-- superflav --

SomaFM Needs You!!

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:17:00 +0000

If you want some kick-ass web-based free streaming music, then look no further than SomaFM. I've been listening to their "Groove Salad" channel for more than 1/2 a decade now, and it's done me right every time. And if you become a regular listener, you really should show a bit of love with a $$ donation every now and again. They're totally listener supported, and are completely worth it.

Powered by...

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:59:00 +0000

SF Imperial Fleet Week

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:28:00 +0000

boykani spotted this one, and it's so bad ass I just couldn't resist

radiohead.siiiiiiiiiiick.code.google.com

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:19:00 +0000

code.google.com, which is typically used to house open source software for geeks like me, has teamed up with Radiohead to do something untypical (which is somewhat typical for both parties) and has released "House of Cards" up on http://code.google.com/radiohead. The technology behind the video is insane and the distribution mechanism for getting it out to the masses has not attempted by an artist before. Ah Radiohead, changing the game yet again.

From the press release:

No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.

I don't know what most of that means, but I do love me some FRICKEN LASERS!! Any of you fools out there still non-belivers?

Diving is rad.

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Sat, 31 May 2008 04:18:00 +0000

On a recent dive we actually got a bunch of good photos from a cheap digi-cam in an underwater housing. Of course I fried the thing on the next take, but at least there are these (and no Photoshop majik involved!!)...

Robots Done Good

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:11:00 +0000

The droids at stickerrobot.com done did release a couple of pretty cool stickers as of late. The first one is in support of favorite10.com, which is hands down my most frequently returned to website right now (if you want to know why, then contact me and I'll fill youse in), and the 2nd for our boy Obama. If the Obama design looks familiar, then you nose Shepard Fairley. If not, then you must OBEY. Quality stuff all around, and we can only...

Slice of SF History

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:11:00 +0000

A building just came down at the corner of Howard and Hawthorne Streets, across from the world famous(ly bad) strip club, The Gold Club, and in its wake was exposed this old skool advert. Something tells me that it's not going to be around much longer, so I'll enjoy it while it is. Wonder how old it is and what's the story behind it...

Sherwood Packing Company
Jobbers and Distributors
Packing House Products
Decker's Iowana Brand Hams & Bacon
Quality Brand Hams-Bacon-Lard
Perfect Products

There Will Be Blood, and Cold Beersodas

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 06:39:00 +0000

I recently joined the ranks of 95% of the Mission dwelling hipsters, and got myself a fixed gear bike. I said I'd never do it, but the amount of time I spend city riding these days, plus the fact that Swobo, a bike clothing company that I've much loved during both their 1st and 2nd incarnations, introduced an insane line of city bikes were major factors in leading me down the path to stripped down no brake bliss.

I've been intrigued by track bikes since me and a bunch of my BMX buddies went and saw the bike messenger film, Quicksilver, for my 14th birthday. But, because I've always treated my bikes as take me on-road, off-road, down stairs, off drops, over jumps and pretty much anywhere else vehicles, I never really thought much about getting one lest I beat it unusable (which I quickly did with my one road bike when I tried to bunny hop it over an 8" curb at speed).

Anyways, one of the bikes that Swobo released was their fixed gear Sanchez model. It's got a really cool lookin' Galvanized frame with white rims, chain & handlebars and a seat that's outfitted with a bottle opener. A friggin' bottle opener. Tizight.

The more I thought about getting it, the more I was like, "well, a fixie should be a custom thing and if I do it right it will really mean buying everything separate and putting it all together"... and then So! brought me to my senses. She said, "yo!, your time is very limited these days, so if you want it, then just get it and be done with it." I'm so glad I listened to her. I finally picked my Sanchez up a few weeks ago, and the thing is a blast!! A few sketchy moments on the first couple of rides, but I'm finally getting the hang of it. It's seriously been a long time since I've been really challenged by my bike, and I am stizoked to be this excited about riding again. Let's just hope I can figure out how to stop the thing...

