Urban Velo Magazine

Any one ever seen this before?

i just stumble across it as they did a piece on a friend of mine who has just done a John O Groats to Lands end charity ride on a four person custom quadricycle.

You can download it here

http://www.urbancyclechic.com/2008/09/free-pdf-download-of-latest-urban-velo-magazine-9/

It was reading a copy of this that made me want to get a frame and build one up. Should help the MTB training and make picking the nipper up from chool alot more fun.

yep really good, been reading them for a while.
lots of good and helpful articals for all people!
Read it!

I really like that mag. Found it a little while ago, stoked on the way they do it

I've had a few copies through the door... Unpretentious and really cute... Great bog reading, and I'm not taking the piss... Great stuff in there, tho' it could be way better, with a bit more thought... No obvioui hipster crap tho', which is nice... The Ride and Fixed are WAY better publications... iMHO...

Has anyone read this article from the new urban velo?

I thought it was really well written and worth everyone reading it....

But don't if you don't want to... I'm not forcing you!

Link: Urban Velo

Words by John Prolly Watson

WARNING (lots of words below)

FIXED FREESTYLE EVOLUTION

                *A STATE OF THE NATION REPORT BY [JOHN WATSON](http://www.prollyisnotprobably.com/)*

    Every generation has a bike associated with it—in the early 70’s it was the road bike. Those who weren’t big enough for road bikes rolled around on their Schwinn Stingrays or one of the many look-alikes on the market. As these younger riders began to replace their banana seats, and upgrade their sprocket and handlebars the world of Bicycle Moto Cross, or BMX was born. BMX came out of Southern California and quickly pushed its way to the mainstream of the cycling industry. 

From one manufacturer came many, many of which are still around today. Pop culture influenced the sport early on, and with stars like Greg Hill, Bobby Encinas and Stu Thomsen, BMX had become the coolest sport around. Then the pros grew up. Some of the riders who were big into BMX discovered mountain biking or freestyle. For the next two decades, BMX grew in silence compared to its reign over the mid-late 70’s and into the 80’s. Decades of rider progression has influenced the design of the bikes to the point that the BMX of today has changed so much that its ancient cousin, the Stingray has vanished.

              The modern day mountain bike grew out of another California subculture, this time of hacked balloon-tire cruisers and the will to ride up and down the local fireroads. Through many iterations the bike and riding transformed, and during the explosion of extreme sports in the 90s, took over cycling culture by and large. Road bikes boomed with Lance, but into this millennia it seems by pattern that we’re due for a “new” bike. 
              Even with the technological leaps and bounds the cycling industry has made over the past 30 years, the fixed wheel bike is as popular as it has ever been. Road racers and messengers may have been riding fixed wheel, or fixed gear bicycles, for years, but not until the 2000’s has there been such a pronounced presence. Films like MASH accelerated the process, and has fueled the growing fixed gear culture we have today. Track bikes have quickly become the hip thing. 
              Everyone’s aware that its prominence has grown in recent years and with the sheer number of people riding them came those who experimented with their basic mechanical principal. Thomas Edison shot a well-circulated film in 1899 of a gentleman doing backwards circles, barspins and other tricks on his fixed wheel. In recent years, we’re seeing this again. Over 100 years later, people are still toying with fixed wheel bicycles. 
              In the late 90’s and even early 2000’s track bikes were relatively inexpensive

to purchase. Not many people were riding them on the street, and the ones that were doing so were mostly contained to the larger cities in the US. Now, almost a decade later, a vintage track frame is in much higher demand, with prices to match. To meet this demand companies began marketing “street-friendly” bikes. The steep angles of a track bike sometimes make street-riding difficult, and aren’t always the most comfortable. Issues like toe-overlap can be hazardous to inexperienced riders and some companies addressed this, making more relaxed geometries with horizontal track ends to accommodate the demand for road use. Since most people who ride track bikes in cities are doing so as a form of transportation, the bicycle industry has shifted its interest towards this sector. Urban fixed gears have become a big agenda item for many manufacturers.

