OMG, yes I have. I saw this dude once on the SIDEWALK riding a conversion with platforms. I was walking on the other side of the street in the same direction and he went about four blocks in the time it took me to walk three. *shakes head in disbelief*

first day with their training wheels off. no big deal. if you're concerned, ride up next to dude and ask about it. they'll figure it out. my two-year old niece likes to ride a direct drive trike and she can't even reach the pedals. BADASS. i'm guessing these guys don't have someone holding them back with a piece of rope, but oh well.

i secretly hope that you confront bumgaspipebike man and find out he rips jamaican one footers after class.

He was stealing it

I usually get psyched when I see somebody riding a non Magna wallmart bicycle.

I don't really see the logic in knocking front-brake only SS's but not brakeless FG's. They both have only one method of braking, and in both cases the mechanism of braking is susceptible to failure, at more or less comparable rates. Brake cables fail, but so do chains. A front-braked SS can stop faster than a brakeless FG, in my experience. Why the hate?

Maybe as a prank, someone stole the derailleurs, brakes, levers, cables/housing, freewheel, installed a cog and resized the chain. Think of the other possibilities, man!

I work next to a community college campus and I swear these bikes are breeding.

1. leave a note, or try to meet them, tell 'em they're being foolish or way too fashionable.
2. Observe results.
Most of the fools I've seen pull this act for only so long. They get a couple of near death experiences, or realize that they're going about a very impractical way. Sometimes ya gotta let Darwinism do it's job.

1.Host a workshop dealing with fixies/SS and school them. 2. Feel good about making them more aware and everyone else safer. 3. Treat yourself to a frosty six pack of your favorite brew ( or better yet coerce them into doing it, you will be their new god after all).

best reply yet!

and i say... be happy they arent freewheels on those hubs
-pete

I have a bike like that which I use to get around campus. I use this one just in case someone feels the need to steal my bike or walk by and destroy the wheels. I am not saying that it is the smartest thing to do but it's not as bad a most people think. If you posses any riding/scanning skills and a little common sense it's not bad. I don't skid a whole lot so there isn't really a problem with worrying about unscrewing the cog. I rotafixed it on the hub pretty tight and have skidded, just playing around in the parking lot, by hooking the front foot under the platform. In the two years that I have had this particular bike I have lost control of the pedals 3 or 4 times but not around any traffic and the only reason it did happen was because I was spinning as fast as I could and I forgot to keep pedaling.

why not just put some clips on and make it 1000000x more useable?

Clips are dangerous, you can get your feet stuck in them...

teh

All of my other bikes have clipless pedals but this bike has one piece cranks and 1/2 pedal spindle so common clipless pedals won't work. Decent pedals with clips and straps are also somewhat uncommon, I know you can find them, but basically I find it hard to put money into the bike when it will be virtually no more functional, for this specific purpose, than what I have now. Now someone please show me up and post a link to some $4 pedals with clips and straps that will give me the false security of decent quality clips and straps but will inevitably snap when I have the false confidence that I can skid/skip in an emergency. I would rather ride 10 mph across campus and know my limitations than break my face when the straps break.

yeah totally stolen. or he just bought it for some random reason. but prolly' stolen.

Man, I take a day off BF to finish a project and this thread takes off like a wildfire. I'll try to answer a few of the questions:
1. I know its not a coaster brake because coaster brakes don't use track cogs. Also, the bike didn't have the coaster arm.

2. I go to a UC not a CSU, i commute to irvine.

3. I though about leaving a note, but i'm a pretty snarky person, and even if i tried not to, I'd probably come off like I was insulting the guy. My main concern was that either the guy was going to crash into me ( i usually walk around campus since its so crowded where I go I can't really ride at much more than a walking pace anyway) or crash into somebody else. Either way, it seems like the school administration would respond by not allowing bikes around most of the campus. Maybe I will leave a note next time.

No you're not. What you're really concerned about is the spread of fixed gears as a cultural phenomenon - you don't care about the persons well being. Are you kidding?

You're half right, i don't have any concern about the guy riding the bike. I do have concern about my personal well being. I also have concern about drawing attention to fixed gears and bikes in general as dangerous menaces that shouldn't be allowed anywhere near pedestrians.

I can't even imagine the odds of one specific person (you) being hit by someone on a brakeless bike with a suicide hub that has failed on a campus the size of UC. I bet it would be somewhere in the range of billions to 1. And since I have been on campus I have seen more people hit by Wal-Mart Huffies than any other type of bike. So instead of writing notes to two people about their breakless deathtrap you should write notes and post them on all of the clunker bikes sitting around the campus bike racks. You know, give a little safety briefing to the other thousand crappy bike riding people, the people who you see riding and talking on their cell phone while navigating through a crowd of people.

You should run for office.

what about all the freewheel bikes which are so badly maintained the brakes no longer work???

i'd stick to concentrating on your schoolin and let people be stupid if they want. there are lots of them; more than you could possibly lecture!

Not that I condone this but........

Am I the only one who can skid a fixed w/ platforms? It's not that difficult. Stick your front foot under the pedal as it's coming around and torque away. Kinda fun, actually.

But, ya - pretty stooopid I suppose.

Agreed. I worry little about the image others place on my personal life through mimicked/similar pursuits.

Those that act badly, and those that judge me by the actions of other are sucktastic assclowns.

for the win: leave a note with nothing but a link to this thread