Saturday, September 20, 2008

i guess a few pictures are in order.

this was the san francisco fixed gear ride circa 1997. we would meet at the gandi statue at 9am and leave at 10am. we always ended up waiting for someone to show up till up to 11am....haha, sometimes they waited for me. some people pictured: myself, erik zo, amaze, seagravy, toby, lisa and silly seth to name a few. we called him silly seth because he would take his bike apart and rebuild it every day. he would relace the spokes and everything. he would come up to me while standing by at the wall, start to giggle and then ramble about bike mechanic nerd stuff.....and then walk away. he even rode around all day once without bars, just holding the stem! silly. in this pic his bike is the one with left side drive.

we would ride from this statue along the embarcadero to 3rd st. then we rode out to the industrial zone past the projects. then out by south city near the golf course we would have a "break" at the duel spot. erik zo is such a good tour guide, he knows so much about san francisco. he was the one who started the ride to begin with. he set the route, cause he knew the city the best. after the break, we head out to skyline and then the beach. cliff house and then out and around the presidio. the marina to the point and then back to the statue. usually we would head up market st and head straight to the bar. sometimes we got lazy halfway and cut the route short. sometimes we went on the ferry and went to some bike swaps or the brewery....good times.


this was my first ligit street track frame. the bernie mikkelsen kamikaze. i bought it from tim slack in nyc back in 95ish. i "imported" it to s.f. it was rebuilt by bernie, had a new seat tube and the rear washer brake mount was taken off. it was originally sold as only a frame with no fork....but i got a mikkelsen straight fork to match since i was already getting it fixed, why not? the phil wood hubs laced to the mavic cxp30's were a tight combo for a while. blue campy bmx cranks and some purple mtb straight bars....with bar ends! one of my favorite parts was the leather and metal skull headtube badge i put on it. it was originally a heavy metal wrist band that i bought off some dude on the f-train in brooklyn. i cut it down and zip-tied it on....money. i loved that bike for what it was not how it rode. it was fast and light, but most of all, way too small for me. i know my body took a few hits for that bike...worth every pothole. i sold it to a girl named olivia who brought it back to nyc only to have it stolen by another "messenger" her and the bike live back in s.f. and i think she has it set up with a coaster brake wheel.


so this is me a few years back, when i had a little more hair..... it was taken for a newspaper article about fixed gear bikes in san francisco. i felt the article made us look "dangerous" and "illegal" but that was to be expected back then. they took a good picture that made me look like a giant which was the only good thing i got from it. i was that "crazy"fixie guy. the one with no brakes and obviously no brains either.

i was on evening magazine too, the "local news" show that mike sugarman did sometimes. he did the usual interview stuff but then the acton shots..... he had me stop on a dime that he was standing next to while skidding down this street in nob hill. i pulled it off, but the way they cut it for the show, it was so dramatic....they even shot it through his legs and cut every second like i was gonna crash into him, but i totally rocked it and came out looking like a skilled cyclist. then mike put on a helmet and he tried to ride my bike on the embarcadero...what a good sport. i wish i still had a copy of that....oh well

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