ATWM

To add - I wear both 38 and 40 in Freewheelers jackets - mostly 40, my 38 is a t shirt only fit. And 38 in a sweatshirt for a trimmer fit. I find one wash freewheelers to be the most comprehensive one wash out there - as in, it shrinks very marginally and I take the one wash measurements to heart. I don't try to factor in shrinkage beyond the one wash measurements with my sizing - hasn't steered me wrong.

De Bonne Facture, WMJ, Clae

Slowly trying to pare down things. Interest check here - I’ve got a pair of black TCB 30’s that were released a couple of years ago. Size 31, hemmed to 31 by TCB. They’re unworn/only tried on. Bought for about $200. Open to offers. Can send more info/measurements if anyone is curious.

It’s been hot as hell where I’m at too and in years past I would have soldiered on in denim but this year, no. I just…don’t need to be intentionally uncomfortable. My cares are gone ha. Mostly wearing cheap old shorts that have stuck in my closet for 10 years or more, but my Ues linen WW2 pair has gotten some time too.

^ Fully support that plan! Sort of lamenting that my Tender stuff isn’t getting enough love these days. For me it’s more a winter brand as I’m all knits and jackets and jeans. Haven’t found shirts that suit me, but that might change once I can try stuff on.

I can’t do those shoes at all, ever really. @Maynard Friedman gets to it for me from an aesthetic perspective. @Double 0 Soul gets it from a wear perspective. Though I’m not personally a fan of chucks beat up or not. I still have some skate shoes hanging around for comfort and function, but don’t much wear beyond the house. Honestly I feel like beat up Birkenstocks are better, but this is why in the end I favor more traditional leather boots and shoes for the most part. Don’t run as much as I used to since I’m on my bike so much but my actual runners are Merrell zero drop trail shoes. I haven’t run in anything padded in a good 15 years now and have felt better for it. Those shoes are ugly as hell (thankfully not as bad as the “toe” shoes) but they last ages because there’s no padding to get shot, it’s just whenever I wear through the sole to my actual foot that I need a new pair. Others pull off these traditional bulky runners, I can dig the look, but I’ve never felt like it suited me. .

^ I’ve not had a mismatch but I have had FC size 29s come up laughably loose in the waist and 31s needing to stretch - both 0105 so theoretically the same cuts but different denims.

Is that getting jettisoned?

We have a few of their sweatshirts in our house. Like them very much. I say “we” because my wife wears them as much as I do.

@rodeo bill Nice! We’ve got a pollinator garden - our milkweed this year has really taken off. But my favorite is our baptisia - (aka wild indigo / false indigo) - could be a good one for your backyard if you get full sun. It has historically been used by Natives for dye even, but is a lot lower yield than the more common indigo dye plants. You also may find you can harvest enough black walnuts in your neighborhood for a batch!

Yea - I’d put the radio hosts in the category of the very successful few that can live like others in solid white collar positions. That’s really a top spot to land. So yea, the top end of even not great jobs can be good. The people that make the majority of the content that media is comprised of…different story. I know a BBC documentarian in London actually - who has been struggling like hell to even get a mortgage - and is approaching mid life crisis age. Even 20-30 years ago when it was better, it was still a highly stratified profession. A few at the top okay, most…let’s say you have to be an idealist. Anyways, I still go on my longer rides in cheap old volcom twill shorts. Can’t do the Lycra! That said…when I did a marathon I wore surf shorts so I’ve never been into the “proper gear” so to speak. Unless it’s corduroy or denim!

Wait wait wait. Gonna do a quick and stupid nitpick here but media? Sure, a few execs have some cash. Really, really successful journalists might live like an average physician. But media is largely a profession for people eking by in studio apartments. I could try and pull out my old invoices and pay stubs for the Guardian or the Times of London to prove my point ha. You could sub in tech, perhaps?

