London Fixed-gear and Single-speed

Hi forum
I'm a freelance journalist and shameless fakenger replete with Chrome bag and Bianchi Pista. I was thinking about pitching a story to Maxim on the Got the Knowledge Mate? alleycat, but wanted to check a couple of things to see if the feature'd work.. I need to pitch tomorrow morning so any replies would be greatly appreciated.

I want to go on a 'this is exciting, dangerous, crazy dash through the heart of london traffic' angle and then widen out to have a better look at fixie subculture in general. It'd also be great to get some shots of some bike porn hardcore fixies.

So here's my questions:

What's the legal position on alleycats?
How many racers should turn up?
Will there be good bike porn to photograph?
Is it just a race from A to B or are there tasks and stuff?

Thanks very much in advance

Oh dont do that.....

edit// Directed at original poster not rpm btw....

FUCK OFF ! is the only thing I would have to say if you want to bring it in an "'this is exciting, dangerous, crazy dash through the heart of london traffic" kinda way.

Not joking. Especially if it is for MAXIM. Don't even ask those fucking questions here, 99.9% of the forum users have nothing to do with an alleycat in general or this one specifically.


Ps. Choose a bit more of an original thing to write about.

aaah, this´ll be a good thread for a sunday night

I mean no personel offence because I don't know you. More towards journo's like that in general.

wonder if he would get the same response on mt?

only less polite.

i guess so, but its only right that he doesnt go.

man I feel belittled. I'll give it a miss then.

yes

look man, I'm going to be kind here:

If you want to pitch something exciting and cool and involving bikes to a mens lifestyle magazine, do something on BMX racing, or downhill or 4X.

not only will the pics be great, but the sport helps out kids at grass roots level (esp. bmx).

that sort of publication sells to middle class/rich boys who probably already do snowboarding and motor racing, it's another angle and might work but also promote cycling

I think the least you should do (if you haven't already) is to ask the organiser if he minds you turning up at his event......I believe that this is perfectly normal for most sporting events is it not???

As an organiser of Rollapaluza, I would say that we consider it usual for journalists to contact us in advance of events and all pro photographers to arrange permission in advance or at least make themselves known on the night....in fact we will have journalists from a well-respected cycling publication at Rollapalpuza on the 25th, they have been in contact with us for over three months and as such we are more than happy to grant them interview time and photoshoot before the main event.

As Joel points out Movingtarget will be the forum to track down the organisers.

Some people on this forum are getting a little tired of people selling things, doing coroporate "research" and other commercial stuff, especially if it is their first post.

I think he's confusing the rolla with the alleycat.

as I'm sure, with the right kind of attitude, the organiser of Rollapaluza would be happy to answer questions reagrding roller racing ;)

would I be risking it taking photos there then? I'm NOT a journo by the way.

you gonna take pics of peoples back wheels?

As far as Rollapaluza is concerned, we are more than happy with all spectators, amateur and student photographers, taking as many photos / movies as they wish.....in fact we welcome it and in return most people we approach if we like their photos are more than happy for us to use them.....

Professional journalists and photographers working for major publications that people pay for is different and luckily most professionals are exactly that and contact us in advance.

coolio, if I do make it I'll post my best photos and you can use them as you wish.

You mean it's not a good idea to have a story about alleycats in Maxim, as that will most likely encourage a bunch of clueless breast-obsessed morons to turn up to the next race, because they are too daft to realise that dashing through London traffic on a bike is a bit dangerous; and they think that everything's a 'piece of piss', like professional football obviously is; and at least one of them will end up in hospital or worse, prompting the police to crack down hard on 'illegal street racing'?

Why not?

Hehehehehehehe.

That's really warmed my cockles.....I'm just off to MT.

Damn right (and I'm one of the 99.9%).

Nope, no sign of him there.

Jos you have such a way with words.

yeah that mainly why i said that, also i think that alley cats are essentially for messengers, i am not a messenger at the moment so dont think that i should enter. i did 4 weeks courioring in the summer ( i know i should have done more or whatever, but i was only 17 then and had to go back to college a the end of it) and really liked it, there was an alleycat durin that time but i didnt feel like i knew the streets enough so dint enter. if i do some more messengering again then i will probably enter them then, but until that point all i will do is hone my street knowledge and cycling skills.

Winston as a professional I would've contacted the organisers in advance and not just shown up, but I just wanted to test out the ground really see what people thought and obviously people are less than enthusiastic which is all good - I'll happily do something else.

Also I'm sorry this is my first post and I'm asking for stuff straight off but the opportunity just came up, and this is a subject I'm personally interested in so thought I'd have an ask of a few things and see if people were enthusiastic about the idea. Just some pre-research before deciding to write something.

