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Monday, December 28, 2009

fixed gear progression and history 2007-2010 pt1: rise of the fixed gear 07-08

2009 marked the year where this blog went from a personal one to a more informative one. this blog has gotten me places i never thought of and i would like to thank the readers of my humble blog for a great year. hopefully you didnt see the personal shit i posted in the beginning of the year. that said, i would like to do an extensive recap of where we are at thus far.

i'm going to go out on a limb and put my self on the line and say this whole madness began in 2007- mash sf came out that year chronicling the (once) underground urban fixed gear cycling movement going on in san francisco. my, have we come a long way. back then no one knew what the fuck a fixed gear was aside from the hardcore cyclists, dromeheads, and the couriers. oh, and the hypebeasts, don't forget the hypebeasts. yeah, even i did not know what the hell was going on- i had heard of mash sf as well as fixed gears, but did not immerse myself in the culture just yet. looking back on that trailer, you get an idea of how far we've come:

think about it, MOST OF THOSE BIKES RAN BULLHORNS OR DROPS. and more times than none, there were drops. look at the fixed gear scenery today.

drops are a sign of a relic- only njs purist keirin machines, full on track bikes don such things (sarcasm if you do happen to run drops). the riding landscape has changed in 2008, heat caught on- people wanted to skid. people wanted to trackstand. people wanted to ride backwards people wanted to ride track bikes on the street. however, 2008 marked the transitioning period from urban track bikes to just fixed gear bikes. people built conversions, people experimented with tricks over utilizing a bike for transportation purposes. in addition to the way fixed gears were being used, the fixed gear identity as well as the machine changed. as tricks came into the equation, risers were slapped on as well as lightweight wheels and 650's and stuff like that. i believe the sign of these times would be council of doom:

looking at that, you should still be thinking damn, it's mostly hill bombing and has only a little to do with tricks. oh, yeah and macaframa's trailer came out in 08 as well. yeah, 08:

interestingly enough, if you look through both of these trailers, both include bikes with rear discs- awesome? absolutely. good for the riding we all do today? hell fuckin' no.

ALOT HAS CHANGED SINCE 08, AND THAT WAS TECHNICALLY A YEAR AGO. now ponder on this while i get some sleep. remember: the slider was not invented, no one is doing bunnyhops off shit, i havent even mentioned japan, everyone is running 28c or smaller tires, keo did not make keos known til 2008 in macaframalama, these are all on TRACK bikes (no bmx pedals to be seen, nor plastic clips for that matter), the over-bar skid was still considered hard and i havent even got to talking about 2009.

get ready for a really long 2009 post!

hellspeed,

jmik



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