vaguely vanilla scented

Okay okay, this fancy single speed with Chris King hubs and a fancy rotating BB for chain tensioning which I spotted at Zeitgeist yesterday was technically not a fixed gear, but it sure is close.

and speaking of close, check out the close up of vanilla's signature over-the-top dropout:


Just to keep the whole thing truly fixie, there were two Vanillas at Zeitgeist yesterday, and they were laid on top of each other, right next to a Zeus track bike, ridden by a girl who knocked them over moving her bike. See, there IS justice - it's just sad.

Not a classic rendezvous

Ugh. Chuck Schmidt just posted to the fixie list that he's back from the hospital after getting whacked by an SUV on his Waterford fixie. How's this for a terrifying description of an injury:

There's an SUV coming towards me (I'm probably traveling 18-22 mph down the incline) and in an instant the driver turns in front of me to enter their driveway. That's my last recollection till the guys in the emergency vehicle ask my wife's name and number as they cut away my mussette's strap and shoulder of my Assos jersey to see where the massive amount of blood is coming from.

Next I'm in Emergency at Huntington Hospital about a mile from the accident scene (picture a resort/spa hotel and I'm not exaggerating),seeing my wife Sherry (we live about two miles from the hospital),getting a full body CT scan, and then to surgery to fix the five+ inch gash across the right side of my neck. Apparently I went through the right side window of the SUV with my helmeted head and gashed my neck on the glass; my face is untouched, however my Giro helmet is completely smashed and broken at the front. The surgeon finds that there is a nick in my jugular vein and lots of glass still in the wound. The x-raysreveal that my collar bone is broken in two places, my shoulder blade is broken in two places, my rib is broken along with a badly bruised right lung; the doctor says luckily the nerves in my neck aren't severed which would have paralyzed my right arm and right side of my face.
...
Now for the important news... how's the '02 black and polished stainless Waterford Road/Track. The bike was put into the emergency vehicle at the scene of the accident and placed in the walk-in shower at the hospital Emergency room (real VIP treatment) where my wife picked it up and took it home while I was in surgery. I looked at the bike yesterday evening and this morning an here's what I found. The bars and seat still point straight ahead, a gash in the cork bar tape on the right bar, a broken left bar end plug, the brake lever on the left is a few degrees off from straight ahead and has a small scuff at the bottom, a white paint mark on the left side of the top tube (from my shoe grazing the top tube?), a very small scuff on the left side of the Brooks Flite with a few tiny scratches across one of the rivets, a few light scratches on the left end of the rear track hub axle, two 1/8 inch paint chips down to primer on right chain stay, AND THAT'S IT!!!

If that doesn't make you cringe just a bit.

Reading Chuck's email made me think of Tommy McBride, who I used to ride with at Cannonball. Not that the situation was similar, Chuck almost died because of someone's ignorance, Tommy died because someone made a decision to kill him - but both SUV-bike collisions serve to remind that a bicycle and a human body are gonna lose every time against 2000Kgs of steel.

better late than never

well i've finally gotten my sorry arse in gear and done contributed some wordage.
i have been mighty slack of late. mainly beacuse i am the product of poor genetic stock but also because of 'day job' and trying to sort things out for my impending wedding day in sunny s.f.
a big "yo!" to all those fixie comrades out there who are making the effort to tune in.
post comments, email us, submit stuff, send pictures and tell us where to grow.
we will listen.
yo!fixie
gordon

put in a world of vintage hurt

Steve Johnson from the fixed gear list posted a link this burly picture from the American Cyclery website - the expression "world of hurt" comes to mind...

ten fish i slam in a net

quite a funny row on craigslist SF about track bikes and hipsters today features such winning barbs as:
WTB: track bike, trucker hat, glasses, etc.
Date: 2004-09-01, 2:02PM PDT
I would like to become a hipster. I've been a hippie, a gangsta, a goth, a preppy. I would like to move from the Marina to the Mission. I also seek contributions so that i may attend art school. I am also seeking a free haircult and donations of hair products. Thank you, and how DO you stop without brakes? Gee, that seems really difficult. I already have an insecure personality and a pompous attitude, and i'm trying to find the right look to express them.

and:

My Track Bike and Trucker Hat makes me look Cool!

