I think if you're calling it a "fixie" then you're the hipster.

There is no accounting for taste--or lack thereof.

No gauges, no beard, no skin-tight jeans. But there is a fixed track bike with stickers & PBR.

No protien shakes, no shaved legs, no Campy cycling cap. But there is a European carbon roadie & fine coffee.

No MBTA account, no anti ATV advocacy, no baggy shorts. But there is a fine hardtail & craft brews.

Call me a fixie hipster, call me a posh roadie, call me a trail rider. People who know me call me by my name, and know that I'm a cyclist!

Perhaps, but an inadequate presentation of a thing may account for its better qualities failing to be discerned. ;)

I like that.

Pretty hot! Surprised the silver tape looks so good.

Okay folks, you might wanna go easy since I'm a bike mechanic and thus a pauper, and this is the best I was able to cobble together from hand-me-downs, second-hand parts and a tax return.

But have a go at me if you must about the chain-ring situation; I just couldn't do it since a stationary bike in the big ring has always looked silly to me.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=452837

Already had the wheels, crankset and pedals (I ride in street clothes), bar and stem, so when I scored this slightly damaged frameset for $0, I kinda noticed the confluence of red bits between it and my stem and nipples... so red bits it was. The Red stuff is s/h, but all the red stuff is new.

The RD's original RED, the FD's a Yaw jobbie, and the brifters are 'Black' RED. The stuff feels cheap through the lever, but it's light as hell and works the bomb. Brakes are DA, 7700 on the front and 7400 on the rear (with a 7700 QR). Chain and cassette are DA.

No bottle cages cause they interfere with portaging the bike up and down stairs, and I'm not usually on the bike more than 20 minutes. The seat makes sure I look after the DA drivetrain and ride the pub bike instead in the wet.

Yeah, that would be hot.

Lol. Photoshopped out the Ritchey. See how much better that looks!

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=452852
I am thinking of upgrading my wheels and if I do, would love to have the decals in same green or, would that be overkill?

No. Its actually a different stem. The old one was a 4 axis, while the new one is a c220. Different clamp, and silver graphics rather than black.

you call yourself a mechanic with that setup? That rear housing loop is way too short, and your seat and bar setup is atrocious.

No more overkill than the mailbox you have hanging from your saddle. :P Zing!

I like it, but I think to make it a little "hotter" changing the cables to black, and removing the red wheel stickers would help. seems very busy to me.

I've gotta say the extreme saddle/bar positions take a away from the 'hotness' in my eyes. I ride with a bar drop even on my mountain bike, but best of luck doing a full century on that! Or do you have incredibly long arms, but not torso?

One of the sexiest bikes I've seen on this thread in quite a while. I think black bar tape would fit better, and the full length rear brake housing kind of distracts from the nice lines of the slim tubes, but other than that... yea, beautiful.

Such a nice departure from the usual plastic, overly shaped, generic rolling billboard bikes from the usual BigBike Corp vendors. Unimaginative bikes for unimaginative people.

What is this, open mic night? ;)

Can cross bikes play?

http://i.imgur.com/o4GBj52l.jpg

Just built this up Monday. 6800 is amazing.

Very obvious what needs to be done here.

Painting. Desperately needed by the building.

I'd be willing to bet that if the seat was level it would also have to be lowered and it would reduce the saddle>bar drop. It would probably fit better, and be more comfortable. But why would anyone want to do that?

LOL!
Never thought of the bag in that light. I does come in handy carrying my spare tube and tools. Any suggestions for something smaller?

I have the Arundel Dual on all of my bikes, perfect size for a tube, multi tool, co2 nozzle and two cartridges and a couple of tire levers. Wiggle had them on sale for $12 once, so I bought one for every bike.
Arundel Dual Seat Bag review | road.cc

First, see my Sheldon eagle? I scored that for my contributions to the Mechanics subforum... about 3,000 posts ago.

The rear housing loop is that short for three reasons: 1, I used a single gear set of Alligator iLink gear housing to do both brakes and gears, extending it under the tape with some Aztek beads I found. I was momentarily bummed when it looked like I didn't have quite enough, but figured I might as well see how it went with the short loop, and lo and behold, there was no excess friction. This probably wouldn't be the case with standard housing. 2, being a SRAM derailer, the upper pivot doesn't move except for wheel removal, so any potential inaccuracy from such a tight curve changing shape (the iLink isn't in the same league as Nokon and does change length with movement) is moot. 3 - turns out it looks frikken badarse next to a big ugly loop. So there's that. Folks with SRAM derailers and segmented housing may want to give it a shot.

If I had Shimano's stupid 10s system on there with standard housing I'd have a loop big enough to strangle a rugby player. But SRAM pulls enough cable to have an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio.

As for my bars and seat, that's down to my riding style (and >20 years of doing it), which differs somewhat from that of the MAMILs who frequent this forum: rather than long rides in groups which finish where they start, as previously mentioned I'm rarely on the bike more than 20 minutes, and usually riding like a courier. So long-term comfort isn't the priority (I sit on that gnarly-looking thing without a chamois); supporting an aggressive riding style is. A level seat is recommended as a starting point; breaking out a spirit level is ridiculous when you're supposed to tweak it up to a few degrees to suit yourself, and every seat is different. I used to run my seats more level than this, with only a very slight forward tilt, until I tried more tilt a couple of years ago and preferred it - now my starting point is pointing at the hoods (seems to make more sense to include some reference to bar height with seat angle, IMO). My boss thought I was nuts too, until he tried it on his commuter. Now his seat points to his hoods.

And my bars - OMG. Given the range of combinations of bar angle and lever height, what makes you think this isn't a perfectly valid setup? I've been pointing my drops at the rear axle with my levers vertical for 20 years for a number of reasons. As you can see from my gearing, I don't do much climbing at all, so that's not a consideration. And riding in street clothes, I don't get a whole lot of opportunities to hit the big ring and get in the drops, so it's optimised for having my palms on the top of the hoods, hence the flat area of the hoods lining up with the forward extension of the bars. Still works fine in the drops, but a little sub-optimal for climbing. Suits me fine, and again (IMO), looks badarse.

Everyone has their own anatomy and style of course, and the combination of mine puts me on the edge of the bell curve. Naturally, I'll set anyone else's bike up by the book.

But geez, I reckon too many folks take The Rules a little too seriously - they're tongue-in-cheek for a reason.

BTW, you forgot to have a go at me for cutting my carbon steerer flush. Since I don't like the look of the proper way to do it, the frameset cost me $0, and I'm not a brawny sprinter type, I countersunk the expansion plug to maximise the amount of steerer under the top cap, and just did the lower clamp bolt a couple of Nm tighter. Seems pretty robust a year later, so there's another Rule I'm gonna ignore on my own bikes.

Hmm. You could be right, but since the frameset itself is busy as hell, I figured I'd go with the lairiness factor... still, I might try a photochop to see how it looks.

See above.

(Apologies for the wall of text; here's a photochop of my other sweet bike as compensation)

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=452966

It'll need a super-fancy anodising job (and paint for the fork) before it looks like that :(

That's much hotter than the other one.

Yeah, when it finally happens! It'll look a little different, though; black pad holders, it'll get a full wrap on the bars, and I have a ratty 7700 crankset I want to strip the clear lacquer off (WTF, Shimano), polish and anodise with the DA logo etched in, with black chainrings.

This bike's a sentimental fave; I've had it for sixteen years.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=453166

It was brown when I bought it : /