MAJs gay bikes [she’s in her fitness era]

I mean you have a hell of a stable right now!!

brain worm bars more like, amirite?

they're so nice :)

got a nitto stem to go with them and it matches great.

they're pretty hefty, there is no denying it, but they do look the part

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yes!

Deliberately teasing the plants I see ;)

This slaps

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Looks fantastic. How does it ride?

like a bike you get from a rental place that you insist is too small and a bit outdated, but 30 minutes in it has put a big smile on your face.

Looks so so good.

How many bikes right now? This and the cross check?

How many bikes right now?

never ask this question to anyone, its bad omen

3

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Oh that’s good

mid season mood board drop

Gay Assimilationist All Terrain Bicycle (GAATB):

The GAATB comes from the lineage of the gay bike, but it's tempered by class anxiety and an ever increasing alienation from the queer community as a person, be it for survival or desire, is absorbed into the cis-hetronormative core. Radical underpinnings and rejection of mainstream concepts mean the bikes are not optimised in the eyes of the general, straight, population, no doubt a result of at least some life spent outside hetro group think. The design choices, the colours and the composition of the bike may retain some radical underpinnings but at most it manifests metrosexual, at worst, assimilationist. This is not a term of derision, but more a branch of a expansive, complex, rhizomatic community which bends and flows around the hetrosexual rock it finds itself in a war of attrition with. When i think of the GAATB rider i think of Steph, in the book Nevada by Imogeon Binney, a once free, radical, dyke who finds herself drinking topshelf whiskey wearing a pantsuit, in a brooklyn bar.

When we look at the bicycle itself we see much of the things which define a gay bike. the sloping top tubes, the smaller wheels. On a close inspection the top tubes are not as sloped, they're physically straighter, the wheels are ever so slightly larger and thus closer to the hetro zeitgeist. Gone are the battle marks, scuffs, stickers and signs of conflict from the frames, replaced with a clean coat of paint, sometimes in a campy hue. A direct reflection of the rider and how they themselves went under the same transformation to make themselves presentable for the audience they seem themselves in front of with more regulatity. Gone are the parts bin, often complicated parts forced together to make the machine run and hobble to its destination. Replaced with new, shiney effiecient pieces. Sometimes a artisinal simulacrum of the parts they're replacing. They are selected with a curatorial eye and maybe refrencing in jokes or direct counter cultural decisions against macro trends in an industry which at its heart rejects the queer rider, but tempered and shaped by the income bracket and peers they find themselves both freed and confined by.

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Curse my unfashionably large wheels

You bought at 36-er yet?

If it ever looks like I'm riding a 29er, then yes

Although, I'm retired from buying bikes now

Semi-retired from riding them

Send it safely wombat is iconic

So a Rivendell ?

I love reading up on the latest queer theory on lfgss dot com (fr though, this thread is really good)

first wednesday night ride of the year , first time riding this bike in what feels like a year.

bikes making all types of sounds, so are my bones, need to sort them both out

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Made me think of the kind of bike I see in this thread...

Link here: https://theradavist.com/sea-otter-classic-2023-recap-part-two-bikes-products-people/

#BDHWTFLOL

dream pub bike