Authors: Esther Merono
Beautiful Godzilla: Maudlin Bikes
Type “girls on bikes” into Google Image Search. Seriously, pick up your iPhone and do it right now—just keep in mind it’s NSFW unless you’re employed at SLUG … read more
Mashin’ and Thrashin’ with FOAD Fixed
I interviewed Sam in 2011 for SLUG—our first FGFS rider profile. Sam was the first of the crew to start riding fixed about seven years ago, when most of them were sophomores in high school. Jackson started the blog on foadfixed.com nearly two years ago as a way to post their edits and connect with the FGFS community outside of Salt Lake, beginning with a video of Evan. That’s when FOAD became official. … read more
Audrey Patten: Midwest Meets West
“I tend to pull from things that resonate with me because they represent a part of my childhood, or a specific moment in my life that I know other people will feel a connection to,” says CLC DIY Fest artist Audrey Patten, speaking of her artwork. The subjective nature of visual art often renders it introverted and inaccessible, but Patten has managed to transcend the self in her work and illustrate an emotion that has become the defining keystone of our generation: nostalgia. … read more
Beautiful Godzilla: I Am Not an Athlete
Yes, people, I signed up for OKCupid, the online-dating website. Since I spend a decent amount of time on a bicycle and/or organizing bicycle events (and writing a column about bicycles), that’s obviously something I added to the interests portion of my profile. After getting a handful of messages from “granola” types whose profiles lauded cringe-inducing key words like “hiking,” “climbing,” “camping” and “outdoors,” I realized I was inaccurately marketing myself as athletic. … read more
Beautiful Godzilla: Take a Look, It’s In a Book
It all began with the Bike Snob NYC blog. I was working as the door girl at Brewvies––which essentially meant I’d stare down my nose at kids my age and demand to see their IDs in between writing college papers––and picked up on reading the latest Bike Snob post during my shift. He was the main influence of this column, obviously, though I only chose “Beautiful Godzilla” as the title because “Feminist Bicycle Rants” was already taken by some anarchists in Brooklyn. … read more
Beautiful Godzilla: Alleycat Power
Alleycats were thought up by ADHD bike messengers in urban areas as a way to earn some extra cash, test their skillz and ride their bikes some more, because, apparently, no one but me just wants to go home and massage their butt cheeks after riding their bike all day. … read more
Beautiful Godzilla: Livin’ The Daydream
It’s taken over a decade, but all my daydreams came true a couple of months ago at the Monthly Mystery Ride. … read more
Beautiful Godzilla: Highway Haikus
For better or worse, I’ve accepted that being a human with breasts, long hair and a voluptuous backside automatically subjects me to a barrage of verbal assaults the moment I step outside. … read more
Beautiful Godzilla: Burn The Bra, Not The Panties!
A company based out of Austin called Urbanist, dedicated to “saving the world from spandex,” has more than successfully funded a Kickstarter campaign (doubling their goal) to create sexy, padded women’s cycling underwear. … read more
Beautiful Godzilla: Cycling Behind-The-Scenes with Debbie Larsen
There are a lot of over-the-top personalities in the cycling world––myself included. These people often get recognized because a) they lead a lot of group rides or have some kind of bike-related job; b) they are always out on their bike, rain or shine; c) they’re incredibly loud and obnoxious cyclists. Then there are people like my friend, Debbie Larsen. … read more
Top 5: my bloody valentine
Twenty years of rumors, side projects and silence after my bloody valentine’s Kevin Shields announced the band’s progress on a follow-up to their shoegaze genesis, Loveless, my bloody valentine self-released m b v along with a deep sigh of relief. Though the band is the brainchild of Irish teenagers in the ’90s, my bloody valentine’s m b v stands out as an organic output incubated into perfection and birthed at just the right moment to head our generation’s reclamation of ’90s attitude and aesthetic. … read more
Beautiful Godzilla: Davey Davis For President!
About six years ago, the urban cycling scene in Salt Lake City was at the height of its glory, with Davey Davis at the helm … er, handlebars. … read more
