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Mongrel, for what it's worth, I do actually appreciate the fact that you've made the effort to ask people that actually know what they're talking about, as opposed to just taking a rough guess at things and writing an ill-informed article on a subject that, as you can tell from a lot of the responses, we're all fiercely protective of.
My main gripe was that Maxim really isn't aimed at the best demographic to be exposed to things like alleycat racing. Given that cycling in London (even for professionals - as in people that do it for a living, such as messengers) is a daily gamble with death by metal road monster, the last thing we need is for someone that orders the hottest curry on the menu to prove how big his balls are getting involved and putting all of us in danger.
I'm all for new people getting into cycling - each new cyclist is one less motorist trying (albeit inadvertently for the most part) to kill me - but alleycats are not the fucking place to start. I would worry that showing it as an 'exciting, dangerous, crazy dash through the heart of london traffic' will only encourage a bunch of arseholes to jump on a bike and start riding with around the same finesse that your average Max Power reader shows behind the wheel of their souped-up Honda Civic.
Also, the other thing about 'fixed-gear culture' (god, I hate that phrase) becoming appropriated by the mainstream and held up as this beacon of 'cool' is that it isn't like riding a regular bike. It's bloody hard to start with - just ask Mr 50x14, he might have a tale to tell you about diving in at the deep end.
Remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Well, in the UK, they were called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. This was because 'ninja' was a dirty word, thanks to the knee-jerk reaction of the press to a few muppets taking nunchucks to football games as an alternative to the classic Stanley knife and broken bottle combo. Strange analogy, I know, but I hope you can see my point.
We just don't want a similar backlash against something we love, due to idiots that care nothing for the safety of themselves or of others getting involved and, quite frankly, we don't want to be associated, or share the roads, with that kind of tosser.
/rant
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this "fixie culture" or "scene" is something invented by the media..
no more to do with alleycat races than the TDF is to do with fluoro commuters.
some people just want to ride their bikes for work, or for leisure without having to listen to a load of crap trying to pigeonhole or categorise them.
It would be better if mongrel and his journo mates did something to increase awareness about cyclists getting fucking killed all the time by HGVs
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More prevelent, you are probably right too.
Journo's of one sort or another, usually of the more fashionable, culture orientated press, used to pop into work at least twice a year. I've got articles from 2000 about London Couriers, a decent sub-culture it was then too.....
As tynan says he needen't have made himself known at all, he was testing the water and god knows where it could have gone if he wasn't faced with such 'assertiveness'.
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turpe just ask Mr 50x14, he might have a tale to tell you about diving in at the deep end.
He is a fucking legend. That's an article that needs to be written, followed up by the biopic with Al Pacino as the lead. "The Sheikh With No Brake".
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turpe [quote]BringMeMyFix the biopic with Al Pacino as the lead. "The Sheikh With No Brake".
I was hoping they'd cast Omid Djalili.[/quote]He's being cast as hippy for the group ride scenes.
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"The fact is mainstream media are going to be picking up on a fixed gear culture that is, like it or not, seeping more and more into the mainstream itself.
I'd just read an article in one of the Daily Mail magazines for fucks sake - the DAILY MAIL. The reason I wanted to look at an alleycat and perhaps speak to messengers involved is that at least these people are verifiably at the forefront and centre of something and can give the reader an understanding of something that is beginning to resonate more widely."i think you are confusing 'fixie' culture and messenger culture, they are not the same, they overlap but messengers didn't invent fixed bikes and in the u.k have never been a significant majority of cyclists who ride fixed (that belongs to trackies and TT'ers) there is a pic of Bill and 4 others at an early 90's european messenger championship the only entrants riding fixed, my mum rode fixed in the early 60's the bike was 40 years old and she managed to get down church hill without an areospoke or deep-v's.(she's my cycling hero)
i think what i'm trying to say is alleycats are one story riding fixed is another and you're not having much luck with the former :-)IMHO a story about roller racing would be better, it's inclusive not exclusive and your readership can pay their £5 and enter
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Caspar Group hug?
Group sex? It is Maxim afterall.
turpe
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Rollapaluza
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like tynan says, this shit's only going to get more and more prevalent, especially come summer. At lease mongrel made an effort, more so than the author of the comedy centrefold of last weekend.