Every so often I'll get someting like the above (from Carlo in Italy) that makes me want to travel to someplace I've never been, ride with people I've never met, and experience cycling in a way I never have before.
More often, though, when wanderlust bites I'll watch videos on YouTube and see things that make me want to stay right where I am until this whole thing blows over. Here are a few such videos:
Japan
Riders push their bikes and themselves to the limit by riding them slowly and occasionally skidding while being videotaped from a car.
UK
Riders push their bikes and themselves to the limit by not riding them at all.
Portland
Riders push our attention spans to the limit by riding slowly on grass.
More Portland
Riders push social protest to the limit and "stick" it to the man so radically that Huey P. Newton seems like Huey Lewis in comparison.
Anytown USA
Over seven minutes of the fixed-gear trend jumping the shark over and over and over again. I recommend watching the very end, though, if you can stand it. Pardon the spoiler, but it involves a neon green cycling cap, a knife, and a threat to brake cables. It will chill you to the bone.
???
The straight chainline shot has become the beaver shot of bike porn. Here it is in actual motion. As I type this, it has been viewed over 7,000 times. I hear it's finally going to get a theatrical release--in an interrogation room at Guantanamo.
70 comments:
BSNYC, did you make this?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kAO4EVMlpwM
See the future. We know where this will all end up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48C_KHwt53c
I think that last guy is trying to get some space in Sheldon Brown's gallery of severed fingers.
Mr. Complaint,
I think in bike ballet the nouveau fixed-gear riders and the roadies have finally found something to unite them: pointless tricks AND matching tights!
--BSNYC
seeing the track stand video makes me hope that if any bike snob readers ever happen to come across such a competition they sound off a blow horn or some other device to startle them such that they tumble over - am I being too cruel? maybe vegan bees, a very large powerful fan - would that be more humane?
Those kids playing around on the roof are too fat to actually ride. Hence, I'd love to see him catch up to a guy with a derailer and "cut his cables or whatever they're called"...
I can't wait till these losers start selling their frames and components when the trend dies out. Or until winter comes, whichever is first.
A comment on the chainline video:
"Damn, you got good spin on that chainline. Mine's tight so she'll only spin like 1.5 times around. Better workout that way"
I'm going to go sob in the corner now.
I think I'm going to take up roller blading.
Um, how do you wear a cog down like that in two months? Either he's putting in 1,000 miles a day, or he tightens his chain via the time-honored "crowbar between the tire and bottom bracket" method. I'm scared.
This thread is pretty hilarious BSNYC. I do have to tell you I am severely disappointed about my failure to show up in the Stick Stopping video since I was there. I almost made it, but was brutally rebuffed. Oh well, I'll just have to continue to enjoy the underwear I won at the event. Nice work though, all of these are hideous examples of fixed gear mania. The obsurdity is even too painful for a track rider to stomach. I'm going to purge now, thanks.
Cheers!
Matt in Seattle
I used to love to ride my fixie until I started reading about some of the dumbasses with their hipster bikes making YouTube videos of AeroSpoke wheels all the while posting Missed Connections on Craigslist....
>>>>Um, how do you wear a cog down like that in two months?
Easy. The old fashioned Eye-talian national velo team coaching directive instructs new racers on the two month winter basebuilding phase: "First, ride at least 10,000 kilometers on a fixed gear bike."** Snob's correspondent is probably an Eye-talian pro who rode in the 1956 Giro. Either that, or in a fit of supreme egotism he is a hipster who installed a chain meant for a 32 ton Besche PowerHammer - y'know, 'cuz he cranks mad wattage and a SRAM 9 speed just wasn't going to cut it.
**Yes, it's true. I know it sounds like an insane oxycodone-fueled hallucination, but people who race sometimes actually do actual road training on fixed gear bicycles, typically fixie conversions of old Japanese or Eye-tie bikes, occasionally track bikes (though not often... what kind of a turkey would ride a bike as painful as a track bike for anything more than 4,000 meters, anyhow?) For the most part, the bikes piloted by these rolling anachronisms do not feature powdercoated frames, aero front wheels, or the sporting of skinny jeans and seat tube bandanas - though their rides (if properly done) actually start and end at a good coffee shop. Yep, serious riders on the road on fixed gears... mine eyes have seen the glory.
