3 Years Celebrated

It has been a long week, great, but between the Holiday weekend and all the other things life throws at you, Long.  The most important though is my wife and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary.

It has been three great years.  We were able to take advantage of all the family in one place as babysitters and escape for a night away on the Central Coast.  Of course we brought the bikes and made some time to explore the bluffs around Cambria.

Thank you to my patient and loving wife as I am getting the OAC venture off the ground, without her support this would never have made it this far.

New Production Started

It has been a while coming, but the latest batch of Ramblers is into the fabrication phase. The forks started yesterday, and went into brazing today.

I am stoked to have Jonathon working on this batch, they guys at Zen are top-notch.  Thanks Dave for the update and pictures, and  thank you to the first five Rambler funders who have been waiting patiently for this to get under way.  There will be more pics as they come in.

Sales Calls

The whole Ocean Air Cycles project has been an organic progression.  I do have a plan, it distills down to making really great bikes that work, and sell as many as I can, and then sell a bunch more.  It is tilting more to the direction of partnering with brick and mortar shops as well as direct sales to get the bikes out into the world.  Today was my first shop visit.  I headed up to Ojai to visit an old friend and his Partners at the MOB Shop.  It was a great visit, all three owners took my 63 for a spin and came back with smiles.  Each noticed something different but consensus was universally favorable.  I am really stoked at the possibility of working with them.  I rode up, it was an incredible day, and I needed to get away from the keyboard.

The leaves are starting to fall, just a little chill in the air, but still doable in shorts.  The trip up took a bit longer then expected, so not as many pictures.  I will be heading up again next week, and plan on allocating a bit more time to snap some pictures then.  If any of you are contemplating a Rambler and live in Ojai, you should let these guys know soon, as in let’s get it done through Kickstarter.  They get “it” and would be stoked to put you on one, and I would love to run the builds through them.

The weather was so nice I decided to push the schedule a bit and take a different route home.

Blue skies and puffy clouds over the mountains.  I wish I had the time to get up there more, maybe in the spring.

First Rain Day of the Season

there have been a few drizzly sorts of days, but today was the first chance I had to get out in a good solid rain.  The Rambler was still all clean and shiny from the expo, pimped out with a new chain and all.  I needed to pick up some fixings for the first turkey and soon to be soup that is going through the kitchen this season as well.  Is there a better way to run some saturday morning errands in the rain than on your bike?

The first stop was on the far side of town, through the farms and resulting mud, to the mushroom farm.  If you have a mushroom farm in your area, it is probably worth checking out.  I was able to score a pound of fresh crimini  shrooms for $2.50.  Heading back across town to the farmer’s market the rain really started to come down.

The fresh hard rain helped to clean the grit off of the bike from the agricultural diversion.  With the last stop in the bag, literally, it was time to head home and dry out.

Having a bike purpose-built to run wide tires and fenders really helps with keeping the rain rides fun.  Also, this was my first chance to push the Paul Racers in the rain.  While not as powerful as in the dry, stopping from the hoods on hills was no sweat at all.

Get out there and play, do not let the rain slow you down!