Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:50am I roll out of my statistics class down to the library. For about ten minutes there are pedestrians everywhere, making their way to their classes while I trackstand in front of the library. As 11am approaches, the entire place becomes empty. Without a class and usually not in the mood to study, I practice my awesome fixed gear tricks!
It's now habit to sit or stand on my bike for between half an hour to an hour on those days practicing my tricks. Things I've worked on include trackstanding, trackstanding while pointing the wheel to the right (I've gotten a lot better at this because I naturally turn to the left), riding backwards, riding backwards in circles, no-handed trackstanding, eyes-closed trackstanding to no-handed trackstanding, and eating on a no-handed trackstand.
Right now, the hardest thing by far is riding backwards. I can get my left leg over the top, but I can't seem to get the right one over. It's probably because I usually trackstand one direction so that the muscles are unevenly trained.
In any case, I'm getting pretty good with all of this practice. Sometimes I get a lot of stares, once this bike cop came up to me and started questioning me, and usually by the end I'm drenched in sweat.
So I want to know, What is your greatest fixed gear feat to date? What is the most awesome trick, the coolest move you've done on your fixie? I guess this questioning only pertains to those of us with fixed gears (sorry everyone else!)
Here's mine:
I had to return a statistics book to a girl so I rode to her college, waited for her in a fixed gear, when she came out I rode over to her, rolled to a stop, and in a no-handed trackstand I pulled the backpack off of my back, unzipped my backpack, groped around in my backpack for the book, gave it to her, zipped it up back up, and proceeded to talk to her for a minute before riding off.
It was pretty awesome.
That's mine, what's yours?
8 comments:
one time I got to watch THE Kangway Chuang ride his bike on his belly, arms and legs sticking out like Superman. the reflected splendor accrued simply through being in his physical presence was the most glorious moment in my poor, uncool life
Good story, Mark!
If only I could do this
I don't have any good fixed feats (YET) but Matt can ride a bike backwards, and that's pretty damn badass.
Also I saw Will ride a tandem from the back seat the other day. I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to throw up. His comment was that it was "super aero".
WAS THE TANDEM A FIXED GEAR LITESPEED??!?!
Yeah, Matt can do that cool trick where he sits on the handlebars and rides the bike backwards. I've yet to meet someone who can ride backwards while sitting normally, though.
Right before I broke my scapula I could ride backwards for one full rotation of the pedals, but only starting/finishing with the left foot forward. I was working on getting it with the right foot, and then suddenly had to take a month off with the shoulder. Since then I haven't been able to even do the left side.
Seeing Will ride the tandem from the back seat was pretty sweet. But it's been done before: Sheldon Brown getting aero.
And damn, that litespeed must hold the all-time record for $/gear.
Ian I think I know what you're talking about. I can start out with my left foot forward and my right foot backward, both at 9 and 3 respectively. Then I sort of push down on the right pedal and my left foot will hit 12, and I can proceed to push that down backwards until it's at about 4, but right as it's going back to 3 I lose it because I didn't push down properly at the top with my right foot.
Does that sort of make sense?
Also, you think your tandem aero can beat this?!?!?!
On a similar note, I would totally have sex with this woman:
http://www.antonellabellutti.it/atlanta11.htm
Only if she is on the bike in that exact position while we do it. I wonder if we can invent a bike that comes in and docks with that one...
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