Bike Forums - FX isn’t a hybrid

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- - FX isn’t a hybrid (https://www.bikeforums.net/hybrid-bicycles/652291-fx-isnit-hybrid.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by desertdork (Post 12311180)

Whoa, just read thru all the posts since someone awakened this sleeping giant of a thread. The road forum doesn't have all the fun afterall. The pointed comments about one poster's modifications for a rider with particular physical limitations sets the thread afire. Then we learn how your coincidental (and possibly unavoidable) background appearance somehow makes you the cover story in the regional 'zine. And this is only to upstage someone that just touted himself as a cyclist of superior experience. Hilarious. Congrats on ruining a thread.

It is the zombie thread from hell... :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talldog (Post 12310984)

MTB legend and hall of famer John Tomac used to use drop bars early on in some of his cross country (and downhill) races in the early nineties. That was kind of a hybrid at the time I suppose. He came from a BMX and road racing background via Team 7-11 and Motorola but really made a name for himself in NORBA XC and downhill racing with Yeti and Raleigh. Maybe it took him a while to adapt to the flat bar at first.

Great pic on the mag cover. Thanks for sharing that. Brings back memories of that era. My old motocross racing partner was on the ground floor of the MTB boom in the early to mid '80's and introduced me to them at the same time. Still got my old Bell "salad bowl" helmut, LOL.

Thanks. Actually Tomac was a mountain bike champion before he got into road racing. He did not use drops on his mountain bike until after becoming a roadie. There were others who raced drop bar mountain bikes. Notable woman racer Jackie Phalen for one and some of the other men besides Tomac. The bike I'm riding in the picture was primarily used for courier work. Not long after that picture was taken, I bought a flat bar mountain bike for racing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by desertdork (Post 12311180)

Not entirely coincidental that I was in that picture. I was one of the competitors which is the only point I was trying to make. We as hybrid riders are not only pleasure riders on slow upright bikes, that's all. Not trying to prove I'm Lance Armstrong. Look again, the racers in the background of that picture are still on the descent. I'm kinda in the middle of the group that is the subject of the photo. It's hardly unavoidable that this particular picture was chosen as a cover. This was not even the expert class. They could have shown Roger Bird, or Pat Janda or John Hargadon or Kelly (Cannondale rider from Georgetowmn Pro Shop, can't remember last name right now) on the cover, they were all there. Or they could have put a picture of Thomas Prehn or Ellen Braun on the cover. I'm sure the drop bar bike and the beach cruiser (whose overweight rider is pushing his bike past me) were factors in the selection.

I like to share pictures here, I think they add a lot to the experience of people looking at the threads. If you don't like looking at them, too bad, others do.

Putting a guy with a bad wrist on a bike with the grips a foot ahead of the steering axis isn't doing him any favors. The saddle isn't even level! Leveling the saddle would be the first, most obvious step towards removing the rider's weight from his handlebars.

Just reading over his thread to see what I had ruined and I realize I ruined it on page one! Fun reliving those early contentious days of hybrid writing. This thread started as a troll, the OP who turned out to be an OK guy, never rode an FX. Meanwhile he receives advice a year later on how to make his FX faster... haha

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sixty Fiver (Post 10942728)

So this is my hybrid which should now meet with qmsdc's criteria for what makes a hybrid a hybrid... and I actually think he was traumatized by a set of drop bars in his youth. :lol:

http://www.ravingbikefiend.com/bikep...ekkerrace1.JPG

But I will tour on this... another one of those 80's bikes like the Trek 750 that was sold as a mountain bike but was really a touring bike with flat bars.

http://www.ravingbikefiend.com/bikep...010touring.JPG

I think it was when that fat guy on the beach cruiser passed me running while I was "racing" my drop bar MTB, (if thirty-something counts as my youth...) :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by qmsdc15 (Post 12311319)

You are probably right about that. I think your memory is better than mine. I do remember him hanging out with Bob Roll who also did both simultaneously. I believe they raced for the same team (Motorola). I recall Tomac & Roll racing XC at Hunter Mountain(?) in extreme mud one day then making a long drive together to enter a 150 mile road race the next day, circa 1992.

I think Bobke may have been racing off-road for Motorola, but it seems Tomac raced mountain bikes for Yeti while he was road racing for 7-11/Motorola. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tomac

I think his drop bar experiment was abandoned after a season or so and he went back to flat bars. I don't think anyone else was racing off-road at the top level with drop bars when he did it, but a few years earlier the practice was more common.

Don't remember Tomac and Roll at Hunter, though they were probably there. Rishi Grewal was leading the pro pack when they passed me. Yes it was extremely muddy, the toughest course I've competed on. When I washed off my Ritchey Ultra after the race, I realized my frame was cracked. This sticker was included in my race registration packet.
http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/r...e/DSC09267.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by qmsdc15 (Post 12314443)

Awesome ... nice little bit of MTB history you have there !

On the same course at the same time as the top riders in the world? Hell yeah! I think this was the last WC event where they let that happen.

Rishi startled me on the singletrack with a growl "Get out of my way!" I immediately did just that, pulled off the course and let the lead pack through. When we popped out onto a dirt road, I hung onto a paceline of professional riders for a short time! I sort of let them gap me when I realized I shouldn't be in their race, but I matched their pace until the road turned upwards. I downshifted several cogs and slowed to a crawl while they rapidly disappeared into the distance at approximately the same speed they had been going on the flat...