Next up on Ripley's Believe it or Not, The Bike Edition: Hipster Spotted on Practical Geared Cross Bike with Pannniers and Alex Wheels; NYC Messenger Stops at Red Lights; and, (believe it or not!) Local Racer Courteous to Recumbent Pilot.
Look at what the bike babes are doing to bicycle prices, Bike Snob.
This is terrible.
http://newyork.craigslist.org/jsy/bik/419694038.html
"How do you wear a cog down in 2 months?" Easy. First, 53x13? WTF? There's so little chain wrap on a 13-tooth cog (and it's a damn Hyperglide cog no less) that there's probably only 2 or 3 teeth supporting the entire pedaling load. Get a proper single-speed BMX cog that has taller teeth so the chain doesn't slip. Better yet, get a larger cog, too.
On top of that, I'd bet 24 links of this guy's chain measure 13 inches.
...t-stand vids...herd instinct...
...overalll...failure of a species to utilize its potential...
...likely outcome...doomed for extinction...
signed:::good luck...chuck darwin
Having been away from the "bike scene" for a number of years, I may just have to go away again. I've added a special filter to my computer that blocks the term "fixie conversion." And alas, I will probably never do a trackstand in the light of day ever again.
I don't know what Carlo's doing to wear his cogs so quickly, but riding his bike a lot is doubtless part of the equation. I don't think he did it timing his track stands or videotaping his chainline. Who knows, maybe bad chainline is partially to blame for his accelerated cog wear. But it's better than obsessing over it and posting it on Youtube.
--BSNYC
I'm trying to figure out exactly what that guy's trying to do with that knife. Is he going to try to saw through steel and aluminum parts with the knife? Is he going to cut someone (or more likely, himself)? Is he performing some kind of interpretive dance? Is he going to realize that the combination of polka-dots and body fat makes him look like a planetarium?
You weren't kidding, BSNYC, that really is going to haunt me for a good long while.
There's plenty of fodder on YouTube for making fun of hipsters, fixie riders, MTBers, BMXers and whatnot, but what do roadies post to YouTube besides that one ride where Lance burned Jan on L'Alpe D'Huez?
Scott,
Roadies are mostly obsessed with posting their training logs and power output, which works "better" in print than in video form. I did find this VO2 test though. In some ways more chilling than the guy with the knife:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=N1Qvm7Vgadc
--BSNYC
Scott - we post videos of roadies getting into fistfights in roadraces (filed under Humor, Pathetic), long boring rambles about how bad we suffered in a local roadrace or training ride, pictures of our disgusting roadrash, more wattage figures, and bitchy comments on other peoples' websites. It is all endlessly fascinating to other roadracers. Sure, it ain't much, but when you give up food, booze, your social life, and the idea that your legs aren't supposed to hurt all the time, you don't have a lot left. It's like joining the priesthood, except you date women and are probably going to hell for wanting to go all Inquisition on most car operators. On the positive side, roadracers typically have much higher hematocrit levels than your average Franciscan, though we committed the sin of envy w/r/t Mother Theresa, for being able to maintain her 91 pound pure climber's build seemingly effortlessly.
Seeing a few of the fixie trick videos in a row made me start to think about those Shriner guys in their little cars zooming around doing figure 8's during a parade. Is that what's next? A group of fixies doing synchronized skids and tail whips with one leg 15 years from now during a 4th of July parade and I'll say, "Remember them fixies? That was a crazy fad; I guess some people still do it! Good for them!"
matt that's not you in a kilt at the beginning?
I got a nice nap in during the seven minute long video.
BSNYC,
If you do have some wanderlust to come down to Portland, we can do the Brewery by Bike tour. This year we did about 10 breweries in 10 or 11 hours.
