you're nuts. the 1980's ACS freecoaster locked up to essentially the same ends as a fixed hub. i'm not sure what you're debating.

Look up Jeff Lenosky's early street trials on cross-country mountain frames. It was a lot of really slow balancing acts and precision work that didn't actually look very cool at all, pulled off on a bike that was in no way designed for the purpose. But eventually he got flowier and flowier and was pretty much the innovator of riding freestyle on mountain bikes. It's called progression. The street mountain bike eventually got redesigned for tricks, and the same thing is already happening with "trickier" track frames like the BMW gangsta. But no, you're right. He was a nut job. Mountain bikes are for the mountain! Track bikes are only for the track! Oh, wait...

You don't need 700c wheels to commute efficiently and you definitely don't need a 50+ cm st. If you're serious enough about tricks to put a 650 wheel on or different stem why not just buy a cruiser, a really long seatpost and throw a fixed hub on the back or given the money people seem to blow on them order a custom.

Bike ballet would require so much more talent than I have ever seen evidence of that I think you may be waiting a long time.

hardly anyone around new york is using 650's anymore. nobody is swapping stems when they get to wherever it is that they flatland. none of them are lugging extra forks around. they're more or less just riding what they ride.

dutret, I commend your bullheadedness.

How 'bout I'll just do what I do how I wanna do it? Your statement that "we lack talent" can be flipped to state that "all left turns requires no talent"... Why not race in criteriums? Extra turns, gears, brakes? That's SKILL!

ha.
apples and oranges.

I do race in crits. Doesn't change the fact that yall don't have anywhere near the talent to pull off something actually impressive like bike ballet. Given how little the videos getting posted have improved in the past couple years I doubt many if any will ever get there.

Are you kidding me?

Nose manuals, 180 tire grabs, 180 skids to tail taps, no handed, no foot manuals, rock walks [brakeless], riding fakie for blocks and the "roll out spins"... all these tricks are a big improvement. Especially considering that bike ballet is done on 1:1s...

My boy Jim C. who rides BMX for Odyssey said "the day someone pulls a nose manual on a track bike, I'll buy one..."

dutret, remember back when miami hoppers and bar surfing were big in freestylin' magazine? then ACS put out the rotor and all of the spinning tricks became more accessible? progression, cross-pollination and assimilation don't happen overnight.

i still think it's great that you can ride to work, go for some quick laps in a park at a decent clip, maybe--maybe not flip your wheel around to your other cog to do some tricks or play polo, and then ride home--on one bike--and never really be at any significant enough disadvantage so as to feel absolutely frustrated with whatever you're engaged in.

i thought you approved of economy.

That pretty much sums it up for me. A bike with a slammed seat will always be easier to huck around, but being able to trick on the same bike that you can take through traffic, work on, and actually get places on at a decent speed is worth way more. Yeah, the seat is always going to get in the way, but that's part of it.

damnnn, way too much argueing, just ride your respective bikes and be happy you choose not to pay $4.18 a gallon of gas. i am. but anyway, **** people who say tricks on a track bike are lame cause ive had a damn good time doing what ive done recently and i wanna do more. i just wanna know if i should use my bike shop employee discount to build up a paul hub to like a 650 deep v or some dt or mavic rim to do barspins or if i should just save my money and buy the bmw or some other fork that may allow me to do a barspin with a 700c wheel. i just won a 36 hole 700c deep v on ebay and i have a iro front hub at home, if i could just build that up and buy a new fork and do barspins, itd be better than buying a paul hub at discount just to waste its greatness on barspins and ****. oh, and i ride tony fasts supposed old bike so prolly, if you eve see the guy, tell him its workin real good.

Yeah, why not just EP from BMW? I do EP's from everyone, even if we don't order through Quality / J&B. Chrome & Ritchey come to mind.

Even if you can't EP from BMW, I still say you should support them. I was on the train one morning and ran into a guy who rides for their BMX squad, awesome guy, we talked the whole the ride and was really cool. I know that's not a reason to order from a company, but when I ordered from Ritchey, it took THREE WEEKS just for them to process my order, then they sent me TWO packages because the first was wrong, and I had to send one back, yet, I was charged for both and would "see the credit" once the wrong one was received.

This thread was awesome and I'm sorry I missed it the first time around.

I can do fakie backflips.

