Renewed Passion for Biking and Some Ideas

Fixie featured on of www.fixedgeargallery.com

I feel like I am mentally back in the summer before sophomore year of high school, the summer I spent collecting bikes from yard sales and garages, taking them apart, putting them back together and whatnot. I went on a bike ride through Druid Hill Park today and found this fantastic trail that runs north-south almost the entire length of the park; it was great to be around trees and away from the sound of cars for a bit. The whole time I was riding, I just kept thinking that all I want to do with my life is fix and ride bikes. I am quite used to such impulses, on nearly a bi-weekly basis I decide I just want to be a carpenter, but my passion for bikes and biking has truly grown. We may soon see an influx of bikers on the roads when people can no longer afford to put gas in their cars. Think about it: not only would we save money and the environment, but as a country we could be a little less grotesquely obese, and more pseudo-hip.

This newly amplified interest in biking led me to stumble across some great websites, such as FixedGearGallery. I do not personally ride fixed, though I do plan on converting my Craigslisted Bridgestone Kabuki to a single speed over winter break, but I do love seeing the dedication and customization people pour into their bikes; it is quite inspiring.

This, and a depressingly small amount of well done bike-based-blogs I found, has given me the idea for a blog dedicted purely to bikes and the people that customize them. Featuring a few bikes a day, allowing comments on the posts of the bikes themselves, and feeding in RSS and ATOM, I think it could be quite popular. FGG is great, but does not have an RSS feed, doesn’t allow comments (killing the community feeling) and is limited to only fixed gear rides, where as I am sure some really great stuff is being done with geared and freewheel bikes as well. If I can find some spare time somewhere magically I will be executing this idea.