If you’re really curious about it, forget all of the internet research rabbit holes and just go into a bike shop and just spend some time riding a few. So many of the shit you pay for to make your bike nicer is stuff that might give a racer a marginal benefit but is sort of a distraction. If you ever get to the point where you actually have opinions about components and geometry and all that stuff, you’d have already logged quite a few miles and noted what you want to change. I recently purchased my first new bike in nearly 20 years, but before that I had and quite enjoyed a rather cheapish ($450 new in 2007) trek single speed. It was an aluminum frame, cheap components, nothing special by any means. I rode it everywhere for just about everything except total off-road stuff. Took it on 50 mile rides even - not fast but enjoyable. I’m still not very knowledgeable about bikes but it doesn’t stop me from riding 30-60 miles a week just for regular life stuf (this doesn’t count going on a ride for the sake of it, which I occasionally also do). Bottom line - it’s worthwhile if you ride it often, no matter what it is. FWIW - I bought a “bikepacking” bike, https://www.wildebikes.com/products/supertramp which is really just sort of a cruiser/mountainbike thing. It’s just the most comfortable for carrying crap really and deals deftly with the often crappy roads we have here - and then for a gravel ride it’s no problem. It’s absolutely a touch slower than my old single speed - which I still use as well - but that’s not the point.

^ It’s actually not as bad as you think. I’d rather go ride 30-50k on a bike in sweltering weather than walk the golf course. The breeze from bike riding helps. Of all the outdoor stuff I’ve done in sweltering heat riding a bike is lower on the list of miserable ones, short of surfing or being out on the water. Now, I’m not in Texas, but we get heat waves up here and I did spend 5 years in central North Carolina.

Wasn’t this already posted? I’m pretty sure I can’t afford to even check out the home page. I remember one time I looked at it and almost got charged for silently wondering about the return policy. I feel like I’m probably also too unclean to peruse the selection.

^ I wonder how much is the denim itself versus the roping. Mentioning because I just noticed that where I cuff is starting to blow out (in addition to back of the legs) and there’s no stitching there. No doubt the roping might exacerbate but it will be interesting to see if you can get your pair to even reach 18 months…

Anyone have experience with the LR11 jacket? It looks wide/pretty boxy for it’s given tag size - accurate?

I’ve never handled a pair but they seem solid - just for whatever reason they tend to have not end up as the preferred repro brand for many. It’s hard to differentiate yourself in that market and, speaking only for myself, the arcs weren’t enough to make me go for it. I was eyeing a jacket for a long time but ultimately passed on it because it just didn’t seem to add much of anything I didn’t already have. I think a few people here have owned a pair, you just don’t generally see them taken the distance.

Nothing exciting, but got my jeans back from getting some darning work done and gave them a wash. Light was perfectly flat this morning and these pictures feel probably more accurate than most I’ve posted. Happy to have them back. Tracks starting to appear, still not much in the way of marbling, I think I’m probably past the point of that happening much. Little tiny blowouts starting to happen on the back of each knee - usually when that happens the honeycombs are more prominent but on this pair barely visible. Hem and pocket update for fun.

Nope. I'll buy used denim on occasion. But processed, no. Idk about "cheating" - I don't like how it wears differently than on ones body and I don't like the fact that it's usually a whole bucket (extra) of environmental ick just to make it look worse than it would. Call me ridiculous but it's enough for me that if a brand offers a used wash it usually starts to sour me on the whole brand a little bit.

^ damn. This probably makes no sense since I’ve internalized $250 being worth it for a pair of jeans sometimes, and more even for jackets - but I can’t make that jump with a whole lot else. Those are some pricey shirts! I’d be checking my local thrift store first… how value is so subjective.

^ fantastic find. This is one of my favorite items that I have. If I ever found another in my size I’d get it again just for backup.

Idk about yall but I definitely shoot for unflattering when I am sizing raw/unwashed. It remains to be seen if I ever land on flattering after the process is over but if they’re flattering when raw I’m typically a bit concerned about comfort, at the very least.

I don't know how amenable you'd be to crowdsourcing ideas @rodeo bill but given the place based ethos you expressed in the recent newsletter I'm curious if you'd ever entertain using pokeweed to dye a batch of something. It's an American native and can yield some really nice reds with the right mordants. https://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/pokeberry-dye-recipe-ze0z1801zmos/ Even better because it's a plant a lot of people dislike and is poisonous but is kind of amazing in its own way (like milkweed).

My perception (which is just that, and nothing more) has always been the same - looks very much like a marketing move. I’ve only seen a pair in person once but I couldn’t discern any quality difference. Lots of brands will use a pattern as a selling point. At some level cost of materials is ancillary and brands use prices to position themselves in certain ways. Boncoura has the makeup of a brand that looks to care about that more than most repro brands. Wasn’t the brand started by a former white collar guy who wears Rolex and collects designer furniture? Those things sort of point me further towards the perception that they believe a strong brand is a sort of luxury marker worth a percentage of the margin on its own.