Sanchez, not dirty

Honky chain

Finally, a friggin soda

3 Flavs, 2 Rides

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:24:00 +0000

When Matt & Sarah were out in SF for X-Mas with the rest of the fam, we took some time to go on a couple of EPIC Bay Area rides.

The first one, down somewhere near UC Santa Cruz, was shown to us by Bob and Friends. Probably one of the most fun rides I've ever been on in my life. It was 18 miles of climbing fireroads and bombing completely insane Redwood-tinged single track. I have no idea where we were, and would never be able to find my way around in that network of trails if I were to go back by myself. Bob & Co. were a killer bunch of peeps to ride with, though, so I'll just have to have them show me around again some time.

The second ride, the 30 mile Home -> GG Park -> Presidio -> GG Bridge -> Marin Headlands (Bobcat & Miwok) loop, was one that I know all too well. It's a blast of a ride as well, but given that it's a City to fireroad grinder and back, it's completely different than riding in Santa Cruz.

We had a killer time on both rides, and I was stoked to finally be able to show M&S what mountain biking in the Bay Area's all about. Too bad we just scraped the surface... good thing they'll be back one day for some more!!

3 Flavs, Super Secret SC Ride

Matt & Sarah, Golden Gate Bridge

Big Flav & Lil' Flav, Marin Headlands

Flav & Big Flav, Marin Headlands

Matt, Bomb into Tennesse Valley

Sarah & Matt, Tennessee Valley Stables

WIDG ET

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:35:00 +0000

Spiders and Yodas and Shawn, Oh My...

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:54:00 +0000

My olde pal Shawn and his wife Brenda were out from the ATL for a visit to San Frandisco a few weeks back, and I took a couple of pix of homey interacting with some of our current finest. Good times, y'all need to be sure to come back again!

EMB Spider

Yoda Statue

Boy Kani is Siiiiiiiiiiiick....

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 08:25:00 +0000

Man, my friend Darren is one sick individual. He dropped a book of illustrations on me tonite that captured the last 8 years of his take on birthday and holiday cards... and I gots to say that homeboy is spot on! Hopefully he'll publish some of these up to the web for all of the 'net hedz to take in. Until then, you'll have to come over to my house and see 'em in print.

Happy Birfday...

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:21:00 +0000

...Cho'nuff.

One essay for each and every R.E.M. song

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 06:42:00 +0000

I thought my days of being interested in R.E.M. were over, but then Cho'nuff hipped me to a website by Matthew Perpetua, the dood who also does the MP3 blog FLUXBLOG. "Pop Songs 07" rocks my world in that it has one very simple goal: "...write a post about every song on every R.E.M. album, plus most of their major non-album tracks...".

Anyone who's known me for long enough is also aware that I was, at one point, one of the biggest R.E.M. geeks on the planet. And though my obsession for the group in its current incarnation has severely waned over the past two albums, my love and appreciation of their first 18 years is still as strong as ever.

If you are, or ever were, into R.E.M., do yourself a favor and dig around the Pop Songs 07 site. There's some crazily insightful stuff being posted, even if it is just one person's take on a great band's body of work...

Clickity clack: Pop Songs 07

Quality Rainbows Are Not For Free

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:27:00 +0000

Sleep was escaping me at 4AM this morning, and as I laid there wondering what the hell I should do for the next 3 hours, it hit me: the In Rainbows digital download should be waiting for me in my in box! I jumped out of bed, ran into the office, opened my email, and there it was. I pulled it down, cranked it up, and have been taking it in ever since.

