Though shalt not covet thy neighbour’s bike, and yet…
I have never lusted harder for another person’s bike than Darren-from-Dream’s one-of-a-kind Indy Fab. Perfect classic Chris King BMX hubs, rare Campagnolo Euclid brakes, custom Moonmen Ti bar, and, I mean, is that a titanium Cane Creek Reserve 110 headset with maple inlay‽*
It’s a pure bicycle nerd’s bicycle. To the casual observer, it’s just any other one-speed cruiser. Rolling smoothly on and off-road in Vancouver’s urban landscape. But from that Independent Fabrication’s build quality to every dialed detail, it’s worthy of another look or two.
And my favourite thing about Darren’s IF is that it’s ridden. To each their own, but I don’t like staid and stolid showroom pieces. In my hard-held opinion, every bicycle deserves to be ridden and should only be hung up at the end of its life.
*{Yes, it really does exist.}
I don’t make it over to Commercial Drive very often, but one day I was messaging with Darren-from-Dream about something classic {Paul Thumbies? W.I. Freewheels? Phil Wood Eccentric BB?} and somewhere in the conversation, he offered to let me ride it. It went something like:
“No, really?” “Really.” “No, really?” “Just come, grab the bike.” “Okay!”
It was a meant-to-be beautiful day in mid-January. 2019. Claire was four years old. A total ham. Just hitting the cusp of too-big for her 14″ wheeled Spawn. Actually, a month later, we’d be building her 16″ Early Rider.
Anywho, I loaded up Claire and her 14” wheeled Spawn, and we headed to Dream Cycle. From there, we cruised around Trout Lake. Hit the playground. Cruised some more. It’s a glorious day with a glorious bicycle.
Anywho, I’m feeling particularly nostalgic for this Friday, as Darren has announced that this summer, Dream Cycle, née 2006, will be closing its doors. {With some online presence carrying forward}.
Again, I didn’t make it over to Commercial Drive often, we have some great shops here on the North Shore. But, Dream was my go-to for nerdy retro-esque bicycle things & thoughts, and it’s not too late to go check out what a classic bike shop looks like in my mind. So, for this week, the theme is Dream.
Paul Thumbie Plates
I bought my first pair of Paul Thumbies, for Shimano Dura-Ace bar-con shifters, from Darren at Dream in either 2006 or 2007. They were special, limited-edition, Dream versions with the regular barrel adjusters replaced with brass.
I still have them, although they’re in a drawer at the moment. I retired them in favour of the newer hinged-clamp version as it does a better job of interfacing with hydraulic disc brake levers, and it’s less of a pain with my glued-and-wired push-on grip preference.
Paul Comp also makes Thumbie plates for SRAM and MicroShift bar-end shifters, and I’m positive that at some time they made them for Campy, as well. They’re not inexpensive. Small batch, machined in California, etc. And there are other options, both rip-offs and retro. But there’s something simply magical about Dura-Ace x Paul.
Have you tried friction-shifting? It’ll certainly spice up a boring bicycle, and there’s something the-opposite-of-auto-shifting that it feels like a lot of us need right now? The multi-speed version of 50,000:1 club, if you will.
Cy Doing Cy Things
Living the dream, have you checked out Cy’s large-sized SRAM mural project on About The Ride? Project ‘Very Large Raccoons’ is a step-by-step look at his commission for muralizing two wall rides for Whistler Bike Park’s Crank-It-Up trail.
I meant to share this a while ago, sorry. Stream of consciousness writing and all that. It’s not just a neat project; it’s a very neat piece about what goes into the design and even just thinking about how riders will see it on their bikes.
Anywho, probably the neatest cycling-adjacent piece I’ve read in 2025, so highly recommended.
{Above image: Cy Whitling}
Deniz’s Di2 Photos
As predicted, XTR Di2 was everywhere on launch day, heck, even MEATengines had a piece. There were plenty of unique, interesting photos of the fresh drivetrain out there on the bikernet. I mean, XTR is always photogenic. But nothing hit that dream-like desire to ride the crème de la crème like Deniz’s work for NSMB.com.
And, yes, I fully admit I’m a sucker for any gear shots with pink-flowers incorporated {I am THE audience} so take for what you will. Still, oof. Plenty of other beauties in the NSMB write-up as well.
{Above photo: Deniz Merdano}
Dream Rides
I was daydreaming the other day, waiting for Claire, and I was thinking about the dream ride. Grounded in reality. Those rides where you arrive home and think, yep, I would do that exact same ride again in a heartbeat.
I do love riding in other places, but most of my dream rides start from my front door. I don’t necessarily love turning 3″ rubber on pavement, especially compared to the glide of the Talbot or my Amazing Alvin equipped V1 ATB, and I acknowledge the privilege of living near enough to the forest to pedal from home. But there’s something so rewarding about a car-free mountain bike adventure.
I love riding multi-speed sag wagons. I do! Fast bikes are fun. But my dream rides have all typically been on my simple mountain bicycles. One gear, no suspension, just riding in the forest.
This particular daydream was about a ride that Terry Walker and I did at the end of December in 2021. It had snowed quite a bit, and we weren’t certain what conditions would be like, but we were both hungry to ride, so I pedaled over to his place and we meandered up mostly-quiet* side streets from there.
We both have longer travel fork-equipped hardtails {or I maybe had a sag-wagon test bike at the time} but as it usually is, we unanimously decided on the ‘simple speeds’ and away we went.
We didn’t end up going that high up Fromme. Conditions became fairly questionable above the Baden Powell, but we did climb up the No Quarter Climb and drop into Dream Weaver off the BP, and what’s typically a short loop felt like a proper adventure on the day.
*{In a proper YDINAC moment, we were too close to being taken out by a car recklessly passing a bus that had stopped for us to cross the road}.
At one point, despite having ridden the trail too many times to count, we took a wrong turn in the snow and ended up descending a fair way before we took not of it. Having too much fun and all that. This resulted in a sketchy, thanks to our footwear, hike-a-bike back up to the actual trail.
This leads me to the question: Is a mandatory hike-a-bike an important component of a dream ride? Sometimes, maybe. What about the fact that we didn’t see another soul in the woods, on bikes, or otherwise?
Either way, we laughed, we crashed, we climbed, we hiked. The snow conditions were awesome, and the sun through the trees was amazing. Dream ride.
Dream Bikes
I had a little hacksaw funeral for my V2. I kept the headtube just because and turned the top-tube into a leverage boosting bar, which I actually used yesterday to remove the bottom bracket from a top-secret project bike {that’s not for me}. Ooo, I know, dream spoilers.
I’ve been enjoying the planning process for V3. It’s settled on paper now. Shorter and steeper than V2 and reflective of where my rigid riding has evolved over the last couple of years. V2 was non-meaner, but I’m riding Will’s 170mm-forked ArctuHawk for chunkier choices these days.
We’re months out yet, but I’ve started acquiring the couple of components that aren’t being moved over from my current rig. The first piece being a Shimano XT crankset, direct mount, for a 52mm chainline. Of course, it will be mullet-magical with a 29×3″ front, 27×2.6″-to-3.0″ rear.
That’s all I have {that I’m prepared to share} for now.
Larry Talker Tunes
This week, I’m suggesting Model-T enjoy a listen to some Las Cafeteras, a wickedly tight LA California-based band founded in a coffee shop. They’re so fun live and also bring a powerful message with much of their work.
Check out their 2017 album, Tastes Like La. Every song goes, but nothing speaks to the moment like If I Was President. This morning {yes, as usual, my Friday piece is going live on Saturday} La Morena was the perfect coffee tune.
Enjoy!
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