Pages

Thursday, January 14, 2010

2010: the quintessential hill bomber is dead.

I remember in high school, I used to bomb down quimby road from evhs on my pink skateboard (before it got confiscated). It was exhilarating. The first day I got my bike (though it was a singlespeed at the time) I took on the milder ruby road and then bombed quimby (which isnt an sf hill, but still pretty steep). Bombing hills has always been my nature and I was never good at anything but going fast. When I was starting out, mashsf released. A lot of dudes ran urban pursuit style bikes built to bomb....


(emi's old bianchi concept, stolen)

(andy's old samson, deceased with a coaster brake)



But now, with the ever growing fixed freestyle community, the hill bomber is put aside. Movies like the revival, macaframa, no cassettes, and stuff like that are killing the once monopolistic influence that was mashsf. Bullhorns are being replaced with risers- I don't have a problem with the growing fixed gear freestyle community, I just want to put out there the idea that there are fewer hill bombers than there once was. Maybe I'm just feeling some nostalgia, maybe I'm upset that the urban pursuit is going out of style; but I want to see more boulevard bombers, see more big gearing and close calls, more "oh my f*cking god that's f*cking ridiculously fast" riding.


(there's waldo?)

I think its because hill bombing is assumed to be an activity calling for little to no skill and therefore, doesn't have that wow factor. but regardless of that notion, hill bombing is still exhilarating no matter what kind of fixed gear the bombing takes place on. risers, and the low gear ratio of a fixed freestyle machine- not all is lost. as long as there are no brakes and there are fixed cogs, bombing has purpose.

[20775_1269278766986_1080356844_821896_962980_n.jpg]
(eric's volume thrasher, a sign of the times)

if you look at the volume thrasher you can understand where i'm coming from. now dont get me wrong, i would love to have a thrasher to huck around. it has a longer top tube, spanish bb, and a slack head tube. bow what this means is that the front wheel is farther away making room for barspins without sacrificing the look of a regular bike (no wierd gussets). however, it sacrifices stability under high speeds with the slack head tube because it is so up right. in addition to that, the bottom bracket is a spanish bmx bb- which is fine, if you want to run bmx cranks but those carbon fsa's or sugino 75's, no luck. therefore you have to run whatever the bmx companies are pushing out: smaller ratios. sure you can run a profile imperial, but hey, thats pretty much the only option (i'm being sarcastic, i know that tree makes a big sprocket, and i'm sure volume does as well). i repeat that i'm not condemning the volume thrasher nor any other bike company. i'm not criticizing either. it's a machine fit for a certain function, which is respectable.

i think it's safe to say that the urban fixed gear and the fixed freestyle machine are two different subgenres of the fixed gear scene. many people want to run 2 bikes- one for going hella fast, one for doing tricks.  the emergence of more fixed freestyle specific parts and the recognition of the fixed freestyle community to bike companies is a part of this shift. one bike simply doesn't do the job anymore. of course it's an excuse to buy more bike parts, but why? i feel silly quoting iro, but "you only need one."; and wasn't that why we all came into the urban fixed gear realm anyway? a bike to both thrash and get around quickly on?

believe me, i'm not criticizing anything. however this blog's name does happen to be bomb hills speed kills, and really, i dont come across alot of things that have to do with bombing hills much anymore....

just think of it this way:
2007-drops (most functional for hill bombing)
2008-bullhorns (most functional for skidding/bombing- what i'm running.)
2009-stubby risers (most functional for absolutely nothing)
2010-uncut risers(most functional for jumping sh*t)


eh, maybe it's just me. discuss.

jmik