So I just did a quick ride on the back streets behind my building and something struck me about fixed gear that hasn't occurred to me for a while. It's stealth. No funky derailleur sounds, no ratchety freewheel. All I could hear outside of the wind was the sound of rubber on pavement. It's just so....nice. You might not notice it much in noisy city settings, but tonight on those back roads, it was just gloriously quiet.

+1 for fixed gear.

Pedestrians hate that....

i just figured out backwards 360s and managed to do two in a row!

+2 fixed gear.

Damn it! I'm jealous..... show me how...

we could meet up in santa cruz this weekend. i can show you 360s and you can trim my brooks! i am coming down for the annual west coast co-op summit meeting ... if any of you know about housing cooperatives it is a nasco event. yay co-ops.

what i finally figured out today is that its all about the body rock. lean forward at the top of each pedal stroke and then rock back with the downstroke to keep your speed up when passing through the verticle pedal position, which is when its hardest to stay balanced.

heh, it actually made me dizzy going that long. too bad it started raining right when i got the hang of it. til next time...

When I ride my fixie it makes sounds like old 70's movie music or porno music, you know that ber chek ber ber sound? OK, just in my head.

Even better, it's easier to scare the crap out of roller bladers.

Rollerbladers are noisy noisy people. Unless they have a good pair that is. I always hate the way the more hardcore ones "blade" since they take up such a wide area to go back and forth. I should just clip one of them one of these days...

I have in the past...nothing like the bump produced by an ankle under the rear tire...headphone wearing morons...

I hate that arrogance of taking up 3/4 of the LS bike lanes with their swagger. I sometimes wish there were an equivalent to a pump in the spokes.

last summer i actually saw an amazing blader cruising down halstead outside the chicago diner, he had headphones on, full (short-shorts/sleeve-less shirt) lycra, and some serious soul. he was singing at full volume to his music, pointing to people/winking, doing 360's, doing that one knee to the ground/one leg stretched out far behind him/pointing to the sky thing, and directing traffic! if i ever see him on the lake path, im gonna take photos and give him some well deserved respect!

and then I'll run over his ankle...

woo hoo coopers... im a member of pearl st of the college houses organization here in austin

ive been to the national Nasco meet in Ann Arbor for the last 2 years... planning to go again this year

cool! i will most likely see you in ann arbor then! i stayed a couple months in austin a few summers ago. i went to a co-op there but it was more like a dormitory, with a big shrubbery trimmed into the letters 'UT' at the front entrance.

There is a rollerblading messenger here in Boston. I forget the guys name but he runs a company called Run Jane Run. He seemed to be a nice enough guy but very quiet.

Oh and I always like to think that It's more of a ninja stealthy kind of thing when I ride my little bike. Game number two is the jet fighter scenario.

that house--Halstead--is right on my street! its actually a former sorority house turned co-op... they went backrupt last year and were actually just acquired by our organization! now its an all girls house.... and all they do is fight all the time

ill see ya when november rolls around