See you all in Haarlem!

 HOHOHO ALLEYCAT IN THE SNOW!

> Thursday 29/12 – 6:30PM – Lange Koepoortstraat 13 Antwerpen

Fixerati Antwerp worked out a Christmas themed alleycat - come dressed accordingly and you just might win yourself an Aerospoke wheel to put under your Christmas tree!

CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE – THE COLD EDITION

> Friday 30/12 – 6PM – Theaterplein Antwerpen

Time flies when you’re riding your bike – this will be the final Critical Mass edition of 2011. Don’t forget to bring your (Christmas) lights!

We’re ready for winter, bring on the snow!

Eindhoven attracted an even more mixed crowd than the last 2 stops: apart from the Belgian and Dutch teams 2 teams from Paris and 2 from Germany joined.

EHVFXD took the cake after the Swiss rounds while Simon Says (Antwerp), 3P (Germany) and Fish Sticks (Antwerp) tied for second place.

After a few rounds of finals, the last 4 teams on the board were EHVFXD (Eindhoven), Simon Says, Fish Sticks and Güacapolo (Brussels). The Fish Dicks put an end to the reign of EHV and won 4-2 in the quarter finals. This left 3 Belgian teams fighting for first. Güacapolo came through and met Simon Says in the finals but Jaouad, Nicky & Chris fought hard and went home happy as the winners of the Eindhoven Wintercup 2011!

The top 3 teams were Belgian and 2 out of 3 were Antwerpians – Antwerp Bike Polo FTW!

FYI, here’s a link to the results of the Swiss rounds and here’s another with the results of the final rounds.

All pictures stolen without permission from de Ewoud/bikepologear.eu – thanks!

Antwerp bike messenger Nico got his 5 minutes of fame on national television this week. Ronde van Vlaanderen winner Nick Nuyens rode along for a day and tried to keep up with de fietskoerier for a show called Volt.

My guess is the editor of the piece doesn’t live in Antwerp because the edit is all over the place – Meir to Park Spoor Noord to get to the Kammenstraat? Right!

None the less it’s pretty sweet to see Nico and Nick fly around town – hopefully a couple companies will take notice and keep the messengers on the bike!

Click right here have a look at the report!

Simon Says (Antwerp) ended up winning the Swiss rounds and Swing For The Chin! (Antwerp) came in 8th place, so they both made it into the double elimination. Simon Says took out SwingFTC! in the first round and had to play Guacapolo in the next. This game became a real heart stopper that ran into overtime until Guaca scored the golden goal. Nicky, Jaouad and Chris were out of breath by the time they played their final game against the Hoaxers (Lille) and got their asses handed to them by the Frenchies. Simon Says better luck next time!

The Parisian wonderboys took home the trophy and EHVFXD (Eindhoven) took second place. Simon Says came in 5th and SwingFTC! got 7th place. All in all a good day for Antwerp Bike Polo!

Here’s the ranking after 2 tournaments:

1st: EHVFXD (Eindhoven) 60 points
2nd tie: Simon Says (Antwerp) 42
Güacapolo (Brussels) 42
4th: Dans Ta Gueule Pingouin! (Paris) 32
5th: Swing for the chin! (Antwerp) 24
6th: Fishsticks (Antwerp) 23
7th: The Hoaxers (Lille/Rouen) 19
8th: Dubout (Arnhem/Amsterdam/Utrecht-Haarlem) 16
9th tie: Polo Bonito (Amsterdam) 14
Gibiers (Lille) 14
11th: L’Amicale (Brussels) 13
12th: Polo Prospects (Amsterdam/Eindhoven/Brussels) 10
13th: DTC (Brussels/Amsterdam) 6
14th: DTCuberdon (Brussels) 3
15th: Young Blood Polo Band team 1 (Tournai) 2
16th: Young Blood Polo Band team 2 (Tournai) 1

Hopefully Red Bull will drop the minidrome in Antwerp next year so we can give it a go!

