Monday, October 12, 2009

Wheeltags Helps Save the Boobs!

We gotta give credit to our neighbors up north. With October being breast cancer awareness month, the Re-think Breast Cancer charity in Toronto has pushed the puritanical American envelope with a super fun PSA video to help support their events. Watch it on youtube below.










Although Wheeltags doesn't have the chops the pop the boobs out of the sportsbra, we do know that exercising more than 4 hours a week will reduce a women's risk of the nasty BC by 40%! That's one sweet reason to keep the wheels in motion. With the amount of women riding the roads these days, and our recent involvement with the Pablove Foundation, we felt as though we could be doing something more, and with a little Wheeltags funk.

With TWO new Breast Cancer designs, you can cover your rims with a some vinyl-DO-goodness. Check out some pics below:






Of course, 10% of our Breast Cancer Wheeltags will be donated to the Susan G. Komen For the Cure. Check out the Wheeltags site, spread the good word and cover your rims with pride!

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Pablove and Wheeltags

In this day and age, it is becoming impossible not to be associated by the shameless ravages of cancer. In the Wheeltags clan alone, we have been touched by the shocking loss of grandparents, a brother-in-law and a father-in-law. Painfull and without consideration of age, race, creed or passion of life, the loss of a loved one to cancer is heartbreaking on the best of days.




When we were contacted by Rory Wilson of DangerBird Records to print some custom Wheeltags for their team, we were happy to oblige. Wheeltags doesn't make it a habit to google our clients, so we guided Rory through the custom process and moved on with our business, bike-riding lives. When the artwork was approved, our fingers were itching to learn more about "Pablove". With the striking pink hearts and hand holding figures, our creative brains were tweaked and we had to learn more.




When stumbling across the PABLOg we immediately contacted Rory with an offer to do, well, more. The Pablove Foundation was created by Jeff Castelaz in honor of his son Pablo, who lost his battle to bilateral Wilm's Tumor at the age of 6 on June 27th, 2009. Our hearts were breaking as we read Jeff's open and raw blog. What started as an initiative to spread more awareness about children's cancer has spread into his own passion for cycling and music.




Heading across the states on a bike train of love, Jeff will be riding across the US on his two wheels with lots and lots of support along the way. His route is meant to bring more awareness to children's cancer and encourage people to join in the fight! With merch and sponsorship opportunities to help support the ride, the site is full of good stuff, even some Lance Armstrong bits to widen the cause. We were pleased to do our small part in assisting Jeff to trick out his bike with Pablove Wheeltags bits. We wish him and his supporters well along their long southern route.




Below is a pic of a tricked out Pablove bike.







Want to learn more? Click here to visit the Pablove site and read about Jeff, Pablo and his trek across the US!




Monday, August 31, 2009

Wheeltags Rocks Ironman Louisville 2009!

Wheeltags spent the better part of the last five days knee deep in Tri-Heaven. The good folks at Ironman offered us an opportunity we couldn't refuse - a space for showing the Wheeltags product and our new offering - IRONMAN Wheeltags at Ironman Louisville 2009! We had two designs with the world-renowned "M-dot" brand as well as an IronGIRL tag for all the ladies. Take a look at the new designs below, visit our site to see 'em all!







It was an awesome weekend and the Wheeltags crew had a great time meeting the Ironman athletes before they headed into a day of pain! Our b-caps are off to them - marathon, century ride and a 2 mile swim DOES make for one hard-core athlete. We were pleased to have Mindy Nicolet on hand to show off her tricked-out Cervelo P3 ride, complete with a Wheeltags install. She rocked a mean chicken on Sunday with a scorching 11:34:12 finish! Mindy has been a personal friend and supportive fan of the Wheeltags biz since our inception (she even let us use her bod for some stunning Wheeltags pics) and we wished her well. Although we suspect the cookin' hot Wheeltags had something to do with it!

If you missed us in Louisville - come say hello in Madison Wisconsin on September 13th, 2009! We will be on hand - in the Expo area - talking vinyl rim-goodness on the three days leading up to the main event.
Thanks again to the Ironman team for having us on hand and congrats to ALL the Ironman athletes!




Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Biker Chicks Unite with Wheeltags!

