The Foot Down

A month ago a car pulled out in front of me and I ploughed right into it, All my clothes had to be cut off, this is what’s left of them…

14 Bike Co in London have just taken delivery of some SAG backpacks and messenger bags. They look super hot, especially the blue messenger bag, mmmmmmm. Check em out:

These bags ain’t cheap but they will make you the coolest dude on your estate, 14 have these models in stock:

Air Force 1 special edition artist: Questa – £180
Air Force 1 black – £180
Air Force 1 green – £180

Messenger medium black – £120
Messenger medium blue – £120

Messenger large black – £160

For more info contact 14 Bike Co and also check out the SAG website.

The Charge Slice are just one of a million different bullhorn handlebars available out there so why should you buy them? Well get comfy and I’ll tell you why…

25.4mm clamp diameter - 440mm wide

1. They are extremely well priced at around £20 and as low as £18 online.
With a price as low as that you can try them without breaking the bank, you really can’t go wrong. Even if you don’t like them you could flog them on for a tenner and you’ll never even notice that you bought them in the first place.

2. Charge is a British company and it’s good to support them.
In general I don’t give a damn where a product comes from but Charge is a cool company that makes cool stuff and just happens to be British. Buying these bars is the equivalent of buying potatoes from a market stall rather than a supermarket, they just taste better. In bike terms you’ll enjoy riding with these bars more.

3. The low price doesn’t reflect the quality which is actually really good.
These aren’t a crappy set of cheap bars so don’t worry about that, in fact I ran bars first into a car that pulled out in front of me a month ago, my collarbone was smashed to pieces and so was the car window but the bars are fine. If they were made of cruddy, cheap material then surely they would have bent at least a little bit.

The most important factor in any handlebar is the size and shape. These aren’t like the Nitto RB-021 which has that super cool drop but next to no flat along the top, these bad boys are 440mm which is WIDE! Now I know it’s hip and cool and fly to have the chopped down risers and the 380mm wide drops but you haven’t lived until you’ve ridden with wider bars. I’ve ridden with the skinny bars and thought it was fine until I got some nice wide drops like they had in the 70′s, it’s a completely different ride, I think the word that sums wide bars up is ‘sensible’. If you are bombing through London traffic delivering parcels then keep your chopped risers but YOU AREN’T DOING THAT. Stick a set of the Charge Slice bars on your bike and you’ll ride faster and you’ll climb hills with far less effort. It’s a no-brainer, they are affordable, they look good, they are well made and they are sensible.

The angle on the bars is really sharp so you won’t get them through every stem, you’ll need one that is a bit thinner on the underside or you’ll end up scratching them to bits, you have been warned.

You can probably get them from your LBS (another bonus of Charge being a UK based company) so go there first, if you have no luck then click here.

Check out the CHARGEBIKES.COM too.

I started riding with plastic toe clips and I was happy with them but the overlap on my new frame meant that I needed something a little less bulbous so I got a set of metal ones. After a few days of using the things I decided I couldn’t live with the pain of them pushing into my toes anymore, seriously, how can people use them???

I started looking through all the UK based online shops and found the MKS Deep toe clips which seemed perfect so I took the plunge. The quality of the clips was apparent as soon as I opened the packaging, the metal is super strong and the finish is beautiful as expected from MKS. They are not NJS stamped because the shape would not be used on the Keirin track but they’re are manufactured out of the same materials as the stamped ones.

Deep on the left, standard on the right

The only difference between these and ‘normal’ toe clips is that these are a bit higher at the front so bigger kicks like skate shoes fit into them much better but believe me that extra bit of height makes a massive difference. Right away I was back to the comfort of my old plastic clips with none of the pressing toe pain of the more angled regular metal ones. I’m pretty amazed at how pristine they stay even though they get a load of floor scraping when I’m trying in vain to learn tricks too.

Perfect for use with skate shoes

The fixed scene is chockablock with skaters and all other sorts of ‘non-cyclists’, these really should be attached to the peddles of every one of their bikes, why change your shoes when you can change your clips? Head over to VELOSOLO to buy a set.

Have you used these clips? Hit up the comments with your opinion on them…

Like all serious cyclists I have tried loads of different oils on my chain with varying degrees of satisfaction. There are 3 things that I look for in a lubricant: low noise, smoothness and cleanliness, it’s fair to say that most oils do not come anywhere near accomplishing good marks in all three areas. I was always making a sacrifice, a nice quiet, smooth ride always came with getting covered in oil and staying clean always came with a noisy drivetrain.

Chain-L No.5 accomplishes the seemingly impossible, it makes your ride quiet and smooth yet stays pretty damned clean. The first thing you’ll notice is just how thick it is, sort of like cooking oil, but that’s fine because it “soaks into chains using the same capillary action as thinner lubes — It just takes longer”. During it’s development they found that adding thinners and solvents compromised the overall performance of the product.

