I get loads of people asking me about gear ratio's all the time, so here is a link to a neat little chart with all the info you need.
(click to view full size)
There is no such thing as a perfect ratio, it all depends on the type of riding you intend to do and the area in which you live. In our home town, Swansea, the city centre is flat and surrounding areas have some big fucken hills, so finding a ratio that suits can be tricky. As you know, hills are super fun to blaze down, but a bitch to get back up. I guess you need to do a bit of experimentation to see what suits, although I always recommend resisting the temptation of going too low as keeping up with traffic will be difficult and you will find you are spinning way too fast most of your time. People seem to always wanna go low so 'they can skid easily' or get up the hills, but remember that your legs will take time to get conditioned and with persistance everything will fall into place as you get fitter. I'm riding 47x17 on one bike and 42x16 on the other. I use the higher ratio for training or going longer distances, and the lower for pissing about around town.
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This picture was taken at the Carmarthen Velodrome which was built around 1900. It's well worth the trip up there. I went a few times last summer, and although the track is much longer than the current 'Olympic standard' (405meters are opposed to 250meters), it's still pretty fun. It sounds corny but you kinda get to feel the soul through the concrete.
After less than 4 full weeks riding a fixie I have already had a trip to the hospital, haha. Oh, how all those "you are mad riding without brakes" people are gonna laugh at me!!! I came out of the house yesterday with the bike and nearly slipped right on my ass, undeterred I pedalled off cause I live at the top of a hill and it's often more icy than the rest of the route into work. Because I am slightly mentally retarded I decided to take the steepest back road with the tightest bend at the end rather than the main road which would almost certainly have had grit put on it. Down the hill I shot, as slow as I could manage (not slow at all!), skids were going good then at the bottom I put in one last skid before the corner, hit some ice and went down like a sack of potatoes, strapped in, hands still on the bars and used my hip to skid myself to a stop. It all happened in slow mo just like in the films. I got up, looked at the state of my jeans, imagined the graze underneath then got back on the bike and continued to work. As expected my hip was cut to bits but I had a bigger concern...my pedal was scratched!!!
Throughout the day my wrist started to hurt more and more, the moaning increased, the pain got worse, the moaning went on and on and on. I decided it was probably just a bit of a sprain but went to the hospital the next day just to be sure, lo and behold I left in a bloody cast up to my freaking elbow! Turns out that I sprained it so badly a ligament yanked off a little bit of bone!!! Check out the x-rays below to see just how lame this injury really is, see the tiny little bit of white by the cursor? That is it, about a mm of bone and a cast up to my elbow, it sucks so bad. I've got to go back in a week for them to have a look at it again, fingers crossed they'll tell me all is well and I can ride the Critical Mass in the evening.
The moral of this story is: it's icy out there y'all so be careful!
I made myself a Morrissey spoke card in work today, I've got a postcard somewhere with him leaning on a bike that I spent about half hour on t'internet trying to find with no luck, I think I may be completely imagining this postcard. Anyways, I ended up robbing a screengrab from the "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" video off flickr for the front and put these lyrics from the song on the back:
I was delayed, I was way-laid An emergency stop I smelt the last ten seconds of life I crashed down on the crossbar And the pain was enough to make A shy, bald, buddhist reflect And plan a mass murder Who said I'd lied to her ?
I also laminated my work badge and stole an Apple sticker out of an iPod box to stick on the bike for extra hipster/nerd steez, aiiiiiight.
Check out the video for "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" below, it's awesome...
Hit up the comments with photos of your spoke cards.
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There are still a fairly limited amount of fixie videos available on DVD, as far as I know Bootleg Sessions is the only one to have made a sequel to date. I'm gonna review both of these at the same time because they are very similar, which I'm not sure is too great of a thing really. The Bootleg Sessions videos are very much trick based, there's not much in the way of traffic dodging or hill bombing, it's all bar spins and wheelies. They use a similar structure to skate videos, each rider has an individual section which is the best way to do it I suppose but I find that both of these videos suffer from less than great camera work, in fact they both look like some of the lenses were smeared with spittle! There is some debate as to whether the skate video structure works for fixie videos and I'm not sure what the answer is. I think it works to a degree but 'freestyle' trick based riding needs to be shot well, maybe locked off on a tripod with a nice depth of field etc, otherwise it just looks like some dude bouncing up and down whilst his mate films him with his camera phone, fine for youtube, not fine for DVD. MASH is a good example of how some decent camera work can really lift a video from just guys riding fast down a road to a very enjoyable thing to watch.
All that said both of the Bootleg Sessions videos feature some really insane tricks, if you are into technical stuff and can't tell Coronation Street from Citizen Kane then you'll love them. They feature street stuff and a fair amount of skate park action too from riders from all over the world, I'm really loving the style of the Japanese riders although they ride some ugly ass bikes! The first section on v.2 is some guy who rides UP a big set of steps and even rides down steps backwards, its absolute madness. The back of the v.2 box says "Bootleg Sessions v.2 details the efforts of a globally diverse group of wayward cyclists as they attempt to prove one thing: there is an infinite number of ways to have fun on a bicycle" and they accomplish that, albeit with a lack of camera steez.
I know this was more of a rant about shooting style rather than an in depth review of the videos but I think it is justified. Bootleg Sessions is paving the way for it to become the 411 (skate video magazine) of fixed gear videos but in order for it to accomplish that the overall aesthetic of the project could do with some cleaning up. Early skate videos weren't exactly very well shot but that was the 80's, this is 2009 and it is now very easy to get professional results with consumer equipment, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all the guys shooting around the world start to wipe their lens and hold the camera straight for future versions on this series.
Check out the trailers for both the videos below and then head on over to bootlegsessions.net where there is a ton more footage for you to shout "nooooo waaaaaaay" at as well as some killer photos...
JT recently received his spanking new, white Aerospoke firmly placing him at the top of the hipster pile in Swansea cause nobody else can afford the 7 million quid or however much they cost. I wonder if it will help him stay upright and not fall off every time he goes for a ride hahahahahaha. Check it out:
At the end of this month there is gonna be a fixed gear film / music night in Bristol. Watch Pedal and MASH on the big screen, have a few drinks, talk bikes and listen to some music, check out the blurb from The Cube Cinema:
Fri 23rd Jan - 7.30pm - £4adv
An evening of film, art and music dedicated to singlespeed and fixed gear bikes, presented by Denim and 45rpm.
In the auditorium screenings of some of the finest fixed gear footage available, featuring riders from New York and San Francisco, as they battle traffic, show off their skills, explore urban environments and injure themselves. Featuring the incredible stories of amazing riders and modelled on the style of skate and surf videos, these films bring out the style and beauty of fixed gear riders, and are landmarks in the emerging subculture of urban riding.
The venue will be taken over by Street artist 45rpm who alongside friends will be providing work associated with the single speed/fixed gear bike culture. Artists so far confirmed include Sums, Black Cloud, and 45rpm himself.
Music in the bar from Nadoone (Illegal Seagull/Splashback) playing hardcore, skatecore & fixedcore!!
