The Hipster Bike Part 2.

Continued from Part 1

#4)Brakes, or lack there of. On the Velodrome there is no need for brakes. Track bike racers ride round and round on the track at speeds to match the level of rake (the steeper the rake the more track bike rider can maintain his speed through the turns. Since the riders are so close to each other, any rider with the ability to suddenly stop would be a hazard on the track. Since track races started when bikes were all fixed gear, there has been no need for the bikes to evolve, but road bikes have freewheels, which allow coasting and the necessity for brakes. There is a simplicity, out of necessity to brakeless track bikes, which continues even today. That said however, most track racers would think it looney to ride their track bikes on the road without a brake. The truth being you just can’t stop fast enough. The track racers in Japan (called Keirin) when training on the road, will mount a front brake, the hole in the front fork making the bike ineligible to return to the track, for the safety of having a brake. Why just a front brake you ask? Won’t you flip over the front wheel with just one brake? Well you will if you don’t know what you’re doing. 80-90 percent of your braking ability comes from your front brake. The harder you brake, the more weight is transferred from the rear to the front wheel, making the rear brake almost useless. This does however allow you to use the back pressure on the fixed drive train to help modulate your braking. Without this modulation you probably would fly over the handlebars.

Now if you intend to use this back pressure as your sole means of braking, you are going to have to REALLY pay attention to traffic. You can't slow down as quickly just using back pressure, but believe it or not, avoiding or steering around a problem with a bicycle, is often more effective then trying to stop. The problem is, if the time comes when you really need to stop, you can’t. This problem is made even more problematic the steeper the incline, which leads us to the next hipster braking topic,”Skidding”. Yes, you can skid the rear tire of a fixed gear bike quite easily; it’s a technique sort of like track stands (keeping upright on a bike without moving or touching your feet to the ground). You simply transfer as much weight to the front wheel as possible, this often looking life the rider is having sex with his handle bar, and lock your pedals; if you do this wrong it will buck you off the bike or break your knee. Some riders will lock their knee under the top tube to create the same effect (probably the only reason to have a bike pad). This is considered an essential art needed if you ride a hipster bike. Here's a pretty well done video on skidding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0AFpq6jFok.

The problem here, is that locking the rear wheel is the most ineffective way to stop a bike. Campagnolo knew something when he said a brake is meant to slow a bike down, not stop it. Granted he was justifying the poor power of his early brake componentry, but truthfully, you don’t want brakes that lock up your bicycle’s wheels. There are two reasons you want your wheels to keep turning when you brake. The first is the true braking surfaces are your wheels tires. When you brake, your speed is turned into heat. And heat is good; it will cause better adhesion to the road. However, at some point your tires will start to melt dissolving your tires and that’s bad; that is also called a skid. When you skid, small pieces of the tire turn into BB’s, and the tire just rides on those BB’s, not contacting the road, until the tire material is ground off (that’s why cars have anti-locking brakes). So what you want is the tire to roll slower then your forward speed without skidding, so the heat is dissipated throughout the circumference of the entire tire, not just the one inch contact patch. The second reason is physics. Since the front brake is doing 80-90 percent of the braking and you have no front brake, physics is going to try and make your back brake turn into your front brake. In other words, your rear tire will slide out from under you and your bike will want to turn 180 degrees , so you are skidding backwards. This of course never really happens; you will either stop skidding on purpose or fall down and start skidding again, only this time it’s not pieces of tire that are balling up, it’s you skin.

As a final caveat, the tread of a tire is made up of different compounds; softer rubber has a better ride and holds the road better, harder rubbers last longer and hold up to more abuse. Regardless, the life span of the rear tire of someone Skidding is about 20 seconds. If your really good you can keep your skid going by letting the wheel rotate ever so often to a new patch; hipster bike riders actually make videos of this talent and compete at it and track stands, when they join together.

#5)Powder coating. The Hipster bike is all about color. When you are saving that frame from the scrape heap, you are going to want to make it pretty. Powder coating is the mainstay of mountain bike frames. While the Italians may want to turn each frame into vomit fade, mountain biker just want paint that will stay on the bike. Powder coating if cheap, durable and comes in almost as many colors as bicycle pads. And then there is "Shaving". If you are going to go to all the trouble of stripping a bike down and powder coating it, you may also want to shave it. Huh? That's right I said shave it. "Shaving" is such a descriptive term that I knew what it meant the first time I heard it. Remember that a fixie Hipster bike is a converted geared bike. A dedicated fixie bike has no bosses on the frame for brake or derailleur cables and obviously no derailleur hanger. A converted geared bike is going to have these bosses. So for aesthetics sake, one may want to grind off the bosses and derailleur hanger or "shave" the frame.

