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

The bike:

The bike itself was a negotiation at first between me and Hullsy.

As I’ve written at length in this thread me and Hulsroy, if left to our own devices, have very different design and function philosophies which on the surface are incompatible

Where he’s minimalist I’m maximalist
If I want function he wants elegance
If he wants elegance I want function

But look past this, we share the most important thing in common, we’re both HIGHLY OPINIONATED and not afraid to defend our opinion, correct and update it.

This made for a swift design process where I went to him with a fully formed idea of wanting a big bmx with tiny wheels and he quickly went

“I don’t hate it but no we do this…”

Queue a scene somewhat like blade runner where I’m interrogated and psychoanalysed; hulsroy is made to question if he himself is to be trusted or if he does indeed have implanted bicycle beliefs by the weyland shimano corporation m. Only in a final hour negotiation we finally agree on something to move forward

A 26” mtb with conservative geometry and modern styling/ standards

At this point it should be pointed out I was not convinced of disc brakes, and he was not convinced of 26” wheels and 90mm stems, but both of us trusted in the others reasoning and you can see from the prototype image to the final bike a lot stuck

I won’t wax on here about why these things are negotiated, going back some pages you will find words about why it is. But what’s important is the core idea:

A bike which uses everything the builder knows about performance, not to push them further or faster, but to make their life easier and the ride more comfortable.

That was done and more

Visually the bike incorporates a lot of what I like about bikes I’ve had in my life:

1) It’s a similar shade of blue to my old dk 6pack from the 2000s

2) It has a flattened top tube like my favourite ever bike, an old rim brake caadx

3) It proportionally looks like and is a 2000s era mtb as imagined by someone who’s only ever seen old copies of mtb mags. A simulacrum, Like how a zoomer might design a “y2k” outfit if you will

4) It has a suitably long head tube as all bikes should.

5) Straight blade segmented forks with bmx drop outs undoubtedly popularised by stridisland in our current year (for good reason, my final build will be shaped by him a lot), but frame wise, to me this choice owes much more the the all city junk yard dog, or being influenced by bmx and boxy jump forks.

6) it corrects so much of what is wrong, for me, about the bmx/ mtb offerings about on the market atm like the wombat and the low side, or a strids fork on a 26” retro frame. I believe it was spindatt on YouTube who once said “I like to make bikes which make people go oh that’s just a … hold on a minute… what… ohhh… ok… yeah… oh yeah… fuck…. So if I want my I own I need to?… oh” and that’s how I feel about this

I really love it, and seeing it built up has really secured that for me. Can’t thank Hulsroj enough.

It’s both nostalgic of riding I’ve done and progressive to riding I wish to do.