In this age where customers are constantly kept up to date of a company's goings-on via social media, we find it odd that the newsletter format is still relevant because who wants to read what has basically become a recap of old news? Well, we've figured out a way around this by cleverly withholding vital information from our customers over long periods of time and finally releasing it in a pyroclastic flow of mind-numbing data. Long live the newsletter.

Summer is almost here which means the hills are brown, the College World Series will start soon, and the time for long 50/50 rides is upon us. Over the last 5 years or so our Dirtbomb has grown to be one our most popular models as more folks discover how versatile a bike like this can be. But we wanted to give our customers more gearing options so we dusted off the old "S-bend" chainstay bender and voila, now you can run a 34/50 compact road crank (still with 45c tires) on the Dirtbomb! And our hats off to Mike Varley over at Black Mountain Cycles for convincing us to give it a shot. Check out Jason's new rig which will see its share of gravel action in Kansas.

Photo by Jason Cowan

And speaking of Kansas and gravel, we'd like to congratulate Matt Wills of Team Soulcraft on finishing this year's Dirty Kanza 200 mile gravel race last weekend (on his singlespeed dropped-bar Holy Roller). We'd be hard pressed to lie around in our underwear watching a Mad Men marathon for 20 hours, let alone spend that much time on a bike. That's some True Grit right there friends. Nice job Matt.

Matt Wills crosses the finish at Dirty Kanza 2013 / Photo by Eric Benjamin / adventuremonkey.com

And speaking of summer happenings, the Meet Your Maker Tour is in full swing with our second event happening later this month. We're calling this installment the "Race Your Maker" because a bunch of the builders will be racing at the Skyline Mountain Bike Race in Napa on Sunday, June 23. Builders will be pre-riding the course and camping out the day/night before if you'd like to join us for campfire stories with titles such as, "That Time I Almost Delivered a Bike on Time" and "How I Make Instagram Photos of My Workbench Look So Romantic." It promises to be a grand time.

Here in the shop we've filled out stock on the Vintage Ts and Hoodie Sweatshirts so we've got all the sizes back on the shelf. More Trucker Caps and Tool Koozies are on the way and should be here in a couple weeks so check back soon for those. And finally (as in, it’s the end of the newsletter, and in, "damn, that took a long time"), the Tradesman 29r frames are ready to go. All 4 sizes, one color. Thanks for checking this out.