About

Bikes Are The New Black is a cooperative effort between two bike racers, enthusiasts and friends; Patrick McQuown and Amos Brumble. We’ve been racing bikes since the late 80s and one of us is still a competitive CAT I and the other is your run of the mill pack fodder. This site is a place for us to share our experience and opinions on bikes, bike racing and the biking lifestyle. We are pro New England and we make no apologies for having this view. This doesn’t mean we’re anti anywhere else, it just means we’ve ridden all over the US and Europe and we feel New England has the best terrain with a weather system that has just enough harsh conditions to mimic those found in Belgium.  We’re the guys who have been into cycling before it became a  field guide in the New York Times Fashion section.   We were into it when people stared at bare shaven legs on a male, before bikes became the new black.   We’ve been in it long enough to know that the biggest thing to ever happen to American cycling is Greg LeMond.   While Lance Armstrong is a tour champion,  we still think of him as the guy in the Motorola jersey who we hoped would give America our first world cup classic win.

While we have your attention we want to give you a caveat. We can’t write. Seriously, we can’t. We’re not talking dangling participles, either. We’re talking a total lack of basic grammar. While other kids were learning grammar we were learning about campagnolo and french terms like Tete de la Course. When the teachers were going over State Capitals we were learning the location of Ghent Belgium.  As they read The Weekly Reader, we were learning about European newspapers like Belgium’s Het Volk, Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport, or France’s L’Équipe.  When other kids were memorizing vocabulary words we were memorizing the name of the bends on Alpe d’Huez.  The result, we write like we talk. So let’s just get that out of the way.   Don’t feel bad for us, we’re doing fine.   We own a bike shop and teach at a leading University.  Still cycling is ingrained in our lives and we’ll ride for as long as we can.

We hope you enjoy the site and don’t take us or the sport too seriously.