Here’s the second instalment in my ‘quick and dirty, no effort’ bike check video series, again, I promise they will get more slick soon. Sion is Swansea’s answer to the Yellow Pages if you need a link to a specific product or a bargain on eBay. He probably rides more than any of the other fixed dudes ‘round here but he does wear SPD’s and a helmet so he’s not as cool as the rest of us when we ride 10 miles with a pop stop in the middle, wah waaaaaaaaaaah…
I admit it, I was one of the sad losers waiting outside an O2 shop at 7am in the morning a couple of weeks ago to get my nerdy hands on an iPhone 4 on launch day. It’s really going to make a huge difference to my posting here I reckon. The camera is actually pretty badass and the HD video is off the chain (for a phone).
This is the first video I have put together, you’ll notice that it is wack. I am actually a really hot video editor, I specialised in it during my awesome 1 year in university but it turns out the the video that comes out of an iPhone 4 isn’t instantly editable in Final Cut Pro and I haven’t got the time to wait for all the conversions so I had to knock this up using iMovie HD which is the biggest pile of shite ever.
I apologise in advance to Evs for the crappyness of this thing, they will get better in the very near future I promise…
These trick nights in London look like a right radical affair, I’m deffo gonna try and get up to the big smoke for one during the summer. Coincidentally, this summer I will have a trick bike and learn wheelies and Keo Spins, I was gonna learn them last summer but it turned out that my bike skills are nowhere near as good as my skateboard skills unfortunately. The whole plan went tits up when I got my Orlowski frame which has crazy overlap, no chance of wheelying that mofo, daaaaaaaaamn!
From their site: ‘The 5th Floor’ is a collective of riders formed in one of the worldwide epicenters of fixed gear riding: London. Despite being united through ‘Tuesday Night Tricks’ on the top (5th) floor of White Rows car park we enjoy and participate in all factions of fixed gear riding; tricks, track, traffic, touring…
The site is full of well shot photos by Angus Sung, news and rider profiles. Johnny Fitz is putting together a short film of their antics which focuses less on tricks and more on just bombing around town which looks killer, check it out below.
Saturday saw Swansea’s second alleycat, this time organised by Evs. The Scenic Sprint was an all out time trial with just a single checkpoint where we turned around and raced back to the start. The route was about 12 miles, every second of which was riding into the wind, Swansea Bay has a delightful multi-directional wind policy to piss off cyclists. 20 riders entered and headed straight for Oystermouth Rd, the worst part about this race is you kind of knew what place you were in because you could see everyone leave you and then they passed you on their way back as you were still heading towards the checkpoint.
A strong group broke away early and held their position right to the end. The real race was between myself and Jason Veall, we had a bet going where if he beat me I gave him a t-shirt from the last alleycat for free but if I beat him he would have to pay £20 for it, I couldn’t bare to see this grown man cry again (he was D.F.L last time) so I let him beat me and handed over the t-shirt without a crossed word at the end. Only Eddie was hit by a car, nothing serious but no doubt affected his performance. Beynon and me managed to almost perform a double Superman through a woman’s windscreen about 20 metres from the finish line which was quite scary!
Aled took the trackstand title for the second time, he spends waaaaaaaay too much time practicing in his kitchen it seems. The skid comp was pretty eventful with George faceplanting and Fisher pulling an amazing 1-footed-stand-up-no-skid (video below). The day’s events were polished off with a climb past Dylan Thomas’ house, it’s not a particularly huge hill but after the race it was enough to leave everyone gagging for a pint.
Big thanks to Street Evans for organising the day and all the sponsors: Howies, Hub Jub, 14 Bike Co, Exist and Wheelies. I’d like to give a special shout out to all the Trackdropouts boys and girl that came over from Bristol, it was a pleasure.
Race
1. Timpo
2. Tim
3. Owen
4. Ric
5. Chris Punk
6. Ed
7. Jason
8. Jono (blog)
9. JT
10. Sion
11. Ty
12. Beynon
13. Aled
14. Jake
15. Garry
16. George
17. Corbin
18. Eddie (Hit by a car)
19. Emily (D.F.L)
20. Jack (D.N.F)
Longest Skid
1. JT
2. Ric
3. Fisher
4. George
5. Timpo
6. Owen
Fisher has just finished his edit of the Santa Cruise Alleycat that took place in Bristol a couple of weeks back. It’s lacking a bit on riding footage but it captures the whole ambience of the day: cold and fun! We are working on getting John his own private driver, driving for (no) money at all the alleycats we go to in the future cause his videos are kicking ass and with a load of race footage too they will be awesome!
Riding the Long White Cloud is a 44 minute documentary about a group of professional skateboarders cycling across New Zealand. Going on the quality of the shooting and the list of skaters (Kenny Anderson, Cairo Foster, Chris Haslam, Rick McCrank, Silas Baxter Neal, John Rattray, Keegan Sauder) this is going to brilliant when it airs on fuel.tv in January 2010
Saturday saw Swansea’s second alleycat, this time organised by 
More photos 