We thought about a video but the pictures didn't even make sense by the end of it.
best bike for this off season:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/bikes/how-to-make-a-shopping-cart-bike-298382.php
schmalz
You owe me 7'32" of my life back for that one...Been riding a long time, big ol' fat boy who loves riding the bike just for the pleasure of being on the bike. This trendoid crap is making me puke. First the ski scene got phucked over by the hipster doofus crowd, now it's cycling. Hopefully a gene pool lifeguard will eventually remove these stains through a serendipitous series of Darwinian events.
"OK, Francis lighten up". Thank you bigfan I now have that 0:7:32 back plus some extra time. Excellent find.
Call me naive, but how in the hell did the ski scene get "phucked over" by hipsters? I think you don't know who these "hipsters" in question are.
That track stand comp was at London Calling-a MESSENGER ONLY event!So those guys you're ragging on for not riding their bikes do-and more than any non messenger will ever really understand!Track standing and it's variations in messenger culture comes from the sheer boredom of having to wait for lights to change-over and over again(when you HAVE to)!As for the rest of those vids-fukkin hipsters stealin' our style!!!!!!
@Ronald
I'm pretty sure trackstanding's been around longer than traffic lights.
anonymous 5:45-
It's in the eye of the beholder and your subtle assertion that I am some moronic MidAmerica backwoods trailer trash is mildly annoying. I view a "hipster" as any vacuous, vapid dilettante attached to whatever "scene"; madly pedaling backwards in the mistaken belief that s/he is instead leading edge. I apologize for posting on this blog before accurately measuring up to your pseudosuperior standards.
Just to point out, this doesn't make any sense either.
`I apologize for posting on this blog before accurately measuring up to your pseudosuperior standards.'
The "ANYTOWN USA" is surely meant to be a comedy! I laughed my ass of when the fat fell off his bike trying a trick.
Heckler, you couldn't have misinterpreted my message any more than you did, and you made some pretty wild inferences along the way. Your shrink can analyze your inferiority complex for you, but I was simply asserting that I don't think you understand "hipsters," in the sense that the word is used on this blog, and presently in the world at large, based on your assertion that hipsters ruined skiing. If you want to define it so loosely that it looses it's meaning, that's your prerogative, but don't expect anyone else to understand you. The meaning of the word, in this context, is very succinctly presented in the first YouTube link at the top of the comments page here.
Jim, your monk/roadie rant made me LOL.
I love the Bike Ballet video, because those guys are 3 billion times better than any trick fixie rider I've seen, and it totally undermines the whole "I'm so fucking macho, punk, and tough" part of learning fixie tricks.
Anon 5:45
Heckler may be referring to the influx of pot-smoking snowboarders who spent their time crowding up the lifts to places they couldn't actually board just so they could "be cool" and smoke weed out of sight of the ski patrol (this is, of course, when they weren't in the lodge wearing things like jeans or showing bare midriffs). For those of us that use the lifts to difficult ski runs because, well, we want to ski difficult runs, these people are infuriating.
Luckily the trend seems to have petered out somewhat. The pot-smoking doofuses realized that lift tickets are expensive and postholing is a terrible alternative, so they found other things to do and other people to annoy.
You should all buy this shirt.
http://www.cafepress.com/saveportland
hey Zach-I know that-I was merely pointing out why it's a part of any messenger event-not trying to lay claim to inventing it-shit-it's been around as long as the bicycle-Thomas Edison made a film featuring it and other fixed tricks well over 100 years ago......when am I gonna remember how to punctuate?????
Can it be real? It is! A Fixed Gear CASUAL ENCOUNTER!
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/cas/420259379.html
i didn't know you could get gorilla coffee anywhere near battery park.
but damn, those morons in kennewick really make me sad about people.
Um, its a trackstand competition at a messenger event..... its to see who can trackstand the longest while gradually removing limbs from their bike.... probably displayed on youtube so people like myself who travelled halfway round the world to attend said messenger event could watch it and get a glimpse of themselves on the wonder of the world wide web.... sorry to offend but why watch it?? were you expecting maybe some kind of action when the video was entitled "track stand"?? ah well. we can't all be ultra scathing and sarcastic.
