BELGIUM KNEE WARMERS WATER BOTTLES/CAGES


2010 Belgium Knee Warmers Water Bottle

  • Item: BKW101
  • $8.00/2/$7.00 ea.

Do you remember the first blog you ever fell in love with? We remember ours: We stumbled upon Mike "So Pro" Jones' blog in like 2001 or 2002. Mike was a solid domestic pro for Health Net, but his palmares paled in comparison to the hilarity of his blog entries. His triumvirate of obsessions -- the movie Zoolander, diet soda, and Arizona State co-eds (he was based out of Tucson) -- were lovely points of contrast to the typical "I motorpaced for 5 hours today" pro blog palaver. You can go here to see his entries from his pre-Health Net days, when he still had a day job. "Meeting chicks at garbage cans" -- it belongs in the Paris Review.

Fast forward to the present, there are three blogs we visit every day without fail: (1) Bike Snob NYC is our most guilty pleasure. Its intermingling of anger and attention to detail overwhelms. He's indisputably a bully, but he's generally spot-on in his observations of the glory & the absurdity of New York bike culture in particular, and commercial bike culture at large. If you haven't seen his send-up of the North American Handmade Bike Show, you're missing out on a real treat.

(2) The Cozy Beehive is another daily delight for us. The King Bee clearly has a serious engineering background, but in place of wonkiness he demystifies & educates on the design elements of high-end bike gear. He's like your favorite college professor: He's full of brains, enthusiasm, and joy for the subject matter. He has a remarkable ability to triangulate the engineering qualities, marketing efforts, and practical benefits of cool bike products.

(3) The best is last here. No other blog can touch Belgium Knee Warmers. BKW is a celebration of all that is PRO. Cobbles, the art of the bike wash, the fine line between dieting and eating disorders, all things Frank Vanderbritney -- it's all there in full effect, with zero pretension. In the place of snobbiness you sense instead a celebration. You know the feeling you get every year when the peloton hits the Forest of Arenberg at Paris-Roubaix? For us it's a tingly, nearly tear-inducing euphoria -- that emotional trigger point is what BKW is all about.

Admittedly, as of this writing BKW is in a bit of a slump. They've kinda bored us with their never-ending encomiums of things related to the NAHBS. We're pretty fatigued at this point with the curly lug clique. Our faithfulness to BKW, though, is a function of how we love it so: Richer or poorer, sickness or in health, we feel a deep connection to it and we're certain beyond doubt that it's the most vital cycling blog on the web. We're so certain, in fact, that we stock water bottles with the BKW logo to give it props. You've gotta love the Flemish flag -- it's always a sight for sore eyes -- and even though you might bristle at the fact that it's made by the big S, there's no disputing that Specialized makes the best water bottles in the world. They don't leak, they're easy to put ice cubes in, and cleaning them is a breeze.

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