          In Delco, Pennsylvania, Tom La Marche picked up a Raleigh Rush Hour and started riding it. He had ridden BMX for a few years and wanted to give a track bike a try. After commuting for a few months, he began to experiment. Within a few weeks, he could wheelie with two hands or one, land 360 tire taps, wall rides and other tricks that not many people foresaw happening on a track bike. This was a milestone for the way people rode their fixed gear bikes, and the evolution happening today. With the growing popularity of Youtube, people began posting their videos and soon everyone was trying out tricks on their fixed gears. 
          In the same way that the kids in the 70’s may have looked awkward riding their Stingrays, the track bike riders began to push the limits of their bicycles, often to the point of failure. Many of the people now riding these bikes didn’t spend years riding them like messengers had, so the first few months had a steep learning curve. Some of the kids hadn’t even ridden a bike before, so it was even steeper. Once people become comfortable on a bike and learn its capabilities, the bike and the ways in which people ride it is subject to extreme metamorphosis with the right nudge. 
          In recent months, a new form of track bike rider has emerged. More akin to a BMX or mountain bike rider, he is bunny-hopping stairs, gaps, ledges and other environmental elements. Once again, they’ve upgraded their components with parts that will endure, rather than just look

pretty. It’s not uncommon to see BMX and mountain bike components on these bikes and very little track-specific components. Rigid mountain bike forks, BMX platforms, riser bars, chainring guards and even 29er rims are just a few of the obvious changes. All of these components are creating the future of the fixed gear.

        I began to ride a track bike because I needed an efficient way to get around New York City. I had ridden mountain and road bikes in the past and out of my own curiosity, I tried a track bike. The gearing I chose was adequate for my environment, as were my early set ups. Now, because my fixed gear (it’s not a track bike anymore) is my primary form of transportation, it has to be comfortable and efficient. For me, these two factors set fixed gear bikes apart from a traditional bike used for tricks. Trials bikes and BMX have a higher potential for being trick bikes, but they’re not ideal for spending long amounts of time and moving through a dense city on. I couldn’t imagine riding a downhill bike in the city, or a trials bike through traffic. Transportation is still a vital part of the bike. 
        I commute every morning from Brooklyn across the Williamsburg Bridge and into Manhattan. If I see something along the way to ride, I’ll take a detour and mess around for a few minutes. There’s no going home to get my “trick bike.” To me, that’s a very valid point and the main reason why I enjoy riding my bike in the city. An all-day excursion throughout the Boroughs will yield multiple opportunities to ride different terrain. As I mentioned before, people have begun to ride BMX and mountain bike components. The wheels are getting wider, tires are getting bigger. After breaking other frames, people are switching to beefier set ups. To the people who are going big in the fixed gear trick world, a bike that is built to take abuse is more appealing than a bike that resembles a traditional track bike. 
        It’s not that the track bike was cast aside; it’s that the most central element to the track bike was selected and applied in a new form. Riding a fixed gear is fun, which is why it’s so popular, and most people who are riding a fixed gear and doing tricks on them know traditional track frames are not meant for such riding. Whether people are bombing hills or bombing traffic, these bikes will need to handle high speeds and perform in the more aggressive riding taking place today. 
        Companies have begun to add gussets to their frames and are designing unicrown forks with boasts of lifetime warranties. In time we’ll see what designs are most durable. A process of elimination, or in some senses, natural selection is taking place. Once again, the BMX and mountain bikes are influencing bicycle design and in the end, we’ll see this influence in fixed gear freestyle frames. I’m fairly confident that the new face of fixed gear freestyle will be a familiar one. 700c BMXs? Fixed mountain bikes? Something in-between? Something.

Andy is that in the Jan edition? Havent got even got my December copy in the post yet...

its all online!

sorry i might of ruined it for you then :(

nah, i like a paper copy (liked Fixed)
just wondered if you had received a copy, seems the postman has eaten mine.

nope i just read it on t'internet :)

hhmmmm dowload and print it....for the enviroment!!!!