skeem

i know its lame, but i wanna do barspins. im about to order parts to build up a nice front 650 wheel but i realized maybe i could get a fork with a slightly different design (more/less rake etc...) that would allow me to barspin. i have a pake 53 cm with a fuji track fork and a 700c front wheel. the tire hits the downtube but could be cleared if there was about 1 cm less rubber on the tire. im using my skidded to death old tire on the front and still not enough room for barspins. if anyone knows any fork that i could use to allow my bike to barspin itd be greatly appreciated- then i could do sweet tricks and still ride my bike on a track in races without having to change wheels. hell, maybe id win some races and then go do some victory barspins in the parking lot.

K_phomma

BMW forks work well!

Not Brooklyn Machine Works.

I mean Beemer.

deadforkinglast

May as well just use a different wheel. You'd have to change the bars to ride on the track anyway, and wheels are easy to change.

dutret

getting a fork with a cm less rake is going to make your bike handle like ****. If you want a bike to ride keep what you have. If you want a bike to do barspins buy a bmx.

idiq

If you start altering the rake of the fork your bike, as dutret points out, will definitely "handle like ****." When engineers design a bike, they design a bike with a specific rake in mind and this plays in to the overall geometry of a bike.

Think of it like this: I had a Funny Bike from the 1980s - it had a 700c in the back and 600a up front. Now, if I added a longer fork, the bike would have become a chopper bike, as the headtube was not designed to have a longer fork. The same with rake, the headtube was not angled to have a fork with further or less rake.

johnprolly

Altering the rake won't **** your bike's handling up nearly as bad as riding a 650c wheel. I've ridden both and much prefer a different rake as opposed to a steeper head tube.

My Surly has a BMW fork and the BMW fork was just 1/4" longer than the stock surly fork. I couldn't feel a difference at all and have ample room for barspins. I wouldn't ever throw the fork on a "track" bike. But a Surly / Iro / Pake is fine. Anything with a road geo and track ends won't handle that much differently.

Ignore comments from people along the lines of "if you wanna do barspins, get a bmx". The reason people hate on fixed tricks can be summed up into one social condition called the "narcissism of small differences".

johnprolly

Comparison for the link-lazy...

dutret

Or instead of relying on the bull**** sociology of a discredited cokehead to make yourself feel like less of a tool you could actually try to counter the complaints people have with the vacuous subculture that has sprouted around

the tricks are uniform and uninspired compared to those that can be done on a bmx.
the "scene" is as much about spending a ****load on making your bike look expensive as it is about actual tricks.

Even if we ignore all this your "small differences" are actually the big ones. When I buy or build a bike I have a use for it in mind and then I choose the bike that will accomplish that purpose as well as possible for a reasonable price. If people doing tricks were doing that rather than fad chasing why don't we see bmx bikes with fixed hubs? Why do we see expensive track components and hed3s? See the differences between us aren't the small ones in our equipment they're the big ones between the vacuous consumerist values your life is based around and mine.

visitordesign

dutret, you're still out of touch.
have you seen prolly's surly? it's pretty low-rent.

i thought the same way you did about the tricks for a while as well, but they're actually evolving pretty quickly and taking advantage of the fixed wheel in a way that a lot of freestyle kids never really did with freecoaster hubs.

stick to what you know.

visitordesign

i had a freecoaster on my redline in 1988. what the hell are you talking about?

dutret

what the hell does that have to do with anything? My point is that a large frame limits tricks. If this about more than style why aren't people actually experimenting with things that might actually be good for tricks.

As far as originality I have yet to see any fixie kids doing anything incredibly original. Post a video if you disagree but everything I've seen is poorly executed bmx tricks with a little bit of back pedalling and wheelie balancing thrown in. Look to bike ballet for impressive use of the fixed gear itself but I have never seen evidence that any of the jokers like prolly have the talent to even attempt something like that or the creativity to come up with something different but still impressive.

johnprolly

Are you BLIND?!?!?!?! DO you see this ugly ass **** I ride daily?

WHAT about this bike is "expensive" and unreasonable? It's clearly suited for the way I ride.



What your speaking of is the same **** that's been going on since the invention of the bicycle...

BMX = Bicycle Moto Cross

which means they were made for dirt courses.

SO WHY have people taken them to skate parks? or the street? BECAUSE it's fun. Same with MTB / Trials riders... ****, even CX riders. They all ride their bikes like that because it's fun and have geared their bikes to how they ride.

My surly is dialed into the kind of riding I enjoy. Don't understand why it bothers you so much.

VD shot this video last weekend too...

johnprolly

Feel free to watch that video I posted above...