Date: 2004-08-25, 11:26AM PDT
Track bikes are so passe, unless you really ride them on a track! They have become the symbol of the pseudo-artiste, hipster crowd. I cringe whenever i see these icons of trendiness: track bikes, guys with the "nerd" glasses and just got out of bed hair perfectly moussed, the i'm in art school for which my suburban parents are footing the bill while i embrace urban fo' life, trucker hats with beer or john deere patches. This look is becoming a uniform for anyone who identifies with the hipster culture, so predictable!!! As is the attitude found with this look. My unsolicited two cents...

There are of course, replies in defense of hipsters on track bikes:

Re: WTB: track bike, trucker hat, glasses, etc. (western addition)

Date: 2004-09-02, 4:33AM PDT
Why do so many of you people care about hipsters so much? If you saw me on my fixie or track bikes you would just assume that I was a hipster and hate me. Why though? I have been riding different types of road bikes for over a decade. I was a design major, yes, is that wrong? Is art wrong? Why can't I just ride my damn bike and dress how I want without people giving me shit? I don't care about what you ride or what you wear. Trucker hats are so over anyhow. Also, if in your little story you live in the Marina and are moving to the Mission, why would you need donations? Aren't you implying that you are rich? I am not rich haha, I wish I were, but I am not, I am just a poor kid who loves art, cool bikes and not trucker hats. I am not insecure, I am a bit pretentious, but I just consider that a matter of taste. My hair might look funny to you but so what? I still work hard, give back to my community, care about those around me and I am a pretty nice guy too. I really think all of you should stop giving a damn about hipsters though because I know they don't give a damn about you. Hopefully, if I run in to you at the Arrow, we can talk Campy, Cinelli and hell, we can even talk about freewheels! <3 fixie lover/hipster lover <3

but my favorite is the one that emphasizes what all this really means: merchandising!

RE: track bikes are stupid
Date: 2004-08-31, 9:29PM PDT
It's true, track bikes are played, just like trucker hats, only trucket hats are even more played (come on: Ashton Kutcher wears one and he's dating, like, an old lady who was in a buncha movies with that guy Rob Lowe who gest busy on video tape with underage chycks in hotel rooms and we all know the 80s weren't irony-worthy even in the 80s, not that I probably wouldn't take some advantage of being some washed up 80s star to score hot young thangs, but yeah, dude, trucker hats?). Hell, I was riding a track bike on the street four years ago in the Midwest and I am so not hip it hurts (I even use a backpack instead of a messenger bag). I've got plenty of other uncool friends who were riding track bikes there before me. It's taken this long to get from NYC to the midwest to the coast? Oh, yeah, I forgot, there are hills out here, not like the Great Plains or Atlantic Coast where it makes sense to have only one gear, but sometimes it's better to look good than to feel good, right? Go hipsters, never stray from the Valencia/Market corridor. Midwest rules.

> A used track bike? Forget about it. For some reason everyone thinks it's ok to
> charge the same price for a "retro" steel track bike as they would for a new
> geared bike with a full gruppo.

It's the perfect time to get them to buy "retro" at way over the practical value- get rid of that old, mid-level Italian frame for hundreds more than it's worth! The problem is getting people to shell out real bucks for real quality and performance (someone please buy the track frame I listed, even if it is a new, aero aluminum compact frame).

> Also, it would be nice to see non-hipsters on track bikes for a change.
> There's nothing wrong with being a hipster and there's nothing wrong with
> track bikes, but must EVERY track bike rider also be a hipster?

What, "nothing wrong with being a hipster"? There's *everything* wrong with being a hipster. On the other hand, if the hipsters and the eurowannaberoadiesnobs could appreciate each other just riding bikes, maybe the world could be a better place. If that doesn't happen, I'd settle for people who try to ride fixies without brakes putting the brakes back on until they learn to ride instead of giving track riders a bad name with their no-skills-spunout-flailing-trying-to-act-badass-scaring-peds routine.

yo fixie is learning. learning hurts. 

whilst i while, so whiles a whistler

The whistling song from kill bill sounds great in my new hallway. I am the first fixie in the building but I have spotted: 1 Riv singlespeed (live) and 1 vintage Paramount (10 gears!) with chromed Nervex lugs (work). No complaints.