I occasionally get requests to review gear. I’ve been ignoring them lately because most of the time it came down to a straightforward business transaction in which you do a write-up on some lame product in chance for some samples of said lame product that you end up stashing at the bottom of your dresser or handing out to some kids at the local skate shop. The kids might think you’re cool, but you’re left feeling kinda dirty.

Well no kid at no local skate shop is getting my FTC25 Yalta! Oh yeah I was right back out of reviewing hiatus, flapping my flippers like a seal and ready to receive my bribe when the kind folks at Chrome asked me to plug their special edition of the Yalta rolltop on some of the blogs I write for. It so happens I was desperately on the lookout for a messenger-style backpack (as far as trying to having ones tailor-made for FWA so this didn’t just look like a win/win to me, more like a win/win/win.

At first impression the pack looks huge, but not unwieldy. Actually its profile is quite flat, which is good because you’ll never have the feeling of weight pulling you backwards. The tag says it carries about 29L but I guess you really have to cram your gear in if you’re going to be hauling around that kind of volume. Who wants to be over-encumbered racing through the streets anyway?

The build quality is awesome: Industrial strength straps, thick truck tarp and welded seams make this a virtually indestructible and ultra-weatherproof shell. Considering the materials used it’s far from heavy and whatever load you should choose to carry sits well on your back thanks to a padded back panel, ergonomic shoulder straps and a hiking-style sternum clasp. Some really strong velcro strips on the front of the shoulder straps can come in handy when mounting lights, rocket launchers or the likes.

The large 3M duct-tape style reflective logo plus subtle engraving on the shark’s tooth clasp of the rolltop do a great job of commemorating 25 years FTC, but I was a bit puzzled not to find board straps of sorts on a pack tailored to the anniversary of a Skateboard-retailer. Ah what the hell, I have straps on my old Analog backpack and never use them either.

I’m 36. I surf (the web) more than I skate. I was convinced my favorite feature on the FTC25 Yalta – an easy access zippered 15” laptop compartment – would more than make up for the lack of skate-related gadgetry. That was until I tried using it. I have a 2011 15” MacBook pro and it Does. Not. Fit. The features list clearly say “…sleeve fits up to 15″ laptops” but with or without (a recommended) neoprene Incase sleeve getting it in there is simply impossible, and not by a small margin. I had to call in some friends to come and make sure if I wasn’t being a total idiot that needed to be initiated in next-level dimension folding techniques. We tried and tried and tried hard to no avail. Sure, you can slide it next to the sleeve but then it immediately sinks to the bottom of your pack once put upright, resulting in the dreaded metallic “thunk” every time you put it down. And you know you don’t want to hear your €2000 laptop do that.

Now I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth and can imagine finding a solution to my laptop fitting problem with a box cutter, some camping mat foam and/or duct tape but I wouldn’t be so keen on doing so if I had just forked over $140.00 for a new backpack.

Anyway, whatever size you manage to fit in in the end, the laptop compartment is accessible from the side without having to unfold the rolltop and rummage through the rest of your gear. That’s a great feature because you will be doing a lot of the latter. Aside from one other medium-sized outside compartment for your wallet, iPhone and some keys, it’s throw in the bag like ‘Loso. That means: one big main compartment where you add the ingredients of your cocktail, and let your travelling do the mixing. Exactly how it’s supposed to be with packs like these.

To sum it all up the FTC25 Yalta is a great looking premium build tubular rolltop kit with a separate laptop sleeve that fits a 13” laptop (not a 15” as advertised) tucked behind the back panel. Besides my frustration on the laptop fitting front, I absolutely love it.

There are only 600 worldwide, and one of them is mine. BagSwag.

A while ago Domien started making bags and wallets out of recycled tarps (think Freitag, but cheaper). Recently he got picked up by Palm to enter the Urban Crafts competition. If we all watch his video and ‘like’ it, Domien just might be put on a plane to the Big Apple to promote his stuff overseas!

Click here to surf to Domien’s profile page and like the sh*t out of it!

While we’re on the subject, Domien’s bike got stolen out of his apartment hallway last week:

If you happen to see it in the streets, feel free to stab the thief and return it to it’s rightful owner.