so, lets start at the beginning. about 10 years ago, I was pretty curse word-hot on a bike. by 'riding' I don't mean using it to get around, I mean aggressive freestyle stuff, that back then we just called riding, but in current trendy terminology would classed as dirt jumping, bsx, northshore, park and street. massive jumps, big drops, bmx tracks and other two-wheeled hooliganism. we were riding pretty extreme stuff for the time, the magazines visited our trails a couple of times and most of us managed to get a pic or two in em, as it was before the internet was really 'big', and magazines were what led the scene.
I used to race the mtb class in the local bmx club, which was basically 8-up bsx/duel slalom before it was invented.
I could post up a lot of embarrassing photos of me racing, and down our trails, but ile leave those out for the minute
I started to drop out of it as I got into cars more and more around the age of 19-20, couple with my knees and back being pretty much totally shagged from years of abuse, and a broken collarbone that used to give me a bit of gip as it set a bit low and took ages to heal, so I kinda slowly packed it in. ive always kept a decent bike though, which for the last 6 years or so had been a custom made 24" gack usa speed demon frame with '04 bolt-through dirt jumper 1s, hope discs, 24" halo wheels, and the rest mostly bmx based components.
to be honest, it was overkill for the much tamer riding ive been doing, which as been leaning more and more to street riding these days, mostly cos living in essex, there isnt much scope for the other stuff as its a bit, erm, flat.
fast forward to now, and I find even though in my job I spend a lot of time lugging stuff around, bashing things to shape, and general 'labour', its all within my daily ability, so I find as I get older I'm still starting to put on weight, which I put down to a lack of aerobic and anaerobic exercise. I feel I need to keep this in check so I don't turn in to a great big fat b@ast@rd, but tbh, I have quite an aversion to exercise, I hate team sports, so the only thing id really consider is strating riding again.
so, with the chance purchase of this-
I'm trying to get back into it.
the bike is a 24seven darkangel v24, set up single speed and rigid with slicks. its light, its quick, it has excellent geometry, and suits the style of riding I'm doing a million times more than my other bike. so much so my gack has now been broken up for parts, some of which will be going in this, some on another frame as a spare bike, and the rest on ebay as I don't need them. its a bit sad and a bit annoying really, as I replacing what was a very high end bike that cost well over a grand to put together with a low to midrange bike that cos me 50 quid and is only about 600 new!!
but I suppose it shows just how much the technology has come on in the last few years, and how much development has gone into this style of bike. until id ridden this id never ridden a 24" on slicks, and I have to say its a revelation. I like the v24 as its quite light, but not too light like an ally framed bike, and more importantly its well balanced- it not all the weight at the bike like most rigids. it rides really quick, gearing cant keep up with how fast it rolls at all so I may need to drop a rear sprocket size or two. riding position is excellent, highish bars so youre not lent too far forward, but no lazy slack head angle like with long travel forks, or too steep and quick to turn in like a cruiser. the rear triangle is ridiculously tight at 15", coupled with a long 22" toptube, so manuals like nothing else ive ridden. the forks are quite long too at 440mm CROWN height, which keeps the nose up and the head angle reasonable, as in the past ive found all rigid forks to be too short for my liking.
so, on sunday evening me and the missus went down southend seafront for a bit of a play around. I bought her a bike for christmas year before last, and it hasnt been used for much other than general 'bike rides', but shes been trying to learn to bunny hop so the large flat seafront prom was a good practice area for her, and it meant I got to play around on some minor obstacles to try to re-hone my rusty techniques.
I spent half an hour or so practising manualling, and decided I was way worse than I thought id be!! I really had nowhere near the level of bike control I used to have.
so I decided to move onto bunnyhopping and hopping up and down stuff as well. I could manage a decent foot high bunnyhop on the flat, but give me an obstacle, and timing the hop correctly was proving an issue.
so I picked a obstacle I could play around on and work my way up to bigger and bigger stuff. the massive obstacle I chose was the set of steps in front of the kiosk in the distance in this photo-
which are the same as the ones on this kiosk further along, but this is a better photo!-
3 steps up each about 8" wide and 6" tall, that were about 30 foot long overall. perfect for getting some precision back into my hops.
I started going up em one at a time in series as I rode along them, eventually I got up all 3 in one go and proceeded to jump off the end. then once id got that down a few more times I went for jumping straight to the middle one then off again. much harder, but after a lot of trys and a few cockups I got it down.
so then,i went for the biggest trick of going straight up onto the top level and then off again. much harder, needed a bit more speed and commitment as it was over 2 foot sideways and 18" high, and there wasnt really anywhere to bail to if I got it wrong as the top level was only about 2 and a half foot wide.
first go I made it up but landed on the pee and hit the shutters with my shoulder and slid along before bailing.
second time I made it bang on perfect, complete with celebratory tabletop hop off the end ;D
third time I caught my back wheel on the edge of the top step, whacked the wheel sideways in the frame, and snapped my rear QR skewer. balls!
it meant a mile walk back to my girlfriends, but hey at least I didnt go down the steps on my face, so I guess it was a successful mission!!
time to upgrade to bolt-through rear axle I suppose.....
overall its showed me ive got a hell of a lot to re-learn, but if I did it once I'm sure I can do it again. I'm hoping to go out again wednesday night for a bit more street-based action, might even remember to take pics of what I'm up to next time!
anyone else on here become a born-again bike hooligan then?