This album definitely does not disappoint, although I would have been a bit bummed had I not purchased the 40GBP super deeeeeluxe discbox double LP/CD set (arriving in my physical mailbox around December 3rd, awwwwwww yeah!) + download, and had opted to go the digital download only route instead. You see, Radiohead did something tricky with the digi dl only option. In essence, they said, "Hey music fan, yeah you the one who doesn't think that you should have to pay for music. Come to our website and buy our new music for what you think it's worth. Even if that amount is ZERO." I'm sure this pay what you want for the download only strategy resulted in a very large number of people going to the Radiohead website, putting the album in their cart, typing in 0.00 and checking out. Well guess what? If you went digi-dl only, all you got from Radiohead was music, and at non-CD quality. Sure, it cost nothing and is DRM free, but it's encoded at only 160 kbps and contains no artwork.

Now I know that those who paid for digi download only and/or who care about MP3 encoding bitrates will BitTorrent the album once the CD is made available and a higher quality version is leaked, but I'm sure it will have made many of them stop and think about the value of music, if only for a second. In our day and age that's not something that people are compelled to do that often, if ever. So if you're one of those few souls who did pay more than zero for the digi download and are currently feeling a bit burned by the band, look deeper and try to appreciate the thought provoking nature of this "experiment" and how it has the potential to invoke some real change in how artists approach the merchandising of their products with little to no involvement from a major label.

And if you just can't wait for the Stanley Donwood artwork that NME reported on, point yourself over to HICKSDESIGN's Cover art for In Rainbows blog entry and take your pick from one of the many fan inspired designs. Something for pretty much everyone.

Radiohead: In Rainbows

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 04:04:00 +0000

Oh, snap... Radiohead's releasing a new album, called "In Rainbows", 10 days from now. It's going to be available in digital download and "discbox" formats, and only via their website (well, at least until early next year, when they'll release it traditionally on CD, but who's gonna wait that long?!?). How insane is that?!? The bigboy record companies are going to be crapping themselves over this one. Thanks to Cho'nuff for the sunday evening text message alert filling me in. Wonder how many copies they'll have sold by the time they wake up tomorrow morning?

The tracklisting includes many of the songs that they played when we saw them at the Greek Theatre last year in Berkeley. Am very interested to hear the mastered studio versions of these tracks...

CD 1 AND VINYL
15 STEP
BODYSNATCHERS
NUDE
WEIRD FISHES/ARPEGGI
ALL I NEED
FAUST ARP
RECKONER
HOUSE OF CARDS
JIGSAW FALLING INTO PLACE
VIDEOTAPE

CD 2 AND VINYL
MK 1
DOWN IS THE NEW UP
GO SLOWLY
MK 2
LAST FLOWERS
UP ON THE LADDER
BANGERS AND MASH
4 MINUTE WARNING

This one's for you and you and you

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 09:21:00 +0000

Gala event.

Smokey D's Da Man...

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 06:42:00 +0000

Sometimes I have to fuss and fight and work and flail and scrap... just to get Smokey to sit nicely for a photo. Other times he just does it on his own. This is him in front of a Doze Green painting to the side of Lower Haighters (as opposed to Future Primitive, 'cuz they suck... which blows) all on his own. Man, what a sexy guy.

It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!!

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 13:52:00 +0000

Haven't posted in a long time now, and alls I gots to say is, "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!!!"

Dude. Hawtin?

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 06:58:00 +0000

Man, I've been so caught up in JuniorFlav land that I pretty much figured I'd be off the map here for at least a few months. That would have been the case had I stuck with my original internal plan and backed out of the late nite that was Magda and Richie Hawtin at Mighty last Friday nite. You see, sleep has been alluding me for the past few weeks, and I was pretty much driven to the point of giving up on going out until I received a few encouraging words from some other father-friends. The first one told me, "Go home, take a nap and go out!!", which was pretty convincing, but then the other one said, "Dude, take advantage now, because it's only going to get worse from here." That one did it. I kept my trap shut, sucked it up, met up with Cho'nuff and we headed over to Mighty.

