New! Bike! Day!

 I have been nearly bursting at the seams waiting for mail day to deliver my new bike. After a week that felt like an absolute eternity, she's finally here!

2016 will be my first full year of riding, my first year of training, and my first year racing the cyclocross season. I wanted a bike that I could swap the tires back and forth for road to off road. I ended up getting the Felt F85X. I couldn't be happier with my decision!

First things first, she is absolutely gorgeous. When I saw the picture on Felt's website, I wasn't entirely sold, but felt like I was "settling" for a bike with good components in my price range. After seeing her in person, she easily would have been my first choice all around. Whoever was in charge of the paint scheme did a killer job! All the little turquoise details hidden around her frame continue to amaze me. 

She has a full Shimano drivetrain that shifts like an absolute dream. I've never had handle bar shifting before and now I see what most prefer it. I've been able to gear a lot more efficiently on rides.

I've never had a ~new~ bike before. I think even as a child, all my bikes where either hand-me-downs or some sort of second hand. Which was completely fine! Before July, I couldn't have cared less about cycling. All of that changed when Pat bought me my first thrift store bike...

I am over the moon with my new bike. We got in a quick little 11 miles today, just to break her into some mud and road conditions. Almost crashed attempting my first bunny hop onto a curb, but I managed to get a couple of killer moving dismounts in.

I'm anxious for the weather to keep getting better and to get even further into my training.

Chase's Bike

Monday and Tuesday were so nice that it was impossible to pass up a nice middle-of-winter summer day at the park with my friends.

Following along with my new hobby of taking pictures of my friends' bikes, I met up with Chase & Jacob to snap some shots of Chase's bike.

In the process, I managed to find a new favorite photo spot for bike shoots! Granted, it's a little overplayed but, hey, it's overplayed cause it's a darn good spot.

Given my own thrift-store-found bike, I have a soft spot for all the cool Craigslist found bikes that my friends ride.

On a side note: I'm getting slightly better at being comfortable directing my friends to "stand right there" to make the picture better.

Personally, I'm still learning all the technical parts and names of bikes. I'm still very much an aesthetic-only person. Luckily, I have Patrick to tell me which of the "cool looking bikes" are actually equipped with good parts.

On Chase's bike, I love the little details of matching the spoke "things" with his bottle cage & the text.

And this is the picture that was taken at the overplayed location. But I haven't seen too many bike pictures here! Maybe we'll start a new overplayed trend.

Honestly, my favorite part about these bike shoots is an excuse to get really great photos of/with my friends that I never seem to remember to snap otherwise. Although not relevant to the overall "bike glamour shoot," this crew picture is perhaps one of my favorites! All of our bikes are weird frankenstein builds that we collected cool parts for and made way nice than they should be.

While my Raleigh will always be my first love, I'm so excited that I finally ordered my Felt cyclocross bike this morning. I absolutely cannot wait for it to be here! And I can't wait to do a bike glamour shot on my own bike.

Here's to remembering those nice fake out summer days as I prepare for another week of 27 degree lows.

Jacob's Bike

Since photographing Patrick's bike a couple of days ago, all of my friends have asked me to take pictures of their bikes, too. Definitely not complaining. Any excuse to ride around with my friends, explore new places, and practice my photography skills is A-OK by me!

My friend, Jacob, and I wandered over to the Pullman Yard (the same place I took the pictures for Patrick the other day). The outside lighting wasn't quite as great as it was for my previous pictures, so we decided to set up outside, in between some of the buildings.

This shoot was a lot more low-key. Jacob mostly just wanted cool pictures of his bike for the sake of having cool pictures of his bike.

Can't blame him there! I could fill a photo album with the amount of pictures I've taken of my bike.

My next obstacle is figuring out how to edit out the brick in the pictures, without messing up the shadows & coloration.

I kind of managed to do it on this picture of Patrick's bike, but I have a lot of room to improve:

Also in my shoot with Jacob, it was my first time photographing a person. I've always suuuuuuper admired the photographers who can capture amazing candid moments that they do. I've been sticking to inanimate objects since I've gotten my camera, but I'm eager to branch out....slowly.

If anyone in the Atlanta area wants to hang out, go riding, and let me awkwardly photograph you, let me know!

Accidental Exploring

Right after fessing up to wimping out of riding lately, Patrick and I hopped on our bikes for a what-started-out-to-be quick little ride around the neighborhood. As other cyclists know, some days your legs just feel great and don't wanna stop moving you. That was exactly yesterday for me. We ended up getting in a 15 mile ride, where I got a lot of "overall" trophies on Strava - whoohoo!

(If you don't know what I'm talking about, Strava is an interactive app that tracks how far you go, how fast you go, and the elevation gain on your ride. It then ranks you on certain segments against every other rider who has ridden that segment. You can set Personal Records and get Overall Records, which means you were one of the top 10 fastest of that particular segment)

Right outside of our neighborhood, we rode past this amaaaaazing house. Their whole yard was covered in bird houses, statues, and lots of other wonderful trinkets. My favorite part was definitely this vibrant pink wall that was covered in pieces of reflective glass.

At first, we just rode past, but a block later, I was filled with such regret of not stopping to take a picture of this wonderful find.

It was also a nice place to stop to take off some of our layers. We got dressed for cold that just wasn't there (shoutout to that 53 degree high yesterday!)