Great blog by the way bloke. I'm a huge fan.
Lane,
Excellent point. I guess that might also explain why I was so disappointed with the film "Snakes on a Plane." I mean, what was with all the snakes? And the whole thing takes place on an airplane! Kind of like the movie "Airplane," come to think of it. Ah, it all makes sense now...
--BSNYC
BEST! BIKE!! VIDEO!!! EVER!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyW9864AXVk
It has Chuck Taylors, bar spins, fixed gears, Lori Laughlin as Christian doing tricks without a chain on her bike (01:40-01:43), "Send me an angel", and sequins under spotlights.
Could you ask for anything to be more perfect? If this isn't Utopia, I don't know what is.
Messengers who travel the world attending trackstand competitions should be ashamed of themselves. I'm a carpenter. Should I go to the next nail-hammering competition in Norway? Get a life, not a life-style.
Unintentionally ironic post:
http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/2007...arlGumeson.htm
Either this guy missed the big letters or somehow can't see the conflict between blowing dough on a bike and then being vain enough to post pictures of it under "Imagine No Possessions"
Ahhhh--the mid 20s hispter/art student crowd. Communism is good and possessions are the root of all evil, except of course for my designer jeans, belt, shoes, fixie, messenger bag, and "fair trade" coffee.
Unintentionally ironic post:
www.fixedgeargallery.com/2007...arlGumeson.htm
Either this guy missed the big letters or somehow can't see the conflict between blowing dough on a bike and then being vain enough to post pictures of it under "Imagine No Possessions"
Ahhhh--the mid 20s hispter/art student crowd. Communism is good and possessions are the root of all evil, except of course for my designer jeans, belt, shoes, fixie, messenger bag, and "fair trade" coffee.
"Anonymous said...
Messengers who travel the world attending trackstand competitions should be ashamed of themselves. I'm a carpenter. Should I go to the next nail-hammering competition in Norway? Get a life, not a life-style.
September 12, 2007 10:55 AM"
You help prove our point Ano, no one in Norway gives a shit about you swinging a hammer. You can't go to Norway and find a carpenter and ask to crash on their couch. Messengers, however, can do that. We care about each other and being a messenger means something to other messengers. I don't know if you understand this, but traveling the world and meeting old/new friends while experiencing their culture is a life. It's a pretty good life and we like it that way. If I hadn't been so 'shameless' and didn't go to Dublin for an event I would never have witnessed the Texas Twins triumph of the Melbourn Massive. You don't even know what I'm talking about, but Lane does. See you in Toronto?
Cheers!
Matt in Seattle
"Anonymous said...
matt that's not you in a kilt at the beginning?
September 11, 2007 3:54 PM"
I can't tell, but that was the first day I ever wore drawers with my kilt. It was weird. You know what I'm talking about with Norway and all that stuff too, right?
Cheers!
Matt in Seattle
Only way I know to wear a cog like that in two months is to replace your teflon lube with iron filings...
"The straight chainline shot has become the beaver shot of bike porn."
Fucking classic...
...all the aggression & confusion of the last 8 or 9 posts along w/ the fact that i'm just not hip leads me to believe that i'd like to go to norway & nail some beaver...
...just saying...
What's so special about a straight chain-line? My hub geared shopping/commuter bike with a basket on the front has a straight chain-line. Does that mean I've become cool at last?
The track-stand competition seems quintessentially English. Arcane rules and rituals... Nothing much happens... Just like cricket.
"The straight chainline shot has become the beaver shot of bike porn." NO....
It's not the 'beaver shot', it's the "money shot"!
Leave the porn to me ok?!
Porn Snob NYC
PSNYC,
Only if White Lightning is involved.
(Apologies for that one.)
--BSNYC
...whoa, ya, bikesnob...but you are correct sir...
...p-snob may have to give up that name...
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