Upon arrival, Magda had already taken the decks and was in the midst of working the crowd into a steady groove. The place was pretty full and was only getting fuller. Mighty is no Mezzanine in terms of capacity (anyone have any idea how many Mighty holds?), but the promoters that brought this duo to town didn't seem to notice that they were no longer hosting Hawtin off of Jessie St. The notice that they sent out on Friday afternoon even said, "the remaining 300 tickets will be sold at the door." *Remaining* 300?!? Mighty seriously looks smaller than 111 minna, and that place can't legally hold more than 600 or so. Remaining my ass. What gives?

Anyways, I did enjoy Magda's set, but realistically we more or less spent the entirety of her set having a few drinks, catching up with friends and getting settled in for the evening. And then around 1:15AM the entire landscape of the nite changed. Hawtin grabbed the helm and immediately brought things up and up and up until there was a crushing frenzy within the beyond capacity crowd. It was hot, it was loud, it was bangin' and everyone was going bonkers. About an hour in I realized that Hawtin had spent the previous 60 minutes working some crazy voodoo techno majik and had the entire crowd in the palm of his hand. We had gone from bang zoom to deep journey and no one even noticed the transition. All they knew was that they were on a ride that they couldn't easily eject from.

Richie kept this pace up until roughly 3AM, at which time he quickly pulled the bus over and let all those who couldn't hang get off. I couldn't believe it, although I had experienced the same thing two times before when we saw him at Mezzanine... an hour after the booze runs out so does the energy of 1/2 the crowd, so they all bail, yet the show goes on. All of a sudden, we were left with a club that was at capacity, but still full of people who had no where else they would have rather been. What ensued from there is pretty much indescribable. What I thought was deep from the 2nd third of the set turned out to be not so much, and what I thought was banging from the 1st third paled in comparison.

Hawtin sucked us in, slapped us around, spit us out, and just before letting us get away, did it all again... over and over and over during the last hour of his set. And then for the last 15 minutes, he just toyed with us... taking it down, and then bringing back the bass. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP... and then down again and then... THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. I have never in my life been in such awe of a live music experience, and up until now I was pretty sure I had had my fill of bone chilling, life changing musical adventures. Apparently this is/was not the case. All I really have to say to that is, "SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!!" Just knowing that I can still have a nite like last Friday really helps me keep the faith in terms of new music. And whenever I fall back into thinking that the world is destined to become full of a bunch of noisy shit, I'll just harken back to that nite and rememeber that somewhere out there, things are aiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Oh, and if you haven't yet, do yourself a favor and go experience a nite of Richie Hawtin before you kick the bucket. I've learned my lesson about questioning whether or not I need to be in attendance on a Hawtin nite, so if you happen to do it in San Francisco, then keep an eye out for me and Cho'nuff, 'cuz we'll definitely be there.

And mucho thanks to Cho'nuff for pushing me in this direction musically, because if you hadn't, I would have never known what I was missing. Foeweel.

I Gots Lightning In My Pants

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Tue, 08 May 2007 23:19:00 +0000

Todd Gack was on the ball enough to put together a video recap of our snowboarding trip to Utah. Nice work, holmes.

Yo T-Third, Where's My B-Bike Lane?

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 03:47:00 +0000

I remember first hearing about the new Muni Light Rail line that was to connect downtown SF with Hunter's Point via the Third Street Corridor back in early 2000. It was just a few weeks after we had started up macroplay.com (RIP) over in Potrero Hill, and we were all super stoked that we'd soon have a decent public transit option for quickly getting to and from work. Well two years came and went, 911 took place, the bubble burst, and macroplay went down with the ship. Sadly, it all happened before the new Light Rail was ready... sadlier, it was about 5 whole years before it was ready, in fact.

So here we are in April, 2007, and the new Muni T-Third rail line is finally open!! Yay? Um, not really... not only was this project over budget and behind schedule but the first few weeks of service have been a nightmare of a debut, frought with bottlenecks, delays, confusion and some extremely frustrated passengers.