Patrick really likes to do this "follow me" game, where he pretends like he knows where he's going for a really long time and I just have to follow him. This is how our ride ended up going from a quick little spin into the journey that it did. Turns out, he did know where he was going after all. We ended up at this awesome abandoned bowling alley right off a decently busy road.

We weren't able to go in. All of the doors were super locked up, with signs everywhere alerting passerbys to report anyone they see trespassing. Who knows how strongly enforced those signs are, but better safe than arrested!

Besides, I'm so new to this urban exploring thing, that I'm plenty happy with just a solid outdoor scene.

After our ride, we popped across the street to the Pullman Train Yard right at Magic Hour. Patrick just built up a brand new Specialized AWOL (which he has written a more extensive post about), and he wanted some high def pictures of all the details. They turned out amazing! I'll let him take it from here on gushing about his bike.

Today, I'm going riding with Babe Lane. Hopefully the rain holds off for us!

Either way, I'm off to roam around town with some friends, who have been asking me to take pictures of their bikes now that the ones I took for Patrick turned out so well.

Hit me up for all your bike glamour shot needs.

Dolls Head Trail

There was a ride on New Year's Day that went from the Atlanta Prison Farm down to this place called Doll's Head Trail. We didn't know about the ride until after it was over, unfortunately.

But the folks who did do it took lots of awesome pictures and we knew we had to go check it out!

It's crazy how many amazing outdoor areas are hidden around Atlanta. In comparison, Athens is considered "the country" but I've definitely been spending way more time outside here than I ever did back there.

I'm a sucker for off-road trails and this one definitely didn't disappoint. Had it not been for the freshly laid tire marks, we probably could have gotten lost real quick. Especially since we got off our original path to follow a sign reading "Freshwater Goak" (I still have no idea what a goak is, even after several Google attempts). Needless to say, we never found a goak, but did manage to get off our trail for awhile...maybe that was the intention of the sign maker, who knows!

I think we ended up doing the trail backyards. We nearly missed the sign for the Doll's Head Trail, hidden amongst some bushes on the side of the trail.

The Doll's Head Trail is made up of weird art installations that folks make from items they find in the park. The makers urge you to please not bring in any foreign trash to make an interesting sculpture. By the looks of it, however, you have tons of options to use based on found treasures.

I'm currently fighting off a cold (ho-hum), so the bikes stayed home this adventure. But with my cross bike hopefully a month or so in the future, I'm really eager to get out there to actually ride the trails sometime.

Whether you're riding or walking, I definitely recommend going to check out this awesome park if you've been needing a second away from the city.

New Bike Day!

When Bri and I were on vacation in California, I found a crazy deal on a Specialized AWOL frame back home. As soon as we got back, I polished up the ole Trek and put her up on Craigslist.  I slowly started building this frame up, and I'll admit that I went a little crazy over the tiny details.

I picked up a set of Salsa Cowchipper bars from my good buds at Loose Nuts Cycles. I decided I wanted to use spent shotgun shells for the bar plugs. I went to Stoddard's Shooting Range to see if they had any spent 12 gauge shells, but they had none available. They were super helpful, and set me up with my own shotgun to shoot. 5 rounds later, I had my bar plugs and was ready to go.

I went with a Thomson seatpost and stem, there really was no other option to consider. Thomson makes the best bike parts, and they are a Georgia based company!

When I first started plannIng this build, I had a few products I wanted to try for the first time.  One of my favorite newer products is the ESI R.C.T. bar tape.  It is a 100% silicone bar tape with no adhesives.  It feels just like their Chunky mountain bike grips, and went on super easy.  When riding off-road, it has been amazing!

I added a Mash SF donut top cap for a little touch of flair.  The other product I was super excited about was the Spurcycle bell. While they aren't cheap, they really are worth it. Designed and manufactured in America, it is an item that I know I will have for life.

For the drivetrain, I did a full Sram Force1 hydraulic spec. I matched a 42 tooth chainring with an 11-36 cassette.  It gives plenty of climbing gears, while still having some sprint gearing.  Matched with Sram's centerline 160mm rotors, the brakes are some of the best I've ever ridden.

For the wheels, I got a pair of Stan's NoTubes Grail Pro wheels.  I added a set of the new Teravail Cannonball 700x38 tires, which have been incredible in gravel.  The detail I went the craziest over, were the wheel decals.  The stock decals are red and white, and were just too busy with how sleek the rest of the bike looked.  I found a company from Sweden called Slik Graphics, who made the custom decals. After ordering and going through the design process, it only took about a week for them to arrive. I highly recommend them for any custom decal work.

The bike came together beautifully, and I am head over heels with the ride.  I took it out for a 60 mile maiden voyage, with a ton of climbing and some off road sections.  The bike is stable, but still can be nimble and really shred off road. I can't wait for long days on fire roads and gravel paths. Next up, I am getting frame and seat bags for multi day bike trips.  This build truly was a labor of love, and I'm eager to see where it can take me.

A Quick Hello!

Hey! My name is Brianna. I'm the person behind Granny Gear Press along with the occasional help from my boyfriend, Patrick.

I started Granny Gear as a place to sell my cycling gear for every day bike explorers. I make everything from bags to caps.
I'm self taught in the industry of making so I'm constantly testing out new patterns, designs, and ideas.

When I'm not making, I'm racing my first season of Georgia Cyclocross with Loose Nuts Cycles, exploring new mountain bike trails, or just wandering around town.

This blog is a sort of visual journal for daily adventures and the drawing board for new products.