Tall bike at Austin during SxSW
Mar 11, 2008 · 10:26 AM · permalink
I saw this guy the last day I was in Austin. This guy declined an “interview”, tossing a sorry-on-my-way-to-work our way as he searched his bag while negotiating traffic.
It seems tall bikes are not at all limited to the West Coast. Personally, that ain’t my bag, baby, but my head didn’t spin till just now when I looked at the photo trying to figure out how he stops the bike. He’s got bare brake bosses and no levers, so unless he welded that multi-speed freewheel to fix the wheel, I am totally baffled. Because that would seem like a really bad idea to be without some way to slow or stop.
Step on the rear wheel. It’s an expensive brake, though.
Foot on the rear wheel? I guess it’s a BMX thing - I’ve seen a number of folks doing it on tallbikes, BMX bikes, and other brakeless singlespeeds.
Sorry to be extra-topical, but that’s quite a handsome motorbike in the background. Is there a link to a higher resolution image?
It is and that’s really part of SXSW — there’s this mix of things going on. See it here in this shot as well, I didn’t even see that girl.
When asked why are you in Austin doing this thing with beer, bbq, browsers, bikes, the web standards projects, etc? I’d reply, “cause that’s what Austin and SXSW is about. It’s all mixed up and the biggest contrast is that with all the cyclists, there’s almost zero infrastructure for them. I haven’t ridden on worse pavement in a long time.
Also, 15 seconds earlier, the guy on the Lime stopped to talk to us and he had a back-pedal brake.
Tall bikes are decidedly not just a west-coast thing… here in Michigan you see them around fairly often, though (as I assume they are in most places) they are illegal for a number of reasons (not just for lack of brakes either…).
Can’t see a coaster brake torque arm on the seat(?) stay, but the pic is a might small.
yeah, even at bigger size and more res, there’s no torque arm for a coaster…I checked. besides, it’s a multispeed freewheel, so it wouldn’t be a coaster hub anyways.
oh, i forgot to mention, i saw a high-wheeler (as in penny-farthing, not a tall bike) in the back of a pick-up truck coming back from Chipotle Friday night. no chance to ask questions or take pix though.
Even Penny Farthings had a brake under the steerer (like a spoon, that rubbed the tire). Every time I see a Tall Bike, I think this is why Safety Bikes were invented:
While I didn’t say much about Alley Cat races, tall bikes are probably the most unsafe thing you can do on a bike. If you’re into that, great, hope you have a head-injury waiver so the tax payers don’t end up paying for your care.
There are quite a few tall bikes here in town. Watch some of my Austin Critical Mass videos on Youtube and you’ll see ‘em. Some have brakes but most I’ve ridden you just did the foot on the wheel trick. Loads of fun, tall bikes are.
Yeah, Austin streets are pretty busted, aren’t they? If only we had a mayor who was a cyclist and sensitive to our needs… oh, wait. We do.
Boston’s own SCUL has a fair number of tallbikes on their roster, and their ringleader, Skunk, has a couple more that aren’t on the fleet manifest, including one with a lot of neon and a very posh sound system.
There are quite a few tall bikes in Chicago as well. Rat Patrol.
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