Ride Lugged

In honor of a bike that I really miss riding, here is a creepy montage of Merckx crashing.

Just in case you live under or near a very large rock, which may be blocking your reception to the rest of the funny and talented world out there…here’s another reason to laugh about something that happens to everyone….but you, of course.
I now present for you entertainment, my new musical heros.

RobQ

Thanks to trackosaurus rex for the mind explosion.

Just got back from London, where the above clip was shot in front of the robot rider in the “World’s Best Bike Department” at the famous Harrod’s department store in Knightsbridge. The audio is kinda muted. Basically I’m saying that the robot on the suburbo-cruiser is the best thing about the “bike department” that otherwise contains two of the stupid ass “ferrari bikes” and a few acres of designer spandex (read: prada sport polyester t-shirt: $400).

The hotel I stayed at (paid by school (!)) was next to the other famous department store, Selfridges, which also had a very half-assed bike section, albeit with a few decent fixed gear jim-jams from Wilier. Not sure why giant fashion stores in London think bikes should be part of their offering, not to get too business-schooly on you guys, but fancy suits and cycles aren’t exactly part of the same core competence.

Here it is for all of you who aren’t on my email list.
Three and a half years old…ripping.
He’ll be jumping it by the end of the summer….
over trashcans on fire…
Q

Sad.

So this is where BMX went with the artistic cycling thing. The cross over is linked back to a guy named Pat Romano who’s family had done the artistic cycling thing for generations over in Europe. He rode a fixed gear BMX bike that ran something like a 24-20 gearing. He was in the movie RAD during the dance scene…if you remember that. This was all circa 1984 when he started showing up in magazines with things like axle pegs and doing stuff that noone had seen before. Alot of what you see from the fixie 700c tricks circa 1900’s is still very much at play in what is considered modern flatland. What started out as pogos with brakes has transformed into rolling brakeless using balance and momentum to keep the bike moving. As far as I know, Kevin Jones was the first person I ever saw who could ride a wheelie and then slip over the bars into a straddle over the headtube and keep the bike moving and only on the rear wheel. That is called the “Time Machine” if you spin in a circle like most artistic cyclists do. I could go on all day about the similarities between the two worlds of BMX and Artistic cycling…but here is a short video featuring one of my favorite flatlanders, Lee Musselwhite.

you can reduce the likelihood of an aneurysm by skipping ahead to moment # 1:55. the overly dramatic and poorly chosen music makes my face hurt, maybe it will hurt yours too.