Sneak Peek of FGIT 2011

A sneak peek into what goes on during the event in the Cheras Velodrome,

more coming soon…

Early breakfast ride shoot

Wawan’s vintage Raleigh

 

Wafeeq’s Subrosa Letum

His official urban assault vehicle, the Subrosa Letum. He’s thinking of letting the bike go real soon, but in the mean while lets just admire the Letum while he still has it ; )

Yeah Right !

After we realised that cycling caps were hard to get in Malaysia, or if available, at crazy prices. We decided that hey, why not make our own caps! Thus Yeah Right! was born. Out of the need for quality gear at affordable prices. Cycling is for everyone, so our caps need to be for everyone as well. Stylish caps coming reall soon guys. Support your local bike community!

Prolly huh? Yeah,we are in Prolly Is Not Probably.. :)

credit to Shamin Sahrum and QuixoFixed Crew. Keep on rolling guys!!

Cheers John Watson!!

Grafa Opening Party

Last Saturday was our Architectural Science exam but most importantly, it was also the Grafa Opening Party day! Luckily we ushered ourselves over to Grafa straight after finishing the paper which ended 4pm + hoping to be in time to join the celebration. Needless to say, we all had an awesome time and we would like to congratulate our very own Redo Ramli for leaving the party as the winner of the Longest Skidding contest : )

Thank you Grafa & we hope there will be more events to come, cause we will definitely be there again ; )

In Between

In between submissions and exams, there is a life outside the studio for us architecture students. Get a bike, get a life.

Putting a little more focus on some of our riders : )

What’s the big deal?

So what is the deal with this fixed gear craze? Is riding bikes actually cool again?  Actually this whole thing about fixed gear bikes has been going on for quite some time. In some countries like the US, it started like maybe some 7-8 years ago, maybe more. Originally single speed or fixed gear bikes, were used by track cyclists. You know, the ones that go around in a velodrome for racing. Then bike messengers, bike couriers if you will, adapted to fixed gear because it was easier to maintain and they didn’t have to worry about changing gears and all that crap. They only had to pedal.

With bike messengers, there was a whole culture to it. I was actually introduced to the whole bike culture during my 2^nd year while studying in London, and only because it was part of my final project. Bike messengers have a closed culture. Not a lot of people know of this culture and not a lot of people can be in it. It was like a tribe. You actually had to become a bike messenger before you were to be accepted. Sort of like tribalism rituals.

A bike messenger’s job is gruelling. It’s not just sending mail, but along the way trying to avoid pedestrians, cars and police harassment. Pedestrians often call them a pest because they’re always barely hitting people. On top of that you have to have you body ready to cycle all day everyday, even during the freezing months of winter. Owh, and they get hit by taxi’s and other vehicles as well, so it’s not exactly a joy ride. The pay itself isn’t good, but they make it up with an abundant amount of passion for cycling and just the joy of being on a bike. It’s punk, it’s anti-establishment, and for them driving cars suck. So knowing that, I could actually understand why it was a closed community. And that made them cool.

So borrowing or adapting the messenger culture, fixie culture was born. This whole scene included music, arty stuff, how you wore your clothes, what you did. It was actually a way of life. Not to sound like its Buddha or anything, but there’s a whole world to it. A world only people in the circle would know. Some people like Mark and I, came from the skateboarding culture.

Surprisingly enough that culture was the same. You would hang out with your friends riding, doing tricks, watching videos of other people riding, chilling out, exactly like skateboarding. It’s no surprise that most of the people into fixies now come from these familiar sub-cultures like bmx and skateboarding. So naturally for us, it was the perfect thing to do. We as humans are more animal like than you think, and the desire to be a part of a group, or part of the heard, is proof of that animal instinct.

Another interesting part of a fixed gear is that the free reign to customize your bike totally, making the bike an extension of ourselves.

Some people may hate on it that more and more people are getting into this closed community of fixed gear riding, but personally I think its cool. Sure some people may be posers, but in the case of Malaysia, it’s good that were riding bikes again. I remembered when being cool on a bicycle lasted up till only Darjah 6. And there’s this negative perception where it’s too hot to cycle and all that. Well our country’s perfect for riding in the mornings and evenings. We’ve got mamaks don’t we? Night riding has got to be the best thing ever. And helping mother nature has never looked so cool.

Riding for different reasons, but enjoying life is high priority for everyone.

Sure let the haters hate, but we welcome anyone who wants to go on a night ride with us and just hang out. Guys and girls. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a fixed gear, convert any old bike, or just ride any bike you can find, fixed or no fixed. To us riding should be shared and enjoyed. And with that, we welcome you to Quixofixed ; )

Spoke Cards (Kad jari-jemari)

Basically  these cards are those cards that you stick between tire spokes. You know, like we did as snotty kids in primary school. Sounds kinda cool when you say it as spoke cards though, haha. The DIY guide to pimping up your ride, fo’ cheap :

1. Find a cool graphic to print out, or even better, make your own.

2. Print your stuff.

3. Go to the nearest stationary shop and get the friendly uncle to laminate your printed out graphics. Should only cost at most  Rm 3, depending on size.

4. Once that’s done, Stick ’em on your spokes!

Here’s some graphics from other fixie sites:

Found this one over at Deaf pigeon, by I Love Dust, love the ape look.

These two above are from Deaf Pigeon, awesome site with clean graphics. More downloadable cards here too. Check them out here

Or get our own Quixofixed graphics to adorn your tire sets ; )

Tokyo Fixed Gear

Besides the name being in Tokyo, the shop’s actually in London, haha, and i just knew it recently ; ( Here’s their poster, awesome. Checkout their site as they stock quite a well range of stuff AND they ship worldwide.

Check them out here : Tokyo Fixed Gear