Banjo Blog

FIVE THINGS is a feature on the Banjo Brothers Blog. These short interviews explore life and bicycles with notable people. Since 2007 Chris Skogen has been producing barrier-free cycling events in the state of Minnesota.

The most famous of his events, the Almanzo 100, is often referred to as the "granddaddy" of them all for its pole position in the explosion of gravel road bicycle ride around the country.  While other events have diverged from Skogen's "always free" business model, Skogen continues to shake up the paradigm in his crusade to simply get more people on bikes.

FIVE THINGS is a feature on the Banjo Brothers Blog. These short interviews explore life and bicycles with notable people. This week, it's Chris Chavie's turn in the barrel.

Chavie, the former Social Media manager for Penn Cycle, founded the MN Bike Trail Navigator Blog in 2011 and publishes the largest list of cycling events in Minnesota his cycling-centric blog.

His passion for bikes might be an understatement. He created and is an admin of 13 cycling-related Facebook Groups including MN Gravel Enthusiasts, MN River Bottoms Ride Report, Twin Cities Bike Commuters, and MN Fatbike Group Rides.

We hope you enjoy this week's Five Things.

FIVE THINGS is a feature on the Banjo Brothers Blog. These short interviews explore life and bicycles with notable people. We caught up this week with Martin Leugers (yes, it's true, he's one of the 'real'  banjo brothers) and his wife and business partner, Tricia Wright.

Wright and Leugers are industrial designers and the founders of San Francisco-based Solid Phase Design. With a squadron (no exaggeration) of bikes in their garage prepped and at the ready for riding, there are bikes for every task from slow-rolls to fast-rides including sweet loaners for guests and chopper-bikes, a pre-requisite for their founding membership in C.R.U.D., the legendary cabal of "chopper-riding-urban-dwellers."

 We hope you enjoy this week's Five Things.

FIVE THINGS is a feature on the Banjo Brothers Blog. It’s a short interview about life and bicycles with a notable person. This week's notable person is cyclist Trevor Lettman. 

Lettman and the Banjo Brothers' relationship spans at least fourteen years, first meeting when Trevor's web development company Space2Burn was located across the street from the legendary CRC Cykel Garage.

Lettman, who grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, is a renaissance man of sorts. Entrepreneuring, writing code, playing music or taking on epic home improvement products, life is never dull around the energetic father of three. 

Lettman and his wife Andrea are in the midst of an epic adventure-- a radical lifestyle change-- which has re-planted them and the family in Minnesota's north woods. While Trevor's locale has changed his passion for bikes (or music) has not. We took a few moments this week to get caught up with Trevor for this series.

We hope you enjoy this week's Five Things.

FIVE THINGS is a feature on the Banjo Brothers Blog. It’s a short interview about life and bicycles with a notable person. This week's notable person is cyclist Jason Lardy. 

Jason is the host of Blast Beats n’ Bicycles, a 2-hour radio show on WMCN 91.7 FM, Macalester College Radio in St. Paul, MN. Each week, the show includes an hour of heavy music, with special emphasis on the Twin Cities hard rock and heavy metal scene, and an hour of discussion of bicycle topics with Twin Cities cycling advocates, racers and fellow bike nerds. Archives of the show can be found at http://blastbeatbikes.com

Jason is also the President of the MN Cycling Center – the non-profit organization working to build the next generation of velodrome cycling in MN.

We hope you enjoy this week's Banjo Brothers Five Things.

FIVE THINGS is a feature on the Banjo Brothers Blog. It’s a short interview about life and bicycles with a notable person. This week's notable person is Willy Lee.

Willy is late-bloomer when it comes to bikes, learning to ride a bike when he was 26. Proximity to bike paths has changed his life.

"My wife and I bought a house on the chain of lakes and she said, we are not living on these great bike paths and not riding them, so she dragged me to a couple of bike shops and made me buy a bike. LOL, the joke’s on her. I now own 11.5 bikes (one is a unicycle.) I worked weekends at a shop for a few years, and have really fallen into a big bike family"

Willy is also a #30daysofbiking diehard and he thinks you should totally join the herd this April.