It has been a great month of media coverage for belt drive bicycles. The June issue of Bicycling featuring the Editors’ Choice awards saw Carbon Drive go three for three in the commuter/urban bike category. All three urban bikes chosen by the editors feature the Gates belt drive, including the winning Breezer Beltway and runner-ups the Trek Soho Deluxe and Raleigh City Sport DLX. Bicycling also features the Source 11 from Specialized in its City Bikes Buyer’s Guide. For no-fuss commuting and urban riding, Carbon Drive is the premium upgrade.
The editors at Men’s Journal are likewise raving about belt drive bikes. The magazine features the Spot Honey Badger singlespeed mountain bike and the Scott SUB 10 urban bike in the Gear Lab issue now on newsstands. The SUB 10 from Scott, below, is a stylish and speedy urban steed that will get you noticed in city traffic.
Now a little more info on the Editor’s Choice runner-ups. The City Sport DLX from Raleigh, below, is ideal for urban missions and comes fully equipped with disc brakes, a rack, lights, fenders and a smooth-shifting drivetrain featuring Carbon Drive and an internal hub.
The Trek Soho Deluxe, below, is the bike favored by one of the nation’s top experts on commuter cycling, the president of the Alliance for Biking and Walking.
The summer cycling season is fast approaching. Time to get a new bike, leave the car in the driveway and ride.
The Beltway Infinity from Breezer featuring Gates Carbon Drive has won Bicycling Magazine’s prestigious Editors’ Choice award for best commuter bike of 2013. The Beltway Infinity is a fully equipped car-replacing transportation bike that features all the necessary components–racks, fenders, lights, bell, disc brakes, belt drive and Nuvinci internal hub gearing for low-maintenance all-weather cycling.
Breezer founder Joe Breeze is one of the great figures in American cycling, the guy who helped create the first mountain bikes–and who also jump-started the North American bike industry’s efforts to produce functional and practical commuter bikes. Anyone looking for a bike for urban transport, commuting or errands should check out the Beltway.
The Beltway Infinity’s win marks the second straight year that a bike with Carbon Drive has won the best commuter bike award from Bicycling, following last year’s choice of the Trek Soho Deluxe. For commuting, having a clean, smooth and easy belt is the way to go.
Learn more about the Beltway at BreezerBikes.com. In addition to the Beltway Infinity, Breezer makes a Beltway 11 (pictured below) with a Shimano Alfine 11-speed internally geared hub, and a Beltway singlespeed for stripped down city riding.
Congratulations to Breezer and Joe Breeze.
Team Gates rider and former pro downhiller Frank “Schneidi” Schneider is featured in the April issue of Mountainbike Rider Magazine in Germany. Schneidy is a bit of a legend in Germany for downhill racing on a hardtail singlespeed, winning the Master’s Class in the 2012 Megavalanche enduro on Alpe d’Huez. That dude has a tough tail.
The magazine features some nice photography of Schneidi’s Nicolai with Gates Carbon Drive, calling the belt drive on his bike “nicht nur nahezu wartungsfrei und geräuschlos,” which translates as “virtually maintenance-free and noiseless.” Make sure to buy the magazine if you live in Germany. And stay tuned for an upcoming video from Mountainbike Rider of Schneidi racing his belted SS Nicolai against downhiller Gino Schlifske, who will be racing on a chained bike with gears. Go Schneidi, go!
That’s Frank in the lead, of course.
From war-torn Afghanistan to the United States, adventurer, humanitarian and bike rider Shannon Galpin is on a mission to empower women facing difficult circumstances. National Geographic Adventurer named the Colorado woman a 2013 “Adventurer of the Year.”
She won the honor in part due to her efforts to host photography exhibitions in Afghanistan called “Streets of Afghanistan.” Security was a big concern, but Galpin believes that art and culture must persevere even in the most difficult circumstances. “This is an example of using art as activism and photography as voice,” Galpin told National Geographic Adventure. “Just because there is daily violence doesn’t mean there isn’t daily life.”
In 2006, Galpin founded Mountain2Mountain, a nonprofit that supports education and health initiatives for women in conflict zones. Her goal was to connect American mountain communities with mountain towns abroad, and she chose Afghanistan as a focal point due to the nation’s high infant mortality rate, war and difficult living conditions for women. Some humanitarian groups consider Afghanistan to be one of the world’s worst places to be a woman.
Through it all, Galpin has used bicycles as a tool for connecting with locals. Risking her life, she mountain biked 140 miles across Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley to raise money for her initiatives. This spring, Galpin plans to bring her bicycling empowerment movement to the United States with her program Strength in Numbers, a series of five week-long mountain biking camps for women victimized by violence.
“There are going to be week-long mountain bike camps where the women and the facilitators stay together for the week, mountain bike every day, and build camaraderie, literally build physical strength, build mental strength, and then talk about how to break the victim mentality,” she told Cycling News in an interview. “The camps are that first step, the catalyst to get the women to open up and challenge some basic physical fears and build physical strength.”
The program pays all costs for women to attend–including bikes from Colorado-based custom bike builder Alchemy Bicycle Company. To get a bike, women must sign a contract that specifies how they will use their bike for positive change. Other sponsors include Primal Wear and Skratch Labs.
Galpin with her new Alchemy with Carbon Drive, and Alchemy's welder
Alchemy built Galpin a custom mountain bike that she rode across Afghanistan. It features a Gates Carbon Drive and other leading components. Read Galpin’s blog post about the building of her bike here. Click here for more information about Strength in Numbers.
Gates Corporation is a longtime supporter of efforts to make Denver more bike friendly and has a close relationship with the advocacy group BikeDenver. Gates has now upped its commitment to cycling by supporting a key program of BikeDenver. Gates has provided a $5,000 sponsorship that will allow BikeDenver staff members to attend a host of important training and development conferences including the Colorado Bicycle Summit, the New Belgium Brewing Regional Advocacy Conference and the highly regarded Velo-City Conference in Vienna, Austria. The sponsorship decision came from Tribby Warfield, Gates President of North America Commercial, who is an avid cyclist and follower of the sport.
“These opportunities will help BikeDenver learn the best practices, standards and techniques that have improved urban cycling in different regions and countries, and lead the effort to create a safer and more welcoming environment for bicycling in Denver,” says a news release from BikeDenver.
“Gates supported some of the earliest bicycle trails in Denver, and we continue to support the practical and recreational benefits of riding bikes and are proud to support BikeDenver,” says Todd Sellden, director of Carbon Drive Systems, the bicycle division of Gates. “They have done a great job in moving Denver to a benchmark city for bicycle access and right of way.”
Read the full story on BikeDenver.org. Donate by clicking the logo below.
