fixed gear knees

So heres the deal with my knees.  For my entire life I have had no problems with them.  I figured I was like robocop or something, indestructible if you will.  Polo has been really hard on them.  Really its two to three hours of grinding on my knees as hard as possible.  There was however one instance that triggered my knee troubles.  While playing polo, I collided with another gentleman's pedal bike and rammed both knees into his bike.  I'm not quite sure how I managed to hit both of my knees, but I do know I hit the right on harder.   So we continued to play on, (shake it off son) after a bit there was another collision where my front tire was taco'd.  And hey its not like I go around crashing, but it happens,  those boys in Manty go balls out.
       So,  my knees are injured and my bike is down.  What do I do?  I borrow a fellows  bike to finish the two games.  The only bike available for me had an extremely high gear and was way to short for me.  So my legs are pushing hard and not getting anywhere near the proper extension.    "Dig deep"  I hear from I team mate.  And I do.  I finish the night out with aching knees.    Mistake.   I should have stopped right away. 
      That was three or four weeks ago and my right knee in particular is f'ked.   I am deeply concerned that I have caused myself permanent damage.
   I did find this tidbit today,

"Across the board, it is universally accepted by medical experts that high-gear, low-cadence pedaling has a high likelihood of causing knee pain and permanent injury. The main preventative measure as well as primary remedy for that problem is low-gear, high-cadence riding, which is only possible with the ability to change to appropriate gears throughout a ride. Fixed-gear riders are unable to avail themselves of that remedy, and because of that, they experience more frequent and higher pressures on the knee than a rider on a bike with gears."

Here is my take,  I have been riding brake-less for three plus year and for what??  I through a front brake on and it is much nicer.  Forget that whole macho brake-thing.  I like my new brake.

Now all I need is a larger cog ;)

wall of bikes

120 bicycles are on the wall of this bike shop.  Co-owner Christian Petersen his Atlandsberg, Germany shop. The bicycle installation was designed to advertise the shop.  I spotted this first at Urban Velo

FGSwitzerland

FGCT

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Spotted at Pedallas

Tower of Bikes

Northern California artists Mark Grieve and Ilana Spector built a 65-foot-tall, 10,000-pound obelisk out of around 340 bicycles, and one tricycle. Called "Cyclisk". It was installed on a streetcorner in Santa Rosa, California. Grieve and Spector collected the hundreds of bicycles they needed for the project from community donations.

skid-patch and gear-inch chart

fyi and mine..

iaminlikewithmybike

bigup

colors

cinelli

via cylceangelo

Peugeot - Alchemy [Mediamikser.pl]

Mission Workshop Rondel SPD street shoe

The Mission Workshop Rondel SPD shoe is now in stock @iMD. Order yours here today.

These bad dogs are limited so if you want em, better hustle.

Dalek's "Chaos On The Edge of Reason" Opening

Dalek's "Chaos On The Edge of Reason" Opening

Early last month at the Hurley Space art gallery in Costa Mesa, California, was the unveiling of James Marshall’s, aka "Dalek", ambitious 37-foot continuous wall mural painting.  Boasting 75 different Pantone colors and one thousand, one hundred and seventy-six man-hours of work, Dalek’s mural was offered in a “by the foot” method, where patrons were able to select their portion of the painting they wanted to purchase and have it cut out and framed on site. Each person who purchased a piece of the painting was then photographed and interviewed on video about how and why they made their particular selection.   Check out the Hurley site, as well as Dalek’s blog, for more information and news. 

little wheel

I rarely play computer games, but I came across this one and it is quite fun.
Little Wheel

more polo

So I went back for more Polo in Manitowoc.  It was a blast.  I've known about bike polo for years and never gave it much thought, in fact I thought it was kind of nerdy.  It wasn't until recently that I became aware of the greatness of the sport.  It's a great way for people to get together and play games.  Often in our culture young people lack imaginative game play and just resort to..  I don't know what to people do these days..  ;)   I've found that the Manty league that I've been playing with (and I suspect this to be the case everywhere) is like a magnet attracting at least one or two more people each week.  We did away with the 'one pass before goal minimum" last night just to speed up the games.  There were enough players for four teams with a couple subs.  I had so much fun the previous week, I threw together a dedicated polo bike.  Its not perfect, I need a larger cog, and as of last night the front wheel is destroyed.