A flatland freestyle reunion!

Starting Over Again with a Modern Flatland Bike

I just bought a new bike. For almost a decade I’ve been riding an old Hoffman EP, and for almost a decade before that I was riding an old GT Pro Freestyle Tour. Since 1993 I haven’t really seen much progression in my riding. I’ve ridden consistently over the years about once a month, if that. Just enough to stay consistent with pretty much the same tricks I was doing back in 1993. Then something happened this past winter. I had lunch with a group of riders I hadn’t seen since probably 1993. And a small fire started to grow on the inside. Call it a midlife crisis, call it what you want, but I suddenly had the urge to get back involved with the sport that has shaped so much of who I am. I started riding more. All my old tricks became more and more consistent, and for the first time in years I started to work on new tricks. The thrill of learning a new trick was something I had almost forgotten. It’s addicting. And this week I decided to take the next step and bought a new bike.

The new bike is a 2008 St. Martin Class X2. I just rode it for the first time yesterday. A beautiful bike. But it’s the strangest freaking thing I have ever pedaled. I swear when I first climbed on it I could hardly keep my balance just riding the bike normally, much less doing tricks. I can’t believe how crazy weird these new flatland bikes are. I suddenly find myself starting over and relearning how to flatland again. That might sound dramatic, but I can hardly do a hang 5 on this thing.

This little story has a happy ending, but first let me give you a list of the challenges (not complaints, mind you) I’m having with a modern flatland bike:

Geometry:
This new bike is small, tight, and quick. I’m 6’2” and on my EP I had all the room in the world to throw my legs and arms around. Not on the modern bike. The wheelbase seems super short. My knees almost hit the bars when I’m sitting down. Even with my seat as high as it will go it’s still much lower than my EP. And the steering angle combined with no-rake forks makes this thing the quickest and loopiest bike I’ve ever ridden. It seems steeper than a unicycle. So quick that when I stand up to pedal, the bike actually feels like it’s going to wash out from under me. I haven’t figured out how to spin around the headtube without looping out.

Weight:
Holy, is this bike light. My EP was close to 30 lbs. The St. Martin is 19 lbs. It used to take a little bit of effort to get the back end of my EP off the ground for any trick. On the St. Martin just think about the back tire off the ground and the back of the bike starts to float. I can’t tell you how many times I went over the bars just trying to relearn the balance point for a simple steamroller. It’s so light that when my arms happen to shake the whole bike shakes along with them.

Handlebars:
The bars on my EP were tall and wide. The bars on the St. Martin are KHE SwissMiss bars. Killer looking, but compared to what I’m used to these things are low and narrow. Really narrow. So narrow that when attempting a simple boomerang it feels like doing a push-up with my hands together in front of me. Boomerangs are suddenly a hard trick. And so low that I feel like Pete Brandt in 1991. Remember when riders were cutting down their Peregrine Q bars to make them lower? That’s what this feels like.

No Back Brake:
The St. Martin doesn’t have a back brake. I missed the whole brakeless revolution. If I was riding full-time in the mid to late 90s I’m sure I would’ve gotten rid of my brakes. I love the idea of a bike being as minimal as possible, and obviously the lack of brakes hasn’t slowed down the progression of many a rider. But I use my back brake a lot. Without back brakes I feel naked. Half my tricks are missing. And I never realized how much I used my back brake lever for balance. For example, when doing whiplashes or any other front wheel forward rolling trick, I’d always put two fingers on my back brake lever for balance. Now the lever is gone and my two fingers feel like idiots.

Pegs:
Long-ass pegs. I was still using some old Standard pegs from back in the day. They were fat and short. These new pegs are skinny and looooooong. When I stand on them my foot at times is farther away from the frame than I’m used to, which makes it difficult to lean the bike at an angle. It has a tendency to stay straight up and down, which makes it hard to spin.

I know this might sound like a bunch of complaints, but really I’m just documenting my experience of jumping from an “old school” bike, to a modern flatland bike. It was a big jump. And now I feel like I’m starting over again, relearning every trick. But something funny happened during that first session riding the new bike. I couldn’t do my tricks, but it was probably the most fun I’ve had on a bike in years! Everything was new. Everything was a challenge. Even pulling a boomerang wasn’t a guarantee. And I think I’ve decided that instead of trying to relearn all my old stuff, I’m just going to start over and learn tricks I’ve never tried before, and put most of my focus on new things. That’s when flatland was the most exciting for me in the past, and that’s where I’m excited to put my focus in the future!

Comment

You need to be a member of Elephant Glide to add comments!

Join Elephant Glide

Comment by Andy Johnson on July 9, 2009 at 7:58pm: Here's an update: I'm starting to love the St. Martin. I did replace the bars with some taller, wider Chase bars and that helped a lot. After just a couple hours things are starting to come back. Hang-5's, steamrollers, karl kruzers, all the basics. Give me another week and things will be flowing I'm sure.

Brian, looking forward to seeing your custom frame next week. Dave, I know what you mean about the spoke grinding. I find that happening more often with a shorter frame too. I think this too shall pass.

Comment by Brian Rybak on July 3, 2009 at 2:01pm: While I never completely stopped riding I have had injuries, familiy, and business responsibilities that have kept me off the flat bike for sometimes up to a year at a time. I have continually evolved my bike over the years so not many multiple changes at once. My ride is a custom frame that has a 19 3/8 front end with a mellow seat angle and low bb, min off set fork and stem. It is modern, yet large in the cockpit area, perfect for a 6'3" rider. Just figured I would share.
Brian

Comment by Dave Heineman on July 3, 2009 at 12:28pm: I just put together a new school bike myself. I hadn't ridden a freestyle bike since about 1991 when I sold off my Skyway Streetbeat. A friend of mine directed me to this site and seeing people my age still riding and reading their stories got me psyched to get on 20" wheels again. Hey, who doesn't need another expensive hobby, right?

I built up a Hoffman Strowler since it was hard to pass up a $149 frame from Flatland Fuel. Filled it out with parts from Solon Bicycle (thanks for the recommendations, Dan!) and here I am riding again. I've had it out for about 5 sessions or so and I'm quite impressed with how it rides.

Since I hadn't been on a bike in so long, I have some amnesia about how my old ride felt. Comparing it to the new one is a little difficult. The one