#6) Wheels. As I mentioned before, the classic Hipster bike uses a suicide hub. However there is another acceptable setup, that being Velocity rims laced to Formula hubs. Both are used because they are readily available and reasonably priced. Formula makes a very generic but good looking hub. Unlike higher priced hubs that use loose balls and cups, Formula uses inexpensive cartridge bearings. Since there is no freehub, all that is necessary is an axle suspended in the hub by two cartridge bearings. These bearings are so cheap, you can by them $2 or $3 @. Velocity rims however are a style choice; a Hipster style of course. The Hipster choice is the “Deep V”. The allure of the Velocity Deep V is they come in 24 colors. That’s right, Hipster bikes are all about form over function so why not a “Bubble Gum Pink” rim to go with your lime green powder coated bike. But wait there’s more! If you are looking for that really “fresh” look, check out http://fatlace.com/lacedup/2007/06/04/more-tae-x-fatlace-wheelsets/ for zebra strips or argyle rims.


Okay I said I would come back to this bike, so lets take a look.



Fixed gear; check
MTB bar w/pink OURY grips; check
Deep V Velocity with Formula hub; check

But we also have an Aerospoke front wheel and some cards in the spokes of the rear wheel; what about those cards? I once read someone describe the look as a bike that was ridden through trash and picked up some on the way. The history behind these cards is again the couriers. On their off times bike couriers have races called Alleycats. The participants would race from location to location using what ever route they thought the fastest. The cards, originally tarot cards, were simply identifiers for the race. Today they represent pretty much what ever the rider wants them to represent.

Now the Aerospoke wheel has been around for over 25 years. It was once the hot setup for race bicycles when aerodynamics was big factor; that would be triathlon/ time trails and to a lesser degree track bikes. Once Velodromes moved inside, the need for aerodynamic wheels on track bikes also went away and with the advent of carbon fiber wheels with bladed and lower spoke counts, Aerospoke wheels started to find themselves in the Bargin Barn. Then something happened; again it was the couriers. Turns out it’s a pain in the ass to thread a chain through a spoked wheel, but throwing one through an Aerospoke is a breeze. And since for a while you could pick up a front Aerospoke for about $100, they started showing up on the couriers’ bikes and Viola! it became the style. Demand then increased, but unfortunately Aerospoke already sold off all their stock and it seems all the bargains are gone. But you still see them, like this one that has been polished and posed in front of a charming washer and dryer set.

You'll notice too, this bike and the one above have a lot in common; that's not by accident, it's truly by design. After all they are both Hipster bikes!

The Hipster Bike

Being a bicyclist for the last 25 years, I have certainly taken notice of the fixed gear (or fixie) phenomenon that has seemingly taken over the “underground” or stylish bike scene, over the last 10 years or so. My fall into the abyss of fixie started in 2001 when I started riding a singlespeed mountain bike. Thinking I would need to maintain my “singlespeed stamina” through the winter months when I usually dedicate myself to road riding, I starting thinking of some means to do so. At this very time synchronicity played it’s hand and a neighbor inquired if I wanted to buy a track bike he had taken in trade for Chiropractic services. The bike had a custom steel track frame/fork, Campy Record flange hubs laced to Mavic sewup rims, Cooks 165.5 cranks, with some other Salsa, Campy, Cinelli and Sugino parts, and no brakes; he took $200 for the bike. After tinkering with the sewups and no brakes; I replace the former (clinchers) and added the latter (front). This bike has been my sole road ride since, including commuting and centuries. This is how my bike looked before the crash of 2007.

But still, there is the other side. The whole messenger/courier look, which changed your typical track bike




into the “Langster”

into the “NYC Langster” (even Specialized can't get it right; brakes on a Hipster?)
The whole messenger/courier fixie thing has become a movement, and with all movements, as the Doobie Bros named their album, “What were once vices, are now habits.” Of course most couriers don’t even ride the things, but that doesn’t matter, the mold has been cast. The following is the reasoning I have heard for the silliness that is now a Hipster bike (as far as I know they really aren't called Hipster bikes, but I just like the sound of the name from this incredibly dumb down video; I wish that's all there is to loosening a stuck seatpost video). Speaking of videos, this one fits because it includes a road biker vs a hipster with fixed gear, but is also the coolest and catchiest bike video I have ever seen;




This is part 1 of my attempt to decrib and define what a hipster bike was and what it has become.

