I may yet again brighten your humble workplace with my eerie yellow glow, young one.
yeah, his timing was perfect…
brendan, don’t go! how else would i find out if the velodrome is worth a visit on any random tuesday night!! 
i was/am a n00b and have found this forum to be super helpful and often incredibly funny. i understand the frustration at n00b questions that could have very easily been answered using the search function. there have been occasions where i’ve thought ppl have been a tad harsh in flaming a n00b but i guess ppl’s frustrations peak at different times. there have also been occasions where questions have been answered politely when i’ve fully expected someone to cop it.
i don’t remember posting too much rubbish or getting flamed too much (apart from trying to sell wheels for way too much after getting burned by a weak dollar), but i’m sure i’m looking at things with rose coloured glasses on. considering i moved here from perth and hadn’t ridden a bike in over a decade i’ve found this site to be extremely helpful in building my love for cycling, and my subsequent dependency on it to get around. i bought a shitty ss and never expected i’d want to ride fixed because it seemed impractical. now i don’t care that it’s impractical, i’m hooked. i’m just back from a week in perth and realised whilst i love long drives, i fucking hate driving around as a day to day activity. i love the fact i can get from my house to work 25 minutes faster on my bike than on the tram.
as someone that moved here not knowing too many ppl this forum has helped me recognise a few friendly faces around the place that i can wave at or have a chat too, and feel like i’m part of something worth being a part of. sure there are plenty of dicks about(new and old, ppl will always disagree) but take from here what you want(could you get by without the JAMS wicked humour?). the new forum has helped filter out posts not worth reading (as mentioned elsewhere) and i am always keen to read posts started by crew that know what’s what and are likely to contain info that could help me in my current project (nikcee, spirito, brendan, snowflake, blakey etc etc).
i may duck in and out but i wouldn’t give up on the forum entirely.
rolly
ps - i understand that i wasn’t here before 2008 but thought i’d put in my 2c. hopefully this is ok with you and you find value in it.
Things change. I get what I want out of the forum these days.
The fact that the Coppi and Hillman (Bateman, Erle) haven’t sold says much about the different attitudes of the current crop of users. Let’s face it - fixies are everywhere now: they’re no longer a challenge to build or aquire.
The good old days, with some old faces and bikes:
Does the Saturday ride still exist?
Does it still go down to Williamstown?
Remember the second hour (let’s face it, the first one was a bit low on attendance…)?
The Wednesday ride?
Does it matter?
(BTW, I’ve “been here” longer than Mar 09… More like sometime early 2006, maybe even 2005?)
I remember when Nick J emailed me to ask if I’d post FOA on fyx…
That must make me Grandpa Smurf. I was already feeling old.
Remember when you flamed me, Stk101? hahaha - all water under the bridge.
The only thing I miss is the intimacy of smaller communities. I knew every track bike and their owner for years. I took a photo of a lovely pink steibl last night and thought I have no idea who owns this nice bike.
Back before the forum started all I was interested in was fixed, but my palate has diversified over time as you’ve probably noticed.
For newbies, skidding is a thrill, your first alleycat, conversion build, first pair of c-record hubs! or splitting your first tram (highly unadvisable now they’re wider) but much like losing one’s virginity you can’t recreate the magic of your first time no matter how hard you try.
Love or hate the forum, Melburn has one of the strongest and most diverse bike scenes in the world and FOA is part of that.
My only wish out of all the interest in fixed was that track racing popularity grew at the same rate . So much more interesting/rewarding that skids, barspins and wheelies.
*TC
My only wish out of all the interest in fixed was that track racing popularity grew at the same rate . So much more interesting/rewarding that skids, barspins and wheelies
TC perhaps its time for another track tadpoles???
Look what the first one did for Philthy (and me for that matter)…we’ve never been the same since.
SW
Yeah tried that.
Track racing is too bloody hard that’s all I can say… 
Might renew my Northcote membership some day. Living on the right side of town these days! Woo!
I’ve taken heaps of info and inspiration away from this forum so I’m happy to keep on trying to give back. Be the change you want to see. If someone starts a shit thread, don’t sit back, slag them off and pine about the old days - post some freaking content!!! If the forum’s getting full of shit, start posting gold!!!
