Open Is Really Really Open (Grand Opening For Open)

So even though Open is officially open, it is having it’s grand opening next Saturday, the 11th. Shop is open from 10a-7p, Chorus gallery reception @ 7p,macaframa premeire @ 9p and then bicycle related events to follow. Entrance is located at the corner of Washington Street & Hawkins Street in Union Square, at approximately 285 Washington Street. (map link)

OPEN launches it’s unique Union Square bicycle shop, art gallery, and design studio. Zachary Teachout and Joshua Kampa, the creatives behind OPEN, quietly unlocked the doors to their new bicycle retail and repair boutique this week. Located in the center of hip and upcoming Union Square in Somerville MA, OPEN encompasses a innovative approach to the bicycle-centric lifestyle, offering new and vintage bicycles, frames, components, and accouterments for a diverse crowd of urban riders. Folded into the newly-renovated warehouse space (formerly
home to Merlin Titanium) is a unique retail store, a full service repair and restoration workshop, a stand-alone art gallery, and a interdisciplinary design studio.

OPEN approaches the Boston metropolitan cycling scene with a fresh and passionate perspective. Both Teachout and Kampa are enthusiastic and committed cyclists and come from creative entrepreneurial backgrounds both inside and outside the industry. They have applied a forward-thinking design philosophy to the shop concept and creation, wiping away the typical “bike shop” structure in favor of a more culturally responsive experience.

Adding to the very unique retail experience, the space will house both the Superbe Design Collaborative and the revolving art gallery, Chorus. The interdisciplinary design studio, comprised of a tight-knit group of young talent, brings to the table an extraordinary range of design experience, from realized large-scale architecture to highly successful brand development projects, as well as published graphic, print and photography work. Chorus, referring to the perception of a number of individual sounds from multiple sources as a single, richer sound, will operate as a stage for local, national and international artists, designers and makers to display and distribute both their work and vision.

ps. the shop is real purty too.

click below for more great pictures.
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Turning An Old Tri Spoke Into A Work Of Art

Tristan over at BostonFixed has created this amazing guide to turning an old carbon trispoke into a work of art! The below guide was written by him, and reprinted with permission.

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So I painted my trispoke and made it look all mad phat dope shitzzle, and made a little guide in a bunch of images/how to guide.

Your materials are as follows:

One can of Spray primer
One can of preferred paint (I ended up using Duplicolor Metal Specks, after the can of Metal Effects shown completely fucked up and was sputtering)
Clear coat (Not shown, use an Acrylic)
Multi pack sandpaper (for sanding stuff down)
Cleaning wipe that clears all the shit off
A good x-acto knife for cutting the tape/stickers (also not shown)
Newspapers for spraying
A sponge for wiping
A pail for wet sanding
Stickers
A weekend worth of time.

So yeah, my HED trispoke was about 10 years old and in rough shape, I highly recommend if you want it to look really pretty, to reprime/fill any knicks in the surface, as they’re quite common on the older wheels. Give it a good cloth wipe to prepare the surface for roughing up.

Note: I did this with the tire on, but it’s better to take the tubular off, I just didn’t feel like dismounting and remounting a tubular.

This is how the wheel should look after roughing it up with some 400 grit wet sand paper. THERE IS NO CLEAR COAT on HED/Specialized trispoke wheels. It’s the actual epoxy so DO NOT GO TOO FAR OR USE BELOW 400 GRIT!! You will eat the carbon!

Wipe it down with a slightly damp sponge, then wipe off the water/dust with an old clean t-shirt.

Mask off everything and then start to hate yourself if you want to use the braking surface as it’s a very unfun job coming up…

Taking your knife, follow the brake surface all around the wheel and carefully not fuck up like this. This will make your wheel look like shit. Put more tape on and then recut.

This is a (blurry) shot of how it SHOULD look.

After you do all that, rewipe the wheel down with the prep cloth, and we can start spraying primer.

Go with a few light coats of primer until it looks solid enough. What blows is you now will know exactly how bad the surface of your wheel is pitted (if used). You can use some filler but I didn’t bother. L A Z Y. The primer dries quickly (within an hour).

Wet sand the primer with 400 grit sandpaper. Get it nice and smooooth. Dry it off again and paint some more.

Now I fucked up on this part and there’s no pictures after my spray can decided to fuck up on me and made me resurface and redo everything. That green tape helps out so much as its very waterproof. Just spray maybe two or three coats of your base color, let that dry properly, wipe it down again with the clean t-shirt, and then spray two or three coats of clear on it. It won’t take very long for everything to cure/dry if you’re light enough with your coats.

Applying vinyl graphics. You will learn how much of a pain in the ass lattice work like this is.

Some windex, luck, a credit card, and patience lets you apply the graphics well. Cutting around the braking surface again.

Awrite! All done! Simple enough, but most people can’t/aren’t willing to put in the effort. It’s all about prep time/effort….

More info here

He also did this bit of amazing art work.

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Calling All Art And Bike Enthusiasts

This year’s Art Beat Festival (Saturday, July 19th, Davis Square)is following a ‘green’ theme and will be featuring activities and displays surrounding biking and bike culture. In addition to designing a bike and helmet customization/decoration center, we are aiming to feature a display/contest of artistic,
creative and unique bikes from the surrounding community.

How to Get Involved:
If you are interested in displaying your bike please contact the Somerville arts council with further details and images if possible. Space is limited but they are hoping to display as many bikes as possible!

Somerville Arts Council
Email: [email protected]
Phone Number: 617 625 6600 ext 2985 (Jessie, SAC intern)

DEADLINE FOR ENTERING: MONDAY JULY 7

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Broadway Bicycle School Gallery Opening

Come get your art on, WHILE getting your bike on. Broadway is run by some cool cats, and now they have some cool art to prove it.

Thursday the 12th is the Grand Opening of the new Door 3 Gallery at Broadway Bicycle School. A two artist show on the theme of bicycles.

Wine and Cheese will be available 7pm-830pm NOTE: the shop will be open for regular business at this time. Come on people wine AND cheese AND art AND bikes, pure win.

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The Ultimate Wooden Bike

Mostly when people talk about frames they mention things like aluminum, steal, maybe carbon fiber, hardly ever do you hear talk of wood. If you do it is most often in the context of very very old wheel rims, this young man however has gone and beat everyone. Behold the wooden bicycle.

I mean wood, the chain is wood, the wheels, it even has a flywheel for easy coasting (guess it’s kind of hard to do a track stand with a wood chain).

For more wooden bike wonders see here. I am guessing that poor thing would get eaten alive by Boston’s roads, but it is pretty.

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