Oppertunities to Get Involved

Fort Collins Bike Town Meeting

Tuesday, April 27, 2010 @12:00 noon

Lory Student Center Room 208

A series of community listining sessions to identify issues in the Fort Collins bicycle comunity, and highlight oppertunities to get involved.  Both cyclists and non-cyclists are invited to share there thoughts, oppinions and information on all issues and events involving cycling throughout Ft. Collins.  This event is hosted by the Ft. Collins Bike Co-op, a community non-profit that supports the bike library a free bicycle rental opperation in Oldtown Ft. Collins.

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Fixed Gear Fashion

Campagnolo Belt Buckle

 I’ll be the first to admit that fixed gears are trendy, and there for the image takes on that of the rest of pop culture.  Some of these pop fashion senses are fitting to the lifestyle, nike dunks; messenger hats; athletic fitting clothing.  But know it has progress to emo kids who’s skinny jeans are to tight to pull up all the way.  And I just don’t see how it could of made this progression, from the days when fixed gears were ridin in The Tour de France and real men smoked ciggerettes in preperation for the mountian stages, to kids rollin around on a pink fixie with a front brake wearing a pare of Miley Cyrus skinny jeans.  You may often catch me walking aroound with one pant leg rolled up but you will never catch me in a pare of skinny jeans.  I like to stick to the vinage fashion of cycling hense this 1976 campagnolo belt buckle, this nickle belt buckle is a classic handed down to me from my father.

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Why ride a fixed gear bicycle?

Camron's Pass

Beside being fast and efficient, a fixed gear bicycle is very good exercise.  Because you are using your pedaling muscles backwards to slow yourself down, it is a very well-rounded workout for your legs.  I find it to be an especially good workout for my hipflexers, the hip flexer is the little muscle on the very top front of your thigh that almost stretches up above your pelvis.   I find this exercise to be especially handy being a backcountry skier.  When you are back country skiing, you hike uphill with your skis, ski boots, AT bindings, skins and whatever snow happens to hitch on top of you skis, and that becomes a lot of weight and lifting your legs and hiking in ski boot with all of that weight, is a workout especially on you hipflexers.  Riding my fixed gear helps keep me in shape to backcountry ski and it feels good to stretch out after a day of backcountry skiing on a fixed gear ride to the bar.

among many other reasons to ride a fixed gear

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Bikes

Here is another one of those Bianchi Pista Concepts, a prize track bike, you can see many of on the streets of Fort Collins.

Bianchi Pista Concept

This bike has the racing drop bars of the Bianchi team blue with matching rims, and is the white version of my roomates bike.

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Geometry

The tight geometry of a track bike is what make it so fast.  But when buying a track bike you may want to consider going to a more modern geometry to allow you to ride with thicker or fatter comuter tires. Notice the clearances of my bikes front wheel with the frame and fork would not allow a much thicker tire than these 23mm’s.

And notice in these two pictures of the clearance in the rear triangle certainly doesn’t allow much wiggle room on this 25mm rear tire. for commuting around town I would prefer to ride on a bigger fatter back tire but am limited by the clearance allowed by this geometry.  This is a factor I overlooked when purchasing the bicycle but will definately be aware of when purchasing another bike, and would advise consumers of the same. Some bikes are designed with a cut out in the reartriangle to accomidate bigger tires while maintaining a tight geometry and others have compromised the geometry in the rear triangle.  And the progression of front forks have evolved to give clearance for bar spins the front wheel and handle bars spinning 360 degrees around.