I used to race the mtb class in the local bmx club, which was basically 8-up bsx/duel slalom before it was invented.
I could post up a lot of embarrassing photos of me racing, and down our trails, but ile leave those out for the minute
I started to drop out of it as I got into cars more and more around the age of 19-20, couple with my knees and back being pretty much totally shagged from years of abuse, and a broken collarbone that used to give me a bit of gip as it set a bit low and took ages to heal, so I kinda slowly packed it in. ive always kept a decent bike though, which for the last 6 years or so had been a custom made 24" gack usa speed demon frame with '04 bolt-through dirt jumper 1s, hope discs, 24" halo wheels, and the rest mostly bmx based components.
to be honest, it was overkill for the much tamer riding ive been doing, which as been leaning more and more to street riding these days, mostly cos living in essex, there isnt much scope for the other stuff as its a bit, erm, flat.
fast forward to now, and I find even though in my job I spend a lot of time lugging stuff around, bashing things to shape, and general 'labour', its all within my daily ability, so I find as I get older I'm still starting to put on weight, which I put down to a lack of aerobic and anaerobic exercise. I feel I need to keep this in check so I don't turn in to a great big fat b@ast@rd, but tbh, I have quite an aversion to exercise, I hate team sports, so the only thing id really consider is strating riding again.
so, with the chance purchase of this-
I'm trying to get back into it.
the bike is a 24seven darkangel v24, set up single speed and rigid with slicks. its light, its quick, it has excellent geometry, and suits the style of riding I'm doing a million times more than my other bike. so much so my gack has now been broken up for parts, some of which will be going in this, some on another frame as a spare bike, and the rest on ebay as I don't need them. its a bit sad and a bit annoying really, as I replacing what was a very high end bike that cost well over a grand to put together with a low to midrange bike that cos me 50 quid and is only about 600 new!!
but I suppose it shows just how much the technology has come on in the last few years, and how much development has gone into this style of bike. until id ridden this id never ridden a 24" on slicks, and I have to say its a revelation. I like the v24 as its quite light, but not too light like an ally framed bike, and more importantly its well balanced- it not all the weight at the bike like most rigids. it rides really quick, gearing cant keep up with how fast it rolls at all so I may need to drop a rear sprocket size or two. riding position is excellent, highish bars so youre not lent too far forward, but no lazy slack head angle like with long travel forks, or too steep and quick to turn in like a cruiser. the rear triangle is ridiculously tight at 15", coupled with a long 22" toptube, so manuals like nothing else ive ridden. the forks are quite long too at 440mm CROWN height, which keeps the nose up and the head angle reasonable, as in the past ive found all rigid forks to be too short for my liking.
so, on sunday evening me and the missus went down southend seafront for a bit of a play around. I bought her a bike for christmas year before last, and it hasnt been used for much other than general 'bike rides', but shes been trying to learn to bunny hop so the large flat seafront prom was a good practice area for her, and it meant I got to play around on some minor obstacles to try to re-hone my rusty techniques.
I spent half an hour or so practising manualling, and decided I was way worse than I thought id be!! I really had nowhere near the level of bike control I used to have.
so I decided to move onto bunnyhopping and hopping up and down stuff as well. I could manage a decent foot high bunnyhop on the flat, but give me an obstacle, and timing the hop correctly was proving an issue.
so I picked a obstacle I could play around on and work my way up to bigger and bigger stuff. the massive obstacle I chose was the set of steps in front of the kiosk in the distance in this photo-
which are the same as the ones on this kiosk further along, but this is a better photo!-
3 steps up each about 8" wide and 6" tall, that were about 30 foot long overall. perfect for getting some precision back into my hops.
I started going up em one at a time in series as I rode along them, eventually I got up all 3 in one go and proceeded to jump off the end. then once id got that down a few more times I went for jumping straight to the middle one then off again. much harder, but after a lot of trys and a few cockups I got it down.
so then,i went for the biggest trick of going straight up onto the top level and then off again. much harder, needed a bit more speed and commitment as it was over 2 foot sideways and 18" high, and there wasnt really anywhere to bail to if I got it wrong as the top level was only about 2 and a half foot wide.
first go I made it up but landed on the pee and hit the shutters with my shoulder and slid along before bailing.
second time I made it bang on perfect, complete with celebratory tabletop hop off the end ;D
third time I caught my back wheel on the edge of the top step, whacked the wheel sideways in the frame, and snapped my rear QR skewer. balls!
it meant a mile walk back to my girlfriends, but hey at least I didnt go down the steps on my face, so I guess it was a successful mission!!
time to upgrade to bolt-through rear axle I suppose.....
overall its showed me ive got a hell of a lot to re-learn, but if I did it once I'm sure I can do it again. I'm hoping to go out again wednesday night for a bit more street-based action, might even remember to take pics of what I'm up to next time!
anyone else on here become a born-again bike hooligan then?
Just cant wait. 6 years without being able to ride more than 1/2 a mile is torture.