Believe me. My goal with all of this is not to impress some out of shape / overweight mediocre sprinter from ATL who constantly pulls sub-par seasons at Dick Lane Velodrome.

visitordesign

it's got a dial on it that sets the pawls from free to a fixed wheel. you mentioned that we don't see BMX kids with fixed hubs. we do, and we have for 20 years. if that's not what you meant to argue, mind your semantics.

fetch

*popcorn* FOR SPARTA DUTRET!

DARTHVADER

he's talking in general. all the kids with the pista concepts and HED's or Zipps on front.
i think i recall you having a concept at one point too prolly. i guess you wised up a little...that still don't make dutret wrong.

diff_lock2

In that video, the maneuvers performed must have taken time to perfect. But during the learning period it's likely that the performer under estimated/ over shot a move, there for causing an accident, with possible injury. Yet I see no hint of safety gear, do these people like getting hurt when they fall? Do they want to risk damaging them selves to an extent were they can not practice anymore? Or where they born with these talents?

johnprolly

Hard to tell if he's talking in general or directing it AT someone. I sold my concept and my riding style changed drastically.

oceanfx

That weird 180skid-to-halfcab wins the award for coolest thing I've ever seen on a fixed gear bike.

johnprolly

I never wore pads when I skateboarded either, unless it was in a park. To be honest, I wear my helmet all the time while riding in traffic / to and from work, etc. When we're messing around doing tricks, no one ever really falls that often. If anything, you bail and kick your bike out. Especially on the flatland type tricks.

beatifik

i think you kinda proved dutret's point with the vid...

sorry i have to preface this, in this way: not that i'm hating, but...

tricks on track bikes really aren't anything new or original. sure the tricks are hard and you guys def have skills and it's not something i could ever do. also, it looks like you all are having fun on your bikes which is always a plus. but they are just bmx tricks. and i understand that they aren't the same thing, but the average joe walking by won't. that's why people are impressed by skateboarders or bmx because they see it and think "holy **** that dude is crazy! is he really gonna do that?" when people see tricks on track bikes you gotta explain "no, it's harder than it looks cuz this and that and whatever else..."

i see it like this:

remember back to the future 2 when there was a "alternate 1985"? that's what doing bmx tricks on track bikes are like. you cite that people have been doing this for years; using bikes for purposes they weren't intended for.

what if instead of inventing the stingray, the bigshots at schwinn said "hey we have all these paramount track bikes laying around we should repurpose them for kids and set 'em up for wheelies and stuff, cuz that's what all the kids want." then eventually you'd probably get the bmx bikes you have today, more or less the same.

eventually, the designs fit the purposes. what, so 10 years or so from now, we'll have little fixed gear bikes with 650 front wheels, risers, bashguards, etc. isn't that basically just a bmx bike?

it's like if a group of kids starting taking longboards and trying to land 360 flips on 'em. sure i guess that's ok, but why not just use a regular skateboard?

dutret

that video was pretty ****ing dull even by fixed gear trick standards. Not only are the tricks dull there is no ****ing flow. I will admit that the bike you now ride seems much more reasonable than the one you were on last year though.

Yes BMX stands for bicycle motocross. Originally the bikes were meant for dirt courses however the design is also well suited towards freestyle. In fact I would wager that the vast majority of bmx bikes sold today are designed with no thought given to the rapidly dissapearing bmx track. If you look at bikes that evolved seperately but in the end requires much of the same movements from the rider as freestyle you'll see they converge towards a few things(think trials bikes). Small wheels, short frames, high bars, low saddle. Basically the opposite of fixed gear trick bikes.

oooh that hurt.

uhhhhh no a freecoaster is not a fixed hub.

johnprolly

Understood. BMXrs said the same thing about MTB'rs riding in parks. There's a lot to be said about having a bike that is an efficient mode of transportation and can be used for tricks.

Regardless, this argument is so tired and boring at this point....

visitordesign

i'm guessing that some of it has to do with the fact that some of these guys are messengers, commuters, or folks who just enjoy riding a larger bike around. it makes sense in a utilitarian respect to at least explore merging a flatland bmx experience with your daily grind if you're riding a larger bike around already anyway--and hanging out with others who do the same.

i find it interesting in its practicality in that respect--that it's just this thing that was kind of borne of convenience.

i also see adoption and mutation of the bike ballet stuff on the not so distant horizon. adapting that sort of grace with more aggression and, well... recklessness, is something i look forward to seeing evolve.

johnprolly

like alleycat freestyle competitions in the middle of bridges and skitching in races with one-foot / one-hand brakeless.