so after that first celebratory post about a new bike, i have another new one!
andre spent his whole saturday cleaning and converting this old 'freespirit' ladies' road bike to a single gear bicycle for me. riding my clunky ccm bike, i realized that riding upright is so nice! so my new bike has:
- a new flip flop rear wheel (it can be flipped to be either a fixie or a single gear
- newish front wheel
-new upright handle bars and grips
and now, instead of huffing and puffing trying to keep with andre on a super heavy bike (sorry ccm), or pedaling with little result (sorry mountain bike), i can smoothly keep up with him. yay!
i just have to make sure to be careful over the streetcar tracks. biking along queen st. the other day with myae, i almost wiped out crossing spadina. the cars behind me must have gasped as i slid sideways with my right leg up at 45 degrees trying not to hit the pavement.
some cool websites of girls who are into bikes (most seem to ride fixies - which i'm too scared to do):
- sayacafe - is staring a bike shop in japan
- charakichi (bike crazy in japanese): girls on bikes!
- paris cupcake girls ride
- fixed gear girl taiwan
2 comments:
great mods, andre's quite the handyman. how different and difficult is it riding a fixie?
At first its about twice the effort, since you can't coast. So your legs are forced to always be spinning. You get used to it though.
The different part is the weird part. The first time you find yourself trying to coast, your pedals feel like they're going to pick you up and throw you off the bike since they keep on turning!
Lastly, you can slow down pretty quick using your legs plus a front brake, but its a new set of leg muscles, so at first, slowing down is kind of scary. Eventually you can probably lock up the rear wheel into a skid like the crazy bike couriers do I guess
Andre
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