Three Views of Tenspeed Hero
View I
Tenspeed Hero is a cycling journal with world headquarters located in Chicago and with satellite offices located in Gent, Belgium, and a small cabin on a lake in California. It started as a humble blog created by Luke Batten and Jonathan Sadler as a diversion from their artist project New Catalogue.
The blog evolved into tenspeedhero.com, a hyper-tonic fanzine concerned with Fabian Cancellara and sharing meals with our multi-lingual interns. We called our friend, graphic designer Neil Donnelly, and asked him to build us a site. He did. Its contributors did not cut their teeth in the world of sports journalism but are visual artists, library scientists, graphic designers, physicists, mechanics, photographers, and cat 4 phenoms! who happen to revel in the non sequitur and things often related to cycling.
In its inaugural year, Tenspeed Hero looks to catch a few races and build an implausible empire of content. We are interested in threads, economics and the human.
View II
True, a hero is a person in tights, often a cape, sometimes a mask, who saves people in distress. Perhaps this hero has some power – flight, x-ray vision, etcetera, etcetera. A hero is also a doctor who is not bound by borders, whether national or economic. Let’s call her a doctor without a border.
In Chicago, a couple of bicycle enthusiasts started watching bike races on TV. Then they bought a bike. Then they bought another bike. Then they bought clipless pedals. Then, one by one, they fell over, unable to free themselves from the clipless pedals.
Then they bought another bike. Eventually they sold a bike and bought some more bikes. Then they rode these bikes and invited others to ride bikes with them. They said things like, “Let’s ride bikes!” and “Do you ride? You should ride with us.” In some cases the invitations were accepted.
It was becoming abundantly clear that, like those people in tights and those borderless doctors, they too were heroes. Heroically, they started a blog.
While riding west on the Illinois Prairie Path, the heroes passed a young boy with a look on his face that could only be described as awe. In a voice like a teenage girl he yelled, “Who are you?” As one, the heroes replied, “We are the Tenspeed Heroes.”
View III
Tenspeed Hero is:
Publishers
Luke Batten, Jonathan Sadler and Todd Simeone
Managing Editor
Luke Batten
Advertising and Store
Todd Simeone
Photography
Luke Batten
Jonathan Sadler
Todd Simeone
Ria Roberts
Isaiah Jay
Patrick Kenny
Features and Projects
Benjamin Gill
Todd Simeone
Robert Zach Thomas
Ria Roberts
Jennifer Beeman
Hannah Burtness
Public Relations
Jenny Hunter
Translator
Heather King
Interns
Maggie, Julia, Mich, Stephen