Toby is an alchemist of bike love, a wizard of cycling culture and a prophet of adventuring by bicycle. We’re so stoked to have him plying his trade managing our bike shop, building up new bicycles, servicing old ones and fine tuning our showroom in anticipation of the return of cool weather and a functional Toole street in front of our building.
Toby has been living the bike shop life since 2004, getting started at the Sports Basement in San Fransisco before relocating to Ventura. In 2010, Toby co-founded the Ventura Bike Hub an amazing community bike shop. Toby helped build this organization into a thriving and integral part of Ventura’s cycling community and it was a tough and sad parting of ways for him and his partner Benicia to move on to Tucson. But it is also a testament of what they built that they can move along and pass their leadership on to the next generation of HUB leaders.
Beyond bicycle wrenching and riding, Toby’s interests include surfing, restoring old cars and traveling with his family.
Happens to the best of us – September. 28, 2025
Have you ever made a huge mess doing your initial tubeless setup? One thing is that everyone usually learns by making a huge mess. As you become a professional outside of some odd circumstances the messes are pretty occasional.
I happened to hear all kinds of calamity in the back of the shop and walked back to this scene. Some combinations like downhill casings and liners are just plain hard to install and this tire was one of them. Enjoy this photo of Jacob bathed in his sorrows, good thing there was a rag nearby lol.
We are the shadow riders – September. 22, 2025
Sometimes you take chances on a trip and roll the dice whether the weather will work out or not. Luckily thanks to some great local advice we dodged most of a 4 day storm and enjoyed beautiful skies and clouds and stayed in the rain shadow. It wasn’t without adventure, mishap and some rain, but what good is a trip if it doesn’t have a little adventure. By adventure I mean something goes wrong and you have to adjust your expectations and plans.
The irony of this trip was all the rain and we ran into dry water tanks and the adventure of the trip was we had to reroute down the partially closed highway back into town rather than ride up the side of the mountain as planned. Since we weren’t able to finish the route (again), be on the lookout for craters and cones part trois!
Close Call – September. 16, 2025
Last week to our surprise while Jake was moving some boxes – a furry blur ran into the bathroom. David happened to be heading towards the bathroom and volunteered to catch said blur.
After some moments that held us all in anticipation and some noises and jostling. David came out carrying this cute little baby bunny! We couldn’t believe it! It was the cutest thing ever. And I’m happy to report that yes, the bunny was as soft as it looked! (No animals were harmed in the making of this tidbit and the bunny was released back into nature)
Close Call – September. 10, 2025
I was really impressed by this close call the other day. This is a standard Tucson thorn believe it, or not!
Fortunately, this customer is set up tubeless via our Make-It-Mine bike customization with Panaracer Gravelking SK (one of my favorite do it most tires) and hold fast valves (sooooo many fun colors!) so if it did go through the tire, they would have been alright, but wow- the luck of this thorn going through the side lug is amazing.
Way back machine – September. 04, 2025
I’d like to take a trip in the way-back machine to September 2022. We branched out and aimed high by doing our Advanced trip to Flagstaff and trying the Craters and Cones loop—even though we knew we couldn’t do the craters section due to fire and flooding damage.
It was a long jaunt with some awesome lava tube hikes and lava rock fields. On the last day, we ended up splitting the group: some rode down the highway back to Flagstaff (into a strong headwind), while some ambitious folks cruised the last 30 miles down the AZT.
While it turned into some serious type 2 fun and a very late night, it definitely had moments that paid off. Here’s one of those moments: cruising magical singletrack with some rad folks through a fern and aspen forest!
I’m looking forward to our upcoming trip, though I’m a little nervous since I haven’t been riding much lately (it’s been hooooot and full of family stuff). But I’m sure we’ll have a good time—even if it’s a hard time! See y’all on the trail!
Baby Snakes! – August. 28, 2025
It’s baby snek season here. It’s always cool going out in the summer evenings seeing the snakes sprawled out across the trail to keep warm and/or help digest food. They are usually lethargic and very chill. Check out this little danger noodle I eased off the trail after jumping over it- so it would get ran over. No banana for scale but about 10-12” long. Don’t corner too fast lol.