“Chain-L is a blend of extreme pressure (EP) lubricants in a high film-strength mineral oil base, formulated to provide the maximum possible lubrication to the tiny bearings that make up a chain. Chain-L also contains rust inhibitors and other additives to improve its longevity and wet-weather performance.”

Low Noise: Every fixed gear rider wants a quite chain, it’s part of the whole experience, I’d had quiet chains before but this is something else. On smooth ground I have actually experienced the nearest I believe it is possible to get to a silent bike using Chain-L. It’s the kind of quiet you get when your chain is absolutely drowning in wet lube and you’re riding in the rain.

Smoothness: Low noise and smoothness usually go together, but not always. I have had a relatively quiet ride but with a kind of gritty feeling which is not nice at all and with my Sram chain I have found it prone to vibrating when under high pressure. Since using Chain-L there is no gritty feeling and the vibrating that used to drive me nuts is gone which is cool cause I was about to buy a new chain.

Cleanliness: This is really the icing on the cake for me as I’m sure it will be for you. If you apply this correctly then you are going to be one clean legged cyclist, “being a sticky oil (it) has the potential to be extremely messy. But if applied correctly, with the understanding that it works inside the chain and not on the surface, it’s surprisingly clean”. I applied a single drop of oil to each link of my (cleaned) chain and left it to soak in before spinning the cranks, this would usually shoot oil everywhere but this is so thick that it wasn’t an issue. The first real ride resulted in a pretty filthy chain after a few hours as the excess worked it’s way out so I gave it a light wipe with a cloth and voila!

I’ve been riding Chain-L for a couple of months now and not needed to lube the chain a second time. Every now and then I give the outer a wipe, usually after riding to work in the rain. I really have no complaints about this product which is kinda hard to believe. Everybody has their favourite oil, this is mine and it will be yours too after you try it.

You can read loads of info on their website then head over to Urban Hunter to get yourself a bottle quick sharp!

At this time of year you are gonna need a set of lights for your bike. I went the cheap route and spent about 3 quid on a set of crappy ones from Tesco, they lit the place up well but the front one kept falling off, one night i skidded up outside my house and it went flying off, hit the road and never worked again.

JT had these right snazzy looking tiny little rubber things so when I was up in that London to see The Residents I took a trip to Brick Lane Bikes and the only thing I could afford (and actually needed) was a set of the rubber lights, the Knog Frogs!

CC ericrichardson

They are really small as you can see in the photos and made of a very grippy, flexible silicone outer that contains a small but powerful LED. To attach them to your bike you just pull the stretchy loop around your bar or seatpost and clip it to itself, I thought that they’d probably pop off but they seem to be holding fast. Knog reckon that they will burn for 80 hours (steady), or 160 hours (flashing) which is pretty impressive, to replace the batteries you just pop the electronic section out of the casing, nice and simple, elegant, hassle free, awesome! Another claim by Knog is that they put out 10,000 millicandelas which equates to being visible at up to 600 metres away!!! I’m not sure about that, in theory maybe but under normal riding conditions I’d imagine it’s quite a bit less, either way you need to know that they are a “safety light” so if you actually want them to light up where you are going then you better get some “proper lights” cause these things won’t light up any more than about 2 feet ahead of you unless you are riding down a pitch black lane. I think they do a perfectly good job of making you visible to all but the most ignorant driver, and make you look pretty, pretty, pretty good too so who cares if you can’t see where you are going?

They may do their job brilliantly but if you are scared of being looked down upon by ‘real fixed gear riders’ you must be aware of their hipster status, in fact Bike Snob NYC uses the charming name of ‘Hipster Cyst’s’ when referring to them. Yes they are unbearably cool looking but would you use a Dell rather than a Mac just because you were afraid of looking fresh? I don’t fink so.

CC ericrichardson

All in all I would highly recommend the Knog Frog lights, they come in 12 colours, are water resistant, probably wouldn’t break if you drop them (unless they land on the bulb) and are as light as a feather.

Ison Distribution are a company that like to sponsor fixed gear events and now they are stepping up their game by sponsoring a rider. Chris Delia from Hackney is well known for his freestyle riding and it’s great to see him getting hooked up.

From now on he’s gonna be riding the new Identiti Persona frame (with which he has had design input) with Identiti FFX forks along with the new Halo 24mm wide/25.5mm deep Aerowarrior rims, laced up to Halo Track hubs with Halo Twin Rail Courier Tyres. A pretty sweet set up!

Ison are also sorting him out with parts, he chose the Gusset Pigmy 853 Reynolds cranks, a Gusset G-Wheel chainring, A Gusset Badger chain, Gusset Pinhead plastic pedals and ODI grips.

It’s so cool that even though the fixed gear thing is still very much in the “fad” phase there are some companies that are putting their money where their mouth is and supporting rather than just cashing in. Fixed gear freestyle riding is here to stay as is going down hills like a rocket and I’d like to think that many years from now Ison Distribution will still be at the forefront of the scene very much like Shiner is for skateboarding.