So, why are dutret and his lackey darth hating on tarck biking? I don't understand the logic of arguing the merits of doing tricks on a fixed gear/track type bike against BMXing; like DV said, "apples and oranges." I feel like some of you are devaluing the freestyle kind of tarck biking compared to racing without doing any of it; I'm sure prolly rides at the drome too dutret, have you tried any of that trick biking? Calling him talentless just lends to showing that your argument lacks validity. I say: if it gets people on a bike, it's good.

People doing something different doesn't really justify hating on them- I mean honestly, do people doing tricks on a larger frame hurt you or take away from your cycling experience? If a concept with 650c hed 3 in front and risers makes you mad, you need a therapist. You can't change the dynamics of a subculture, embrace the tarckness.

im still confused and i talked it up with the head mechanic where i work (hes been wrenching ten times longer than i have been and hes really good at trials riding and ****) and he said getting a bmw fork would probably do the trick and i woulnt NEED a 650c wheel to do barspins and ****, and i can EP order me a fork if i want but i want someone who has done what i intend to do to tell me it will work. i dont want to dish out big bux only to find out i still need to get a 650 wheel to accomplish what i want. im a bike mechanic i make roundabouts 8.50 an hour, im not made of money. and i need to put some money into my other bikes that i actually race on . whats the best thing 700c wheel and new fork or just 650 wheel and same ol' ****?

get the fork 650 wheels totally screw up the bike handling I know from experience and it is annoying to get used to totally different steering and geometry characteristics. There are many people with the BMW fork that can attest to the fact that it will alow you to barspin. There are other tricks however then barspins that you could work on while waiting.

i was so ready to get the fork till i realized that it probably has a 1 1'8 steerer tube instead of the 1 inch used on my bike. so im ****ed, i guess. are there any other options? i do figure, however, that if i cant work it out on this frame i planned on a new one net spring so maybe ill get like a steamroller or some cheap type steel frame with a 1 1/8 headtube so that i can use a sick nasty bmw fork and finally do barspins. if thats the case, for now ill just keep on keepin on with backwards circles and trackstands and ****ty attempts at doing bunny hops. i never realized how hard it could be until i tried to do it on my fixie without a freewheel and crank bros. pedals.

Go for the steamroller frame with the BMW fork thats what Im doing at the moment I dont have money for the fork yet but im saving up. Another option on frameset that may be marginally heavier is the Pake frameset that will save you 200 bones too. The fork is definately 1 1/8. Practice small stuff with what you have now and try to be carefull if you dont have some really strong wheels.

Good old bike forums full of hate.

In answer to the op's question. In London several of the guys that are doing tricks run jump bikes forks or similar on their trick bikes. These are clearly heavier but they are slightly longer and hence make barspins easier much in the same way johnprolly uses a BMW fork. They also have the added advantage of being stronger.

To all the haters. People are having fun so who cares maybe tricks will take off maybe they will die / stay very specialized who cares it hurt anyone. You may not find the tricks impressive but you don't have to watch the videos. You must remember that this is a media age and good cameras can be bought for little money hence of course every little thing will be documented good or bad. In every area of cycling there is a mass of people with "all the gear no idea" this area is no different.

Lastly don't judge someone so strongly by the bike they are riding, just because someone rides a trick set up track bike one day does not mean thats all they do. They very well may also have a MTB a rode bike and BMX and ride them all for different uses and enjoy them all. Doing different types of riding helps improve your overall skill level and make you a better rider. Verity is the spice of life as they say. There are many thing alot more stupid than doing tricks on a track bike within the wold of cycling and the world in general. Use your energy to hate on those issues.

i think i may have said this before but i love this ****ing bike

https://www.jensonusa.com/store/produ...tain+Fork.aspx

This fork is a tiny bit longer then the BMW fork and cheaper. give that a try?

700c and 51cm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp_-V7dDmYc

wow you are the 4zn balla from pbnation tight I used to play too

I dunno homey, not that we're doing flying 720s or anything down here in NOLA but sometimes we go down to a park here where there's a lot of foot traffic / tourists just to noodle around cause it's smooth (and there's pretty girlzzz) and all the slackjaw cheeseballs are like "man, how do you do that on that bike? I've only seen stuff like that on BMXs." So for the onlooker who doesn't know anything about bikes they seem super into it because they haven't seen BMX style tricks on track bikes. In the long run who really gives a **** though?