#1) It must be a fixed gear or course. The fixed gear is the bike of choice because it requires very little maintenance. A courier usually makes $200-300 a week and can’t be pouring money into his bike. This unfortunately has led to what was been coined as the suicide hub. Since a true fixed hub is not common place, garage mechanics have taken to converting freewheel hubs to fixed gear. A freewheel hub is much like a BMX hub, but was designed to hold a multi-speed freewheel. The conversion involves re-dishing the hub so it will line-up with the front chainring when you screw-on a fixed gear cog. Unfortunately, unlike a fixed gear hub, there is no lock ring to hold on the cog. Generally they use a bottom bracket lock ring in it’s place, but since is screws on in the same direction as the cog (unlike the fixed gear hub) there is nothing to stop both cog and ring from unscrewing when you apply back pressure on the crank to slow down or stop. Hence it’s suicide to use the setup. The safety minded mechanic will actually weld the cog on the hub.

#2) Messed up handles bar. One thing the messengers seemed to have started was the “flop and chop”. Road or drop handlebars were designed to be aerodynamic, but most folks ride on the “flats” or top and hoods. To make the bar more user friendly they flipped the bar over and cut the drop off. They left enough of the drop sticking up to cradle their hands or add a brake; it does however reduce hand positions to one. Track bars have no real flats, because track riders ride exclusively in the drops. It is common to see track handlebars with bar tape or special track grips on just the lower grip portion of the bar. A lot of hipsters do a reverse track taping, taping just the flats and leaving the drop bare. NYC BikeSnob described this as looking like a dogs penis. Everytime I see them now and think of that; thanks BikeSnob.


If they don’t mess with the bars they leave them bare. Why anyone would want to ride a bike with their sweating hands sliding on non-taped handle bars is beyond me, but it is one of the most common “modifications”. Since all of my bikes have grips or bar tape, I have often wondered what it would feel like to grab a hold of a bare bar after it was sat in the sun while the rider I was carousing at my favorite coffee house. Holy blisters Batman! (but I digress).


If they decide for some reason not to chop up the bars sometimes they'll just put them on backwards?? This guy said it was his first build; no doubt, he also mounted the seatpost backwards.


Another reason I’ve heard to clip the bar was to make it easier to maneuver between cars. Of course this has been taken to the extreme of being no wider that the combined width of the grips; kind of like riding a horse with both hands on the saddle horn.Once the couriers started buying into their own rhetoric and riding without brakes, they imagined chopping the drops off completely, leaving just the flat portion of thenothing more than a straight mountain bike bar, hence the move to flat or low rise MTB bars and grips; Qury grips of course, because they come in so many colors. However, there is also another gripless bar that is commonly called, are you ready for this? The dildo bar.

We're going to see this bike again because, except for the lack of a "bike pad" and Brooks saddle, it represents the classic hipster bike.

#3) The Brooks saddle. Brooks has been making saddles for over 100 years. Their saddles are heavy and consist of a thick, non-forgiving layer of leather. These saddles have become the defacto saddle on a hipster bike. The trade mark are the copper rivets that sometime hold the leather to the frame. It has been said, mainly by the Brooks I might add, that once you “break-in” a Brooks saddle, it is the most comfortable saddle you’ll ever own. The truth is of course quite different; Brooks saddles don’t break-in your butt does. That’s right. The problem with most saddles is they break down after you’re butt has conformed to them; Brooks saddles don’t. It may take twice as long for your butt to conform to a brooks saddle, because they horribly uncomfortable, but once your butt has conformed to them, they will keep their shape for decades. That's why there is so many of them around. I’ve never understood why someone would spend the same money on an stiff piece of leather as they would on a modern, Sella Italia, but they do and boy do they suffer for it.



#4)The bike pad. There are two possible avenues here. The first is a bike pad may be just an elongated top tube protector. A top tube protector is a very short piece of plastic used on track bikes. Since the handle bars on track bikes are only taped on the drops, often times the bar can swing around and dent the top tube. These clip on the top tube to protect it from being damaged by the handle bars. The other route is that Couriers have this steel thing with wheels that they have to do something with when they get where they are going. Sometimes they take it with them and other times they lock it to something. Either way they either need something to protect their shoulder from the bike or the bike from the lock. Since bike couriers only exist in urban areas known for their high crime, the lock of choice is usually a big burly chain. “They also use chains for chainsaws” as I said before, so the bike pad was born. Originally a length of pipe insulation covered with duct tape to hold it on, it is know a fashion statement. Never mind that few hipster bikes will ever see a bare chain, you can now buy them custom made to match your paint scheme and tube diameter. http://yancopads.com/homepage.html. They are totally useless.



What goes hand and hand with the pad is a very useful item called a Messenger bag. The original bag was designed as a more contemporary version of a Postal service mail bag. Companies such as Chrome and Reload, (they also make pads of course) make some very stylish new bags that are functional as they are butt ugly. They're designed to throw over your shoulder and hold anything one would pay a messenger to deliver. They also seem to be designed to coordinate with your tattoos.

Continued

Part 2