My 2c.
I lurked for ages and joined cos it seemed like a pretty friendly helpful bunch of people, wheras there seemed to be a lot more pretentious bike snob wankers on other cycling forums, and even in real life - people who aren’t into fixed generally stick their noses up at you while they zip off on their carbon roadies, and bike shops aren’t too happy to help. so this forum seemed perfect.
but now with all the new people/kids wanting to have a go at fixed there seems to be a huge surge in bitterness from some ‘veterans’. that pretentious bike snob (track snob in this case) attitude is now very evident wheras i never saw it before. its kinda like if youre not already an expert on track bikes or have some beautiful vintage treasure, if you ride a conversion with deep Vs/parts sourced from eBay, if you have no interest in riding competitively, and if you’re below 25y.o, you get met with this “z0mg n00b get the fuck out of my face and get off my fav forum. how dare you be interested in my interest. :mad:”.
which sucks. i mean, obviously it goes both ways, with some new kids being completely ignorant and not trying to work shit out themselves first, but still. a lot more bitterness. its a shame, cos it used to be that fixed riders would be psyched to see others wanting to get into it. now you just get this hipster word thrown around a lot, because fixed gear bikes should be for some exlusive club or something…
wow that was longer than i thought
+1 angry!
Good to see you’re still around.
I do miss a few others- GarthMC, CraigC, Shortsie etc… perhaps still lurking?
i remember going to shifterbikes in malvern. fixed gear riders were actually proper/classic hipsters then. now the word means something else entirely!
i think it is the age gap.
i wish i had more time in the real world to actually enjoy my bike with the people i met here.
good content comes and goes as do it members.
young( what eva age that is, 21 under?) members kida shit me sometimes.
my bike community is important . that nod in traffic. catchin some one chekin out your bike or being caught havin a ‘gooood’ loook at someone elses.
this is the first ‘sport’ group thingi have eva benn involved in and in the flesh this forum has suceeded, we are a community.
enough.
Shifters in Malvern, sat morning rides to Williamstown and the waffle runs were good. I don’t think we need reminding of the CraigC badge incident though !!
“The only thing I miss is the intimacy of smaller communities.” Good point TC.
Dan came to my first show in 2004 but we didn’t real know each other, partly because my former mechanic slagged him off.
Dan supported me as an independant courier back then, and I continue to support him as an independant. It’s still exciting to see how the cycling in melbourne is evolving. I still remember vividly shops telling me I was an idiot for riding a track bike on the street. Same shops would give you the ‘fixed spiel’ as part of the sale… you’ve gotta laugh.
I’ll post some shots from Malvern days. back when I was hand printing shirts and jerseys.
I think if people used actual names and faces it would eliminate a lot of the rubbish around here. It’s easy to be a cvnt anonymously.
also, the swapmeet at coburg velodrome where Ndf put my bottom bracket in properly for me soon after i started riding, the wednesday night ride where it seemed like no-one besides me was coming, until 5 couriers rocked up, (corey, Nath and some others) and we ended up running lights from richmond all the way across town. Burn City alleycat, where we thought 50 riders was a massive turnout, going on saturday rides which were uphill the whole way and always ending up at little hidden cafes in the middle of suburbia which i never would have known about otherwise.
so many good times in the last 3 or 4 years.
+1
anonymity makes for jerks.
This forum was an important part of me getting re-established back in australia when i moved back.
Like other fixed forums i’ve been a part of its not always easy, but its an amazing place to start to get acquainted with other riders from around town and the country. Being able to put faces to screennames (and eventually remembering to call them by the ‘real’ names) is amazing.
I’ll back angry’s comments… dont like what you are reading, post stuff that you want to read (same theory goes for rides as angry showed us in the last year to his immense credit).
I’m continually amused when people who fire up at one another online turn out to know each other offline (and often could be loosely called friends).
There was a moment when Johnson was down here on a band tour when we realised that there was about 5 fixed.org regulars who were all unbeknownst chatting to one another about entirely non-cycling related topics. unfortunatley once we established everyones usernames we just started putting shit on gypsy (i joke!)
fight the hate…
Ragging out on Gypo is like a sport up here ;). But it’s only because he gets all the sweet deals.