But I'm not here to talk about all that. Why I'm writing this is because through all of the conversations and news coverage and fanfare and other blah blah blah about the T-Third rail and the new Mission Bay and connecting downtown SF to Hunter's Point via the redone Third Street, there's one thing that I've yet to hear mentioned by anyone: WHO FORGOT TO PUT IN THE BIKE LANE?

Wow, for a city that has led the way in the introduction of bike lanes over the past 15 - 20 years, this is a huge oversight. Or maybe it was intentional? The Third Street corridor hasn't historically been the most highly travelled or densly populated part of the City, so I can see how it would have been off of the radar of the SF Bike Coalition and other groups that have done an amazing job of fighting for safe biking in SF. I can see Willie Brown and his cronies back in '99 or so thinking, "You know, adding support for a bike lane on either side of Thrid Street is gonna cost a lot of money as well as take up precious space. Sure we're essentially ripping up the whole thing, putting in new sewage and other infrastructure and re-laying Third Street, but the SF Bike Coalition is looking the other way right now, so...".

So now we're left with a newly paved two way street, that's wide enough to fit two lanes of traffic, and some curbside sewage/water drains. Yup, the sewage drains won out over the bikes. Sure, the water needs to go somewhere, but does it really need to be collected a foot and a half out into the street? There's no doubt that bikes are going to come down this road... hell, I ride down it at least once a week. And when Mission Bay fills out and traffic really starts flowing, and people are strolling down the sidewalks and bikes have nowhere to go, there are going to be accidents. And they ain't gonna be pretty. Gavin Newsom's possee needs to wake up and do something about this while they still can.

Let me take you on a little photo journey starting at 16th & Third, heading north to the ballpark...

There's a flat sewage grate up there, but looks pretty wide other than that.

Drivers are leaning left in the lanes, which makes it wide enough for all of us.

Uh, oh. Pitched sewage grate with thin grate meshing. Nice for water flow, bad for bike tires.

Good thing I'm riding my mountain bike.

Ok, guess I'll just get used to rolling over these grates. At least there's plenty of space that way.

SPLAT!

Amen

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 00:16:00 +0000

If you've found yourself groovin' along to any type of sample-based music over the past 20 years, whether it be hip-hop or electro or drum & bass or jungle or pretty much anything else that's not strictly guitar + bass + drums, then you've got to check out this 20 minute clip on the history of the infamous "Amen Break" 6-second drum sample. Amazingly insightful stuff, and a damn good history lesson to boot.

From the clip post:

This fascinating, brilliant 20-minute video narrates the history of the "Amen Break," a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music -- a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures. Nate Harrison's 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip.

You can thank my pal Satya for hookin' this one up. Nice one.

Utah... Gimmie Two!!

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 04:29:00 +0000

Time is moving at warp speed right now, and given that I don't have the spare resources needed to do a proper write up on the Honky Mofo Snow Possee's 2007 winter trip to Utah, I leave you with a bulleted outline and some choice photos.

Sunday (SFO --> SLC)
* Pedro D grabed cab to Oaktown for a flight back to LA before anyone else woke up.
* Me, James & Fiona called up a van for us and our gear, swung by Cho'nuff's, headed to SFO and were off to SLC.
* Landed in SLC, found Travis, picked up the Ford Exped.
* Did a big round of grocery shopping at Dan's.
* State liquor stores are closed on Sunday, so all we could get our hands on was 3.2% "regular" beer, or a whopping 4.0% "microbrewed" beer. We did get a kick out of Polygamy Porter though. At least someone in the state's got a sense of humor.
* Ate fajitas, prepared by Todd & Kim Gack.
* Watched Snatch (on our sweet 50" plasma tv!).

Monday
* Rode at Snowbird, spring like conditions.
* Hit the state run liqor store up for some proper booze. I even found Pusser's Rum, which I haven't seen since our BVI trip 5 years ago. Yah, mon!
* Ate Pasta and Salad, prepared by Shawn & Me.
* Watched Borat.

