I like weak tea but this is different this is the howies tee of the week. You probably know the deal by now, simply answer a pip easy question below and the tee will be yours.

This one is called Lighten Up and is for all the font nerds amongst you.

Did you know..? Helvetica was designed way back in 1957 by a Mr Max Miedinger.

The name Helvetica comes from ‘Confoederatio Helvetica’, the Latin name for Switzerland.

Helvetica has been used for a zillion products and services, including American Airlines, Lufthansa, Jeep, the New York subway and is the font on your iPod or iPhone interface, NASA even used it on the Space Shuttle.

She is a true beauty that’s for sure (I think if Helvetica was a woman she would be dynamic, stylish – yet understated, flexible and rather popular).

So with a wink and a nod, here’s our little tribute.

To win this beauty do this: Font sounds like Fonz, so simply send me a picture of the Fonz, the best effort will win the tee.

Send your Fonzies to [email protected] with your address and tee shirt size.

Last weeks winner was Oscar Chicken who sent this odd story about tandems.

As more of a downhill/bmx play around ridder, I don’t have many tandem stories to share, but there i do have one. A couple of months ago i signed up to be a tandem ridder for the blind. I guess this is really a tip, not so much of a story, for those about to take up the noble gentlemanly pedal-cycling scare the crap out of yourself escapade of tandem ridding.

All of the applicants including myself had been invited to a blind awareness and tandem taster session. It came the time to get on the back of a tandem blind folded and to be taken off on a ride. This was unbelievably the least scariest part as we all had to be paired up. Luckily I was kept away from all of the deodorant dodging, baggy wizard sleeved, bearded hippies just waiting to talk lentils. I ended up sharing with Claire, still a little older than me but by far the hottest and most interesting person there. Also lucky for me i got to go first at the back blind folded. Not as bad as it sounds.

So did the bit on the back, it went ok, one or two sketchy stops whilst Claire got used to the handling. Now it was my turn to be up front, without the blind fold. As a bike mechanic by day I’ve had the opportunity to ride tandems before so getting to grips with it wasn’t too hard. There we were, ridding along the road, all going smoothly and getting the odd look from pedestrians. I thought in an incredibly macho way “YEAH, this is easy, its going great”(in a Ron Burgundy look at the guns sort of way). Although one thing was about to go wrong, I say “wrong” not dent Claire’s pride. I don’t think I’ve ever had such an intense distraction whilst ridding a bike. Claire let out a little yelp, at our high speed her skirt had shot up and she started to tell me how everyone could probably see her knickers. Every one apart from me, no matter how many blind spot checks i did my head didn’t manage to turn to the right angle. I never did see those pants.

So the morel of the story is either get on a tandem with one of the old crusty’s; don’t go with the hot girl wearing a skirt or get one of those little wing mirrors you can put on your helmet. I’m waiting to try this but unfortunately I wont be able to this summer as last week i broke my leg, on the way to my pump track with mates. There wont be ridding tandems with Claire for the rest of the summer, no ridding at all.

howies exclusive tee of the week