Chances are if you’ve been riding fixed for a good amount of time you’ve heard of COG Magazine. One of the premiere fixed specific publications is now into its fifth year and still going strong. I had the opportunity thanks to the fine people at Chrome, namely Corinne, to kick around in a pair of the new COG x Chrome collabo Southside shoe. In conjunction with that I put together this little piece below on how I see COG fitting into our bike culture with a mini look at these fresh kicks. I’m stoked for both these companies who obviously love bikes!

The one thing that I feel puts COG atop the heap of fixed gear media these days is there dedication to what they do. There isn’t a bombardment of media coming from the COG headquarters trying to catch your attention at every avenue. Their website is modest and informative. Logging on you see a site easy on the eyes with a nice glance at what they do. However, as nice a site as it I’d say it remains a bit reserved. Some people who are more web conscious may find this annoying, but when you pick up an issue of COG you’re not seeing the same articles and photos regurgitated from the web into a magazine. Instead you see fresh images, paragraphs and reviews that you’ll surely be interested in. I respect this. In reality COG certainly has the resources to build a killer site but that’s not what they love!

My personal experiences with the people behind COG have certainly be positive. In the past few years that I’ve had the opportunity to travel the country to various events I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a some of the dudes in charge. A couple trips to the Midwest, Interbike and some time in SF for Red Bull Ride and Style saw me on the other end of one of their photographer Kevin Sparrow’s lense. The dudes got mad skill with his camera and takes some stellar shots for the magazine. The fact that they’re all super nice doesn’t hurt either

Flipping through the pages you can see that COG legitimately tries to cover as many events a they possibly can. As the the “scene”, for lack of a better word, has grown into what it is they’ve been at or tried to have coverage from as many events, trips and polo tournaments as they possibly can. We’re not talking some small one page features or a few photos either. If it’s a happening event there’s usually a good amount of quality content for us to put our eyes on. Should it be Matt Lingo or Dave Beard taking trips with SE or shooting some sick race flicks in SF at Ride and Style…they know what they’re doing, what we want to see and how to get it. What we end up with is a nice piece of publication that we can leave on our coffee tables for days but can also pop into the bathroom with or collect over the years.

The COG x Chrome Southside:

Soooo the spark behind this little rant is the new foot covers you see above that are hitting the streets from Chrome. I’ve been rocking mine and man are they the business. These are the third pair of Chrome shoes I’ve had and I’d have to say that comfort wise they’ve been the best. I really dig the embosed logos on the tongue and rear. The tongue piece is a homage to COG as is the colorful insole. The rear embossing is the well know Chrome logo. I like the look of the leather outter and can tell these bad boys are going to look sicker as break ‘em in more. All in all a nice comfy shoe from Chrome and Cog that I can’t wait to run into the ground on my trick bike and at work. Collabo well done guys! Grab yourself a pair right here…