Tuesday
* Rode at Solitude, spring like conditions.
* The local news crew was at the base lodge, and the reporter stopped Cho'nuff to ask him what he thought about global warming and how it's affecting the Utah ski slopes. In usual Cho fashion, his reply was worded in such a way that only those who know him realize that he's being a sarcastic asshat. They were still able to pull around 5 seconds of airable footage that went live that same nite. Woo hoo!
* Ate Burgers & Sausages, prepared by Prikkel the Pickle.
* Watched Office Space.

Wednesday
* Rode at Brighton, spring like conditions.
* 2nd round of grocery shopping at Albertson's.
* Ate Jalapeno Flank Steak Salad, prepared by Brenda & Shawn.
* Watched Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny.

Thursday
* Rode at Snowbird, not as spring like, and mighty icy.
* BK and Master D and the rest of the NYC possee showed up in full effect, although BK's ear's killing him.
* Ate Marinated Pork Loin Goodness, prepared by Kim Gack.
* Watched... did we watch anything?

Friday
* Rode at Brighton, spring like conditions again.
* Picked up a pair of Day Glo Green Ronin 3L Vent pants at 40% off. Talk about DOPE (and super ugly-cool)!
* Ate Geezer Bloke Wanker Seared Tuna, prepared by James & Fiona.
* Watched Jackass Number Two.

Saturday
* Rode at Solitude, flat out hot.
* BK didn't make it to the slopes, but he did to the hospital. Deep inner ear infection... PAINFUL!
* Actually went out to eat. Market Street Oyster Bar. Damn tasty for SLC being so land locked.
* Grabbed a St. Patty's Day beer with Cho & the Blokes.
* Arrived home, everyone else was asleep, so we drank the last of the Silver Bullets (well, I did anyways).

Sunday (SLC --> SFO)
* Me, Cho, James & Fi dropped Travis off at the airport... and then he missed his plane.
* We made it back to SFO without incident.
* Dropped off Cho.
* Dumped our stuff off at the pad.
* Said "wassup!" to So! and Jackie.
* Hopped on the N-Judah to Cole Valley.
* Lunched at Citrus Club followed by Upper to Lower Haight Street crawl.
* Picked up some Mexican grub.
* Crashed out. Hard.

Xen and the Art of Cycling Shoe Maintenance

noreply@blogger.com (superflav) — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:56:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I made a couple of much needed upgrades to my person that have amazingly enhanced my day to day cycling experience.

First off, So! got me a new helmet for my birthday. My old helmet was a 2000 Giro E2, and it served me well, but it was on its last legs and was completely unsafe -- the velcro side straps were no longer sticking, the left hand visor tab was broken and it would would only stay put on my head when I, and everything around me, was completely still. My new one is super tizight though. It's a large('cuz my melon's so big), Matte Sepia 2007 Giro Xen, and is light years better than my old brain bucket. When I opened the box and slid it on, I could immediately tell that Giro has learned a few things over the past five years. The side straps that used to be held on by velcro are now fed internally, and the updated RocLoc system, coupled with the deepness of the helmet, makes for a secure and snug fit, even before the chin straps have been engaged. My head feels safe again, for the first time in a long time.

Secondly, I dropped some Green Superfeet insoles into my Sidi Dominator Mountain Bike shoes, and holy crap, what a difference. I had been riding with the stock insoles, which are really nothing more than a piece of thick felt cut in the shape of a footbed, since I got these shoes over three years ago. And after the first year of daily use, they had curled up and folded in on themselves, making them more useless than they were to begin with. I don't know why I was being such a cheap ass and letting the $35 price tag keep me from doing this sooner. I did the same thing to my snowboarding boots last season, and have had nothing but good times ever since. It's amazing what some good arch support and shock absorption can do for even the shortest of bike rides.