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Bikes Around Town II

Surly Steamroller
Custom Bike w/ front brake

Custom Fixie w/ Front Brake

Bianchi Pista

Bianchi Pista

As the weather gets nicer start to notice all the fixed gear bicycles around town and campus. These are three bikes on the rack outside the eddy building on thursday 3/4. The one is the very popular surly model steamroller, other than the frame the owner has pieced together the rest of the bike themselves, it is a very stylish bike with very nice components. The second is a custom bike that someone converted to a fixie from an old road bike (notice the rear dropouts where the back wheel attached to the bike and how it differs from other picture shown). This rider has opted to use a front brake only and no pedal clips not my prefered options, because i am more scared of slamming on the front brake and endoing over the handle bars than of skid stopping with toe clips. But this bike is very attractive as you can see. The third bike is the production model Bianchi Pista which I had mentioned in a previous Blog. It appears to be mostly stock but is also a good-looking bike. In the future I hope to chronicle more bike around town with some input from their owners, but these caught my eye on one of the first sunny days in a while.

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Tips on Clips

toe clips

and toe clips

Toe clips are key and important for control on a fixed gear. Since you do not have brakes, controlling your speed and stopping are all related to the pedal movement, the cadence of the crank. Pedal control becomes highly improved when you have good toe clips. When you skid stop you have to jam the pedals to a stop thus stopping the wheel and skidding the tire. Generally you lean your weight over the front wheel to reduce the pressure and coefficient of friction on the back tire allowing it to skid. Then you push down on the pedal with your back foot and lift up on the pedal with your front foot (right and left footed dominance in skidding is common, a good fixed gear rider will be able to skid with either foot back). You can skid without toe straps but you can’t pull up with the strap thus your back foot does twice the work and you may have to lean further over the front wheel to get it to skid. there are two examples of toe clips picture both of a similar double strap type, my prefered choice for riding comfort and control.

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Bikes Around Town

My Roomie's bike

My Roomy's bike

I will post pictures and descriptions of track bikes that can be seen on the streets of Ft. Collins. Today’s post is of my roommates bike it is a “Bianchi pista concept 2005″. This bike is a small production concept bike almost custom, but surprisingly not the only one of its kind in Ft. Collins, if possible i will try to post pictures of some of the others. This bike is designed for the race track velodrome, but he just rides it around town. It is a comparable geometry to the “Bianchi Pista” which is Bianchi’s most popular production track bike. The Pista Concept is a very sleek and light aluminum frame, a very nice construction. There is a cut-out in the rear triangle to allow the back wheel to integrate closer under the seat giving more preassure to the back wheel for traction and transfer of forces, this bike rides very well and fast. The Pista Concept 2005 is Bianchi’s race team concept bike for 2005. He has altered it from its original intention, with strait crobar handlebars on it with the ever so popular oury grips. His wheels are the same wienman deep-V as mine, which he swaped in for some ultralight wheels, which he had gotten tired of truing all the time. He has some nice metal cage toe clips with a nice “sprint brand” double strap.

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What I Ride

This is my Track Bike. It is a Tommaso Agusta Track bike frame. I bought it as a complete bike from Randall Scott Company out of Boulder, CO. It was sold under “old school track bike”, with wide chrome handle bars with leather grips, and grey deep-V wheels, but on my first day riding the bike to work at 7:00 a.m. I made a rookie mistake, I got bucked off the bike and put my knee into the front wheel bending it beyond repair, I rode it around for a month or two, with a bent front wheel, squeaking every rotation, before i could replace it. I replaced the wheels with Wienman’s Deep-V wheels in yellow, because I liked the bright cheery look. I wanted to sport up the handle bars from the stock wide grips, and first i tried some aggressive drop bull horns but they were to far forward for me. I wanted to find new toe clips, because they are a necessity for full control on a fixed gear, skid stopping and such. I found these Sag Life straps, from Japan, and then located a distributer Chari & Co NY. And then thought they would look good with yellow pedals which I found on E-bay. While searching the Chari & Co NY web site i found the green mustache bars and was sold, and matched them to the pedals with Yellow Oury grips from “A Brave New Wheel” in Ft. Collins, CO. And that brings us to the present state of my bike, tell me what you think.

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Hello world!

FixedGearFoCo is a new blog about the happenings in the Track bike world of Ft. Collins.

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