Already did my usual 16 mile physical therapy routine, so I did it again. Haven’t gone over 26 miles in ~3 years. Me and the cats, dead in a bed rn, 2 brain cells between the three of us
I would be lance Armstrong if I did this
I used to ride over 40 miles in a day, only on rare occasions though when I had nothing else planned and knew the weather should be alright.
Sadly, I wore my favorite bike out doing that, plus a couple decades of the torture of doing BMX flatland tricks. I can still ride my BMX bike if I absolutely need to, but the 43 year old frame now has stress cracks forming… ☹️
but the 43 year old frame now has stress cracks forming..Are you talking about the bike or yourself?
I’m 42, the bike itself is 43. So not far off either way, but luckily I’ve never broken any bones.
Can’t quite say the same for my bike, it’s a 1981 Mongoose SuperGoose. It’s not exactly totally broken, but I started to take notice about 5 years ago where certain stress points started developing stress cracks.
They were made to be super tough for the riding style of the late 70s and early 80s, but I don’t think they were actually designed for the odd rotational and sudden stop forces of the tailspins and other tricks of BMX flatland as they evolved in style over the years.
Dude, I have great news for you! They didn’t stop making bikes 43 years ago! You can still buy one today!
LOL, and you’re not wrong either.
It’s just kinda hard and tends to be pretty expensive to find a proper 20" BMX flatland worthy bicycle that’s suitable for a full grown adult to ride and have enough space where your knees don’t hit the handlebars.
On my bike, that seatpost isn’t stock either. That’s actually a 1979 Cooks Brothers laid back and braced racing seatpost. Last I looked those up online, just that seatpost alone goes for around $300.
Yet sadly, that seatpost apparently doesn’t fit newer bicycles, I’ve tried it, different size tubes these days.
Regardless, I do have a spare wannabe BMX bike, it’s about a piece of shit though. But luckily the frame happens to be long enough for me to have plenty of leg room, and the gearing is at least close to what I like.
I think you should look beyond BMX bikes. You can still have a BMX for BMX’ing but you should get another bike for actual cycling. The health benefits are just too great to ignore and as you get older, that just becomes increasingly important. Don’t ask me how I know.
My other favorite bike was a 24" Mongoose Element, I think it was a 21 speed. The lowest gear ratio was the kicker, it literally had a 1:1 gear, slow as molasses, but very high torque.
No, that’s definitely not my preferred riding gear, but when Hurricane Katrina hit and we had almost four feet of flood waters for about two miles, it sure made it a lot easier to get to the grocery store!
Sadly, someone stole that bike a few years later, never seen again 😞
Correct! :)
I dunno if you posted that comment on a whim or just cheated after reading my comment, but I’m only one year younger than my bike.
So, you’re more or less right. Take this upvote and go ride your bike! 👍
Sorry about the stress cracks, there is not much you can do about that one. 40 miles on a BMX bike is nuts. I carried the Felt stuff in one store in a chain, but have never gotten into BMX. I am 99% roadie and 1% enduro downhill as a vacation in the mountains with a ski lift ride to the top. I really wanted to try velodrome racing as that is what I am built for in body type, but never got the chance. I can do alright in a flat crit too. I did 33 miles each way to work for almost 2 years. And lead out the group ride on Saturdays, riding to the shop and home. Most of those rides were between 35 to 60 miles depending on the hills. I also did a dozen or so crit races back then too. I don’t think I had a single week under 400 miles back around 2010-2011. That is when I lost the bulk of my 350 lbs from 2009.
Best advice I can give is to setup watches for listings on eBay and look for local swap meets. These are the primary channels for liquidating inventory in shops and stuff. In the very unlikely chance you are in Southern California, the San Diego velodrome swap meet is like THE place for real deals and stuff. I used it regularly with shops for overburden in the past, and sold 136k on eBay after my big crash.
I miss riding my bike. It’s known as Silver in my city. Hell, it’s been stolen three times, yet it’s so well known by everyone that it’s been found and returned every time.
Don’t get me wrong, I still have it, I just miss being able to really ride it the way I want to, it’s too risky for any more tricks now…
Very nice. That was a cool style. I liked the Bianchi’s that came in a similar nickel finish, but didn’t carry them for very long due to credit terms and never got the chance to get one while working in shops
This is my Felt AR. That is the same frame that I was riding in the big crash. I only had to replace the fork that sheared off. Also, yeah I totally ride with a second taillight on the NDS chainstay at night. That should be a thing IMO.
My SuperGoose happens to be a chrome plated version, but I’ve also seen a 1979 nickel plated version as well.
I won’t lie though, when I say 81 SG, that’s damn near only the frame. I lost/broke/swapped lots of parts on it over the years.
The only true original parts are the frame, the lower steering tube bottom bearing cup, and the seatpost clamp (minus the original clamp bolt).
There’s a lot of sentimental history to my bike, 95% of the parts came from either dump sites, trading, dumb luck on awesome deals, or just straight up tearing down half a dozen busted rims to reassemble two perfectly good rims.
Most of my bike isn’t stock, it’s totally custom. And the frame, original forks and crank only initially cost me $10. I bought it at age 15 as a carcass of a legendary bike, for only $10!
Even as broke down as it is now, I still consider it my best investment ever!
Oh yeah? Well I made peanuts in a bike shop but the Felt AR was my free demo bike. It just happened to be the one I was on. I swapped out my rides a good bit. The deep carbon rims were at one point some very high end wheels that I was given when I left my first bike shop job. I’ve rebuilt them with new spokes several times and new hubs once. I still have some odds and ends parts on there from race team spares when I was supporting an internationally competitive pro race team. The rest are mostly my personal spares. When I did eBay I was given a lot of stuff like spares and nice pedals and accessories because I listed bikes without any extras, exactly like they were new. I told people they could keep the stuff but most just gave it away. That is where my pedals are from. I mostly worked with really high end stuff for consignments that are too expensive to easily sell elsewhere, and where a couple hundred bucks in extras is nothing to the person. It is funny the duality of working with people like that but then being a poor miser IRL. I couldn’t have gotten the bikes I have ridden except through working as a bike shop monkey. The nice stuff often lasts so much longer especially here where I am around a lot of salty air and water.
