IMPETUS MOMENTA

T-shirt :)

Last week Andy was interviewed on Hoxton Radio about Impetus Momenta, among other things… If you missed the show, click the link HERE!!

Photograph by Andy Ellis - Æ

Ted James also known as SuperTed, was one of the riders at the forefront of the fixed gear trick movement. As the scene evolved Ted helped with the progression and in particular the progression of riding and bike design.

“Over my many years of riding i have enjoyed all kinds of cycling including road and track but my main enjoyment has come from Mountain biking and BMX this is where i found i could get more creative and have fun too. My fixed gear riding has incorporated all disciplines from doing long trips to off road and even tricks. I was sponsored by Charge bikes and helped develop a bike with them, i started to build frames myself which is something i had been wanting to do for years, this lead me to design frames for the kind of fixed riding i and many others were doing.”

“I’d ridden some track in my early teens so i knew the feeling of riding fixed, years later when i started seeing people (mainly couriers) riding fixed on the streets i thought that’s got to be interesting, so i built up a bike. It was a rigid mountain bike with brakes and a flip flop hub to swap between freewheel and fixed. I used the bike to go everywhere on and off road. It was a new feeling to ride fixed in this way and proved to be a lot of fun. Whatever bike i ride, i like to play on and do a few tricks so riding fixed didn’t stop this. There was quite a few years of riding track bikes on the streets with friends while numbers grew and people started to play around before a trick scene started to develop.”

Photograph by Joan Minder

“Patrick Seabase has been riding Track Bikes for about 6 years.He is an inadvertent figurehead of this globally connected scene. He regularly causes a stir online with videos that show him conquering mountain passes or motor-pacing at speeds of 83 kilometers per hour behind a car. He doesn’t live far from the Alps, in Switzerland.”

Photograph by Gian Paul Lozza

At Impetus Momenta Patrick will be speaking about why he rides a track bike in his chosen environment (the Swiss Alps). His experiences (related to the movies / travels and daily life with the bike), influences / inspiration, equipment and the future of  our fixed gear community.

Patrick will be showing ASMAWA in full and premiering GALIBIER

(the photograph above was taken on the Galibier by Gian Paul Lozza http://www.lozzaphoto.com and filmed by söhne http://www.undsoehne.ch/)

Ted’s profile will be coming up shortly, but in the meantime here is a nice little video by Mike Chick that Ted was featured in.

Via: www.tedjamesdesign.com

BIKE STORY  by  MIKE CHICK

This is a short film by Mike Chick about the craftmanship behind building a bike.

“This was my first stainless steel frame build and was early days of Tig welding so when i had Mike who the bike is for following me at every step you can imagine that  it was a little stressful.  I am happy with how the frame came out and so is Mike, with everyone else involved in the build it has come together to be a very nice bike indeed.  This video, the amazing photos and Mike’s enthusiastic stories of how it rides makes it all worthwhile.”

Bike Story from Mike Chick on Vimeo.

Photo - by Mikey Merkenschlager

JW is a photographer who lives in London.

Jonathan found love with fixed gear bicycles five years ago after renewing a long lost childhood passion with cycling, having spent many years behind a steering wheel. ‘I remember my first proper bicycle ride in almost two decades, my girlfriend had bought me a folding bike and the first journey I made with it was from Bethnal Green to Oxford Circus. It was a revelation, so many years spent stuck in traffic and bang! All of a sudden I was getting from A to B in a fraction of the time and I was hooked’.

Shortly after this inaugural ride he found love again, this time with a very different kind of bicycle. ‘My little folding bike was already suffering with fatigue from the London streets, a friend had spoken about an apparent revolution in city cycling and to my dismay it seemed to lack brakes and gears’. The turning point for him was on a sunny day just off Brick Lane, when a friend offered him an impromptu test ride on his converted MBK. ‘Within thirty seconds I was a convert. In two weeks I had my first fixed gear bicycle and from that moment on, traveling around London became a liberating experience’.

Andy Ellis spent most of his youth skateboarding. He studied Product Design at Central St Martins in London. After graduating, Andy found work in a skateboard shop and at London’s Design Museum. It was during this time that he was offered an internship in Paris at Marc Newson’s design studio. He declined the offer due to wanting to work for himself. At the same time he had no idea what it was that he wanted to pursue.

In 2005 he discovered the beauty of the Fixed Gear bike and in 2006, Fixedgearlondon was founded. Fixedgearlondon is an integral part of how today’s fixed gear culture has evolved. Inspiring a generation that would give the cycling industry a greatly needed kick up the backside. In 2008 Andy founded Fixed-Magazine which is currently published 4 times a year, it reaches every major city in the world via the online downloadable pdf and also via the printed version. Fixed is the only magazine in the world currently printed that is specifically for fixed gear riders. 

At Impetus Momenta Andy will be talking about the history of Fixed gear, it’s current status as a culture. Also the balance of form and function in a Fixed gear bike’s design, the ethos of riding fixed on the streets and the benefits that come riding Fixed.

“I believe the Fixed gear bike is the most important form of transport ever devised. Perfected in it’s inception, balanced in it’s form and function… if you take any part away from a fixed gear bike, it ceases to function. If you add anything it looks superfluous! When you master riding Fixed you feel at one with this form of transport more than any other machine ever invented.” - Æ

Ty built his first fixed gear bike four years ago because some of his skateboarder friends got them and he needed to keep up between spots. He feels like it is by far the greatest thing he has done in his life since getting his first ‘proper skateboard’ when he was 12 years old.

Shortly after building the bike he set up the Fixed Gear Wales blog to post all the stuff they were getting up to and after a year that morphed into The Foot Down because he wanted something that wasn’t tied down to a specific location. There wasn’t a blog covering the whole UK scene exclusively at the time, the few that were around were mostly reposting American content.

At Impetus Momenta Ty will be talking about the relationship between riding a fixed gear bike & skateboarding and how the DIY culture links them both together. As the ‘phenomenon’ of fixed gear grows he feels like the DIY aspect is being lost much as it is in skateboarding.

We would like to hear your thoughts on the subject for possible inclusion in the talk so if you ride Fixed AND skateboard drop him an e-mail via: thefootdown.co.uk/contact 

Asmawa by Patrick Seabase will also be screened at the event on the 6th of December.

ASMAWA – Seabase in Eritrea (Official Teaser) from YUHZIMI Ltd. on Vimeo.

Impetus Momenta Is a presentation about the history of Fixed Gear. The ethos of riding a fixed gear bike on the street, It’s evolution, design and the surrounding culture.

The main theme of this talk will be to raise awareness about the benefits of riding a fixed gear bike. Whether it is riding in the congested streets of a city, endlessly through the vast openness in the middle of nowhere or ascending / descending mountains. To us the Fixed gear bike is the most important form of transport ever devised. Perfected in it’s inception, balanced in it’s form / function, and once you have mastered riding a fixed gear bike, you feel at one with this form of transport more than any other machine ever invented.

Purchase tickets on the right »>

or via the fixedgearlondon weshop

IMPETUS MOMENTA

The Impulsion of Momentum

A presentation about the history of Fixed Gear. 
The ethos of riding a fixed gear bike on the street, It’s evolution, design and the surrounding culture.

Speakers:
Andy Ellis (Fixedgearlondon & Fixed Magazine)
Patrick Seabase (Brascona)
Tyron Francis (The Foot Down)
JW
and Ted James (tedjamesdesign)

6th of December 2012

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