shower, but some had saunas!) Internet and cell service? Ha! Yet, I had probably the most fun at these hostels than any other. I hung out with the other guests, sometimes making communal meals. We had bonfires. We talked and got to know each other. This felt to me what hostelling was about, not sitting on a laptop all day in the common area.
Oh, there are hostels like this in the US, some even new. I’ve been hearing good things about the Spoke’n Hostel out in Mitchell in Central Oregon. The key thing about these places are they are usually on popular bike touring and/or through hiking routes. Heck, I’ve thought about opening a hostel like this from time to time, but right now the last thing I want to be is an inkeeper.
Anyways, the hostel is now in the past, and I’m happy to move on to other things. I’ve been drawing more this past couple months than I have in years, and I like that a lot. I’m also looking forward to doing more books, more writing in general, and more stuff with bike touring in general. I’m not ruling out a full time gig at some point, but I’m not anxious to get one anytime soon. I want to spend at least a year doing a part time gig and working on my own things. And maybe I’ll find happiness.
Hey friends! I’m almost done with the most recent issue of my comic series, NEW OLD STOCK. And like last time, I’d like to offer up a special offer to those who order it in advance!
Purchase NEW OLD STOCK 333 from now until 11:59 PM Pacific Time on Friday December 7, get it for just $3! (plus fees and shipping) The regular price will be $4, so you save 25%!
I’ll be doing a couple tabling events for the holidays, and I’ll offer the opportunity for you to pick up your pre-order at either my Pop Up at Golden Pliers on Saturday December 8 or at Bike Craft on Saturday December 15 and Sunday December 16! Just indicate this in the notes of the order, or email me sometime between placing your order and the show in question. And if you do local pickup, I’ll give you a $2 CREDIT towards a purchase at the show! (You must spend at least $10 in addition to the pre-order at the show, and it can only be used on the day of pickup. Maximum of $5 combined in credit overall, no matter the show.)
Wow! Ride 6, and the challenge is almost over for 2018. How time flies. I started the Coffeeneuring 2018 Challenge with a lot of vim and vigor. But it’s been tough this year. You’d figure with “only” working part-time this would be a breeze, no? I should be doing 60 mile Coffee Outside adventures, and every other one should be a camping trip, right? Nope. I’ve been too busy with projects (namely, getting ready for Bike Craft) that I haven’t had the time to properly devote to the challenge. Still, I’ve been drawing a lot, and coffee shops are great places for that, so it does work out. It’s just not “epic”.
The theme for Ride 6 was “business”. I was working with Emee on Thursday November 16th. We needed to pick up a holiday card order from her mailbox location in Hollywood, and then needed to get stamps at the Rose City Park station,* and finally we needed a spot to address those cards. Case Study Coffee on NE Sandy Blvd would be a great spot, especially since it’s just a few blocks from the post office. So we put on our reddish sweaters, loaded our bikes (mine was the Crested Butte, hers a Surly Cross Check), and hit the road!
It’s been a pretty dry November on the West Coast, which is nice for us damp Northwesterners, not so for California. So the afternoon ride was pleasant, sunny and a high of 55F/13C. We hit up the two needed spots, then planted ourselves at Case Study with coffee (mine: house coffee, roasted by Case Study) to get to work.
We got as much done as we could, then packed up and headed to the Moon and Sixpence public house for a Tweed Ride meeting. We did seven miles total that day, a nice little jaunt. See the route here.
Now let’s see how I wrap up this Coffeeneuring Challenge!
*For those of you not in the know, mailbox places like The UPS Store, Postal Annex, etc are not true post offices. Since they get no discount on stamps and postage, most of them mark up the stamps and postage they sell to people. So to get regular priced stamps we had to go to the actual Post Office.
This Saturday December 8, I’ll be having a pop-up sale! See me at Golden Pliers, N Skidmore St at N Interstate Ave, from about 10 to about 5. I’ll be selling my comics, zines, buttons, postcards, and more! (Basically, what you can see in my store.) Ah yes, @doubledarn will also be there with cycling caps! Thank you for your support.
Hey folks! A bunch of you have already pre-ordered the new membership kit, thank you very much. I appreciate your support!
