This week I bought a beautifull red Felt F90 racing bike from my coworker Matt. It has aerodynamic spokes and the kind of gears you find on sports cars. Really fancy. It is obviously ultra light and I am intending to use it to go to work. I have been told by my coworkers that it would take me from 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on my level of fitness. I am fit so it will take me 30 minutes….. well we will see 😉 it is a really long distance, 10 miles (16 kms) according to googlemaps.

I am a bit tired of car pooling, I don’t want to buy a car, the fancy Vespa I always wanted to buy since I moved to UK wouldn’t last 2 days outside my house so this looks like the only option. Also it was a good price … for that kind of bike 😉 and Matt did very well at numerous competitions riding this bike.

Now this bring me to my second point. Single speed bikes.

If you live outside a big city you have probably not heard about the craze about single speed bikes. They are sleek, sexy, ultralight and really low maintenance since they don’t require high tech components like racing bikes. I saw some guys playing Bike Polo few years ago in Bethnal Green and thought that was really cool. I have never tried one but if it weren’t for the vandal that bend your wheels when you leave your bike unattended I would have probably bought one myself in my London days. The reason why I wanted to mention them today is that I found some videos of guys doing tricks on their single-speed bikes. Riding them in town is rad but riding them in town while doing tricks is even radder.

I created a Youtube Playlist with some really cool videos related to single speed bikes and messengers
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9463403E4136AC6F. PUMA commissionned a great documentary on messengers called “NYC Messengers” but I can’t find it anymore.