The fact is mainstream media are going to be picking up on a fixed gear culture that is, like it or not, seeping more and more into the mainstream itself.
I'd just read an article in one of the Daily Mail magazines for fucks sake - the DAILY MAIL. The reason I wanted to look at an alleycat and perhaps speak to messengers involved is that at least these people are verifiably at the forefront and centre of something and can give the reader an understanding of something that is beginning to resonate more widely. That might piss some people off as the culture becomes more thinly spread, widely covered, raped by ad men and diluted and corporatised. Others might see it as a compliment. Or you might just not give a shit.

I would've tried to genuinely reflect what I found at the event - what people get out of, why they do it. I think though I'll cover something a little less hostile though.

Hostile? Couriers, never!

You've just got to know which ones to speak to & which ones to avoid!

On forums too.

they are indeed at the forefront of being bicycle couriers, and some of them race alleycats.

this has, however, got fuck all to do with this "fixie culture" because that is purely a creation of the cretinous media

mongrel, bad luck mate !

I am one of the few (only!?) who doesn't go into moral apoplexy at the idea that a magazine (I may or may not like) doing a piece on an aspect of cycling culture.

You could, of course, have simply grabbed a few male models with lovely hair, nice tight trousers, the 'right' shoes and £260 cycling bags - stuck them on off-the-shelf bikes loaned to you for promotional reasons, you could then have gone out of your way to do zero research and even write up a disparaging and inaccurate piece. You would have needed no permission from anyone nor would you have needed to seek people's input.

That would have been fine.

Your mistake:

You seemed to have done some research (at least enough to end up here) You would have appeared to have attempted to involve people knowledgeable in this area, people who have perhaps done an alley cat, you made the dreadful mistake of even appearing to get permission or seek peoples views on this piece. Worst of all you are a cyclist with a fixed wheel bike, and if things are as bad as I think you even ride it !

Similarly as people's moral outrage - at first time posters attempting to so rudely sell people here a secondhand front wheel without first taking everyone on the forum out for a meal and getting to know them - drives people to sell elsewhere allowing forum members here to shop at Chainreaction, Evans and Wiggle with their cognitive dissonance intact - you should have left this kind of journalism to uninformed and uninterested Evening Standard and Daily Mail writers who can very capably lift a lifestyle gloss from half an hour's Googling.

I think that would sit better with the more officious standard bearers and moral defenders of 'the scene' ;P

Like I said bad fucking luck ! :)

you don't get it, do you?

tick tock. . .

like tynan says, this shit's only going to get more and more prevalent, especially come summer. At lease mongrel made an effort, more so than the author of the comedy centrefold of last weekend.

Mongrel, for what it's worth, I do actually appreciate the fact that you've made the effort to ask people that actually know what they're talking about, as opposed to just taking a rough guess at things and writing an ill-informed article on a subject that, as you can tell from a lot of the responses, we're all fiercely protective of.

My main gripe was that Maxim really isn't aimed at the best demographic to be exposed to things like alleycat racing. Given that cycling in London (even for professionals - as in people that do it for a living, such as messengers) is a daily gamble with death by metal road monster, the last thing we need is for someone that orders the hottest curry on the menu to prove how big his balls are getting involved and putting all of us in danger.

I'm all for new people getting into cycling - each new cyclist is one less motorist trying (albeit inadvertently for the most part) to kill me - but alleycats are not the fucking place to start. I would worry that showing it as an 'exciting, dangerous, crazy dash through the heart of london traffic' will only encourage a bunch of arseholes to jump on a bike and start riding with around the same finesse that your average Max Power reader shows behind the wheel of their souped-up Honda Civic.

Also, the other thing about 'fixed-gear culture' (god, I hate that phrase) becoming appropriated by the mainstream and held up as this beacon of 'cool' is that it isn't like riding a regular bike. It's bloody hard to start with - just ask Mr 50x14, he might have a tale to tell you about diving in at the deep end.

Remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Well, in the UK, they were called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. This was because 'ninja' was a dirty word, thanks to the knee-jerk reaction of the press to a few muppets taking nunchucks to football games as an alternative to the classic Stanley knife and broken bottle combo. Strange analogy, I know, but I hope you can see my point.

We just don't want a similar backlash against something we love, due to idiots that care nothing for the safety of themselves or of others getting involved and, quite frankly, we don't want to be associated, or share the roads, with that kind of tosser.

/rant

this "fixie culture" or "scene" is something invented by the media..

no more to do with alleycat races than the TDF is to do with fluoro commuters.

some people just want to ride their bikes for work, or for leisure without having to listen to a load of crap trying to pigeonhole or categorise them.

It would be better if mongrel and his journo mates did something to increase awareness about cyclists getting fucking killed all the time by HGVs

More prevelent, you are probably right too.

Journo's of one sort or another, usually of the more fashionable, culture orientated press, used to pop into work at least twice a year. I've got articles from 2000 about London Couriers, a decent sub-culture it was then too.....

As tynan says he needen't have made himself known at all, he was testing the water and god knows where it could have gone if he wasn't faced with such 'assertiveness'.