We love chicks on wheels. With a female co-owner in the Wheeltags fold, us ladies in the bike-boy biz need to stick together and there just aren't enough women on bikes, at least that's what we think. You will see men thrusting their gears around on lunch time rides or fast Fridays, but where are da women at? Trying to squeeze in solo rides after the kids have been dropped off, the kitchen cleaned up, the bills paid, the dog walked, the project completed for a nasty client and 5 million other doo-dads and do-ends that keep piling up. Always one to sacrifice themselves for the greater good - who is out there encouraging female cyclists to put their quads first, and throw on their kit for the local crit race on Saturday?

BikeClicks, the good folks down in Louisville Kentucky have had enough of this man-whee-ly world too! With a healthy dose of competitive spirit and a good "can-do" 'tude they are hosting a most stupendous Women' Race Clinic featuring Nicola Cranmer of ProMan Hit Squad.


Join them for clinics on Getting Started in Racing, Developing Women’s Squads, Race Tactics & Strategy and much more. Weekend will include continental breakfast and box lunch on Saturday, August 29th with clinics and group ride. Concludes with Women’s Only racing on Sunday, August 30th.

How sweet is that? Of course, Wheeltags will be handed out in style to the winning ladies on Sunday. What better way to trick out your dubs than with a little Wheeltags goodness. Stop by, join in - either way embrace the BikeClicks cycling spirit and encourage the ladies in your life to run with two-wheels!

Learn more - click here to visit the BikeClicks site!

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Stylish Wheel Graphics at the Tour de France

As the rest of the cycling world re-hashes the drama of this year's Tour - we are turning our attention to some of the sweet rolling wheels! We HAVE to give credit to Bontrager and TREK for embracing the Lance-ness of Mr. Armstrong and throwing out some fantastic, artist designed wheel graphics. These guys know how to throw a good wheel party and ALL of Lance's latest rides have included some element of wicked sweet rim graphics. From KAWS, Marc Newson and Damien Hirst to name few - these artist-designed rims help complete an overall creative, charitable (and no-doubt branding) objective.

The beauty of Bontrager's embrace of the kicked up wheel graphic proves the power of customization - as Zack Vestal of VeloNews recently put it in this article that "new and highly customized bike graphics are a great way for bicycle and equipment brands to attract attention. Sponsors want the media attention, and they want the teams to feel important, while riders benefit from the psychological boost of having a new (but familiar) personalized frame, saddle or wheelset."

We couldn't agree more, and hope that Lance's return to the peloton will continue to force open the wheel graphic envelope. After all, this "need" for customization was pegged in 1992 as an approaching storm in the land of brand management - Stephen King (not THAT Stephen King, the marketing expert) stated that confident, mature, affluent consumers will breed rapant individualism. Here's hoping it breeds some more deep rim wheels too - all the more room for Wheeltags goodness!

Check out some more pics (thanks to Tyler at Bike Rumor) and full stories about Lance's custom Tour Bikes on bikerumor.com

Below are SOME photos of sir-Lance-Alot's sweet wheels. There are more, I know, but I can't turn this into a Bontrager/Lance love fest page.







Friday, July 24, 2009

Wheeltags sponsors Maillot Jaune!

Wheeltags is proud to sponsor the Maillot Jaune race in Fenton Michigan tomorrow the 25th. We like to spread good vinyl karma to the racing community, and this local/regional road race in Michigan has got the goods. Thanks to Karey Collins for promoting us and best of luck to the cyclists entered to rock a mighty chicken. It is sure to be a great day of racing, and even better for the winning riders who get an entire set of Wheeltags to bling up their bikes. Check out the race propaganda below:


If you are interested in having Wheeltags at your next race, drop us a line - we are always open to helping out local racing when we can!



Visit Cycle Fit to learn more about the race.


Friday, July 10, 2009

"Ride the TOUR Bus" Wheeltags Contest


As the drama unfolds during the Tour, get in on the action with the Wheeltags contest. FREE stuff all throughout the Tour, with the grand-daddy prize - a set of custom tags for FREE.


We have also launched a NEW set of Tour tags - the "DIDI" design to rock your rims. Complete with a jumping diablo, this tag is for a true Tour junkie.


Join our contest, or just visit the site to cruise through the designs. Everyone that signs-up will also be able to join in on random trivia questions, with more FREE tags as prizes!



Visit Wheeltags NOW and get yourself all signed up for the "Ride the TOUR Bus" Contest