Urban Outfitters and O.G. fixies
So Urban Outfitters announced last week that they were going to start selling colorful single-speed/fixed-gear bikes, and the reaction in the fancy-bike community, both online and with people I know, was not particularly positive. Here’s a fairly representative comment from the discussion on velospace:
i have faith that humanity is smarter than this and that it’ll make urban outfitters look stupid even to people hopping on the band wagon.
Ha! Yeah, right! The new hipster bikers that the O.G. hipster bikers (some of whom have probably been riding fancy bikes for upwards of five years!) so dread seem to be totally into a colorful, customizable, messenger-ish bike that sells for $400. For example, check out this Nylon post and the comments, which I think epitomize what veteran bikers find so annoying about new bikers:
With their new online Bike Shop, they’ve gone above and beyond the call of Outfitting duty and given us the tools to build our dream bike. In what is probably their most technical undertaking yet, the site allows you to customize nearly every aspect: frame size, saddle, grips, chains, rims and tires. Really, just talking about bike parts is already making us feel like a cool mechanic (we said grips.)
So there’s a few main points O.G. bikers make about why the Urban Outfitters bikes are a travesty:
April Fool’s Fun Ride 2009?
In case you were wondering (I was), R.E.Load has a message up about their 9th annual April Fools Race (excuse me: Fun Ride):
So…..we’ve been getting calls and emails for a few weeks with people wondering what’s going on with our actual April Fools Ride. In the past week, we’ve even heard some dates that people are claiming the ride is on! Just to clear up any rumors: Yes, we are planning on doing the ride this year. However, it is going to be in early May as opposed to April. The reason for this is simple: it’s very very hard to secure an after party spot that is willing to allow 400 or so people to come in and buy discount beer on a Saturday.
We finally found a spot this week, and we’re going through the final preparations in terms of securing sponsors and making sure there are no conflicts. We hope to have preregistration up on the website by the end of next week!
I don’t know why they’re having problems finding a venue, who doesn’t want this?
Or some jerk climbing the statues?
I think some documentation exists somewhere of me failing horribly to light a cigarette while jumping rope at one of last year’s stations. Ugh. It’s way harder than you think it is, seriously. Here’s hoping that this year’s t-shirt is as sweet as last year’s, which was done by Emily Glaubinger.
How to store 14 bikes
Apartment Therapy has a neat post up asking commenters for their input on how to store a lot of bikes in an apartment.
My future husband and I have a bit of a bike problem to solve before we merge households. Specifically we need to find the most efficient storage solution for 7 bikes….each. Have any other AT cyclists found a small space solution for a large number of bikes?
Good question, especially in the bike central that is Philadelphia. The nicest-looking solution for bike storage in our opinion is the Cycloc, but at the moment just one is going to run you about $112 plus shipping, so it’s unlikely anyone’s going to buy 14. They’re a great blend of form and function, though, and come in four colors!
At the moment there’s a few good suggestions and a ton of people asking why in god’s name the couple needs seven bikes apiece. To offer your input, defend the validity of owning seven+ bikes or see what other people have suggested, check out the comments here.
Cycloc pics via fueledbycoffee’s flickr and Cycloc