Jojo are you tired? – August. 22, 2025
I’ve had the pleasure of dog sitting my buddy Jojo Jenkins Bardonnay- while his person Surlypotpie is out of town. Jojo gets to hang at the shop everyday. Sometimes he gets tired badum dum.
The Moonlander has landed! – August. 16, 2025
With both happy and sad news, I announce that our Surly Moonlander has found a new home. It’s heading out to the Mojave Desert to do some epic wash exploring and touring. I’ll miss it’s dominance on our shop floor, luring folks in with its giant tires and long tail capabilities. Have fun on the Moon!
Anand and the Colorado Trail. – August. 10, 2025
We had the pleasure last week of a friend and customer Anand dropping in with donuts and pictures and tales of the Colorado Trail. Anand got his TimberJack from us a year ago with plans to rock the Colorado Trail with a friend. Time went on, the friend bailed, but Anand kept trucking and fulfilled his dream of riding the Colorado Trail. It was so awesome to see the progress of his setup and then get to see all cool pictures and hear the tales from the trail.
Check out this rad picture from his trip!
Silly Rabbit – August. 04, 2025
I was stoked to go see the world premier at Slow Body Brewing of the short bike riding film by Tucson film makers Kirby Willow and Chloe Thomas. They Made the film with State bicycles, Presta Coffee and Transit Bikes. It was super cute and funny- the premise was that they rode bikes from Tucson to Bisbee in search of the elusive Jackalope. I loved it because I’m an avid Cryptid lover! It was also really sweet to see a large group of rad Tucson folks get together and brace the heat to enjoy this silly time together.
Give it a peep: https://youtu.be/CvUKrBk96Qc
A new frame bag for Cholla! – July. 28, 2025
My homie Cholla stopped by the shop the other day to show off their new frame bag! Cholla is a rad person and a frequent flier on the shop trips and has been dialing in their Esker Cycles Japhy rig. This is a custom frame bag from Lesenok Bags– a builder in Lviv, Ukraine.
Beyond the great fabric with an amazing strawberry pattern, it really fits Cholla because they teach horticulture and are a desert plant specialist. It’s always a treat riding with Cholla because as you ride around, Cholla can identify all the cool and special plants and flowers!
Classy Monkey – July. 21, 2025
I was stoked the other night to get an invite to ride with some buds and enjoy a cooler evening sunset as well as a bunch of awesome critters. We had a list of things we hoped to see and got most of them. We were hoping to see snakes, owls, toads, frogs scorpions, and coati.
Unfortunately I forgot the black light for the scorpions so missed that one and we didn’t see any elusive Coati. But we did have a great time and stopped many times to toad watch, millipede watch, and snake watch. We listened to owl hoots echo across the canyon and watch them swoop around in search of the next meal. It’s always a nice reminder to get out and enjoy the space around you!
Classy Monkey – July. 14, 2025
I got the pleasure of working on a cool Make-It-Mine Karate Monkey this week. I enjoyed the customers choice of braided silver shift housing for the shifter and Dropper as well as the Silver Color kit and Waveform Pedals from WolfTooth, and matchy Sky Blue Holdfast Valves. It was all a classy but definitely cool choices that made for a fun bike.
Forkin around – July. 07, 2025
It’s been while since I’ve had an opportunity to straighten a fork. This fork came in with an unfortunate bent and twisted fork leg. The beauty with modern and vintage steel frames and why people love touring with them beyond the ride quality is if something gets bent you can safely and fairly easily bend it back. It seems when I worked in the vintage bike world we were often checking alignment and straightening forks and frames.
When we did this we had a really nice fork jig do you could find exactly where the bend started and go from there making adjustments until it is perfect. Luckily David brought his jig into the shop and we hooked it up and made the proper adjustments using the jig and a frame bending tool. Once the legs were aligned, we used the candlesticks to straighten out the twist in the dropouts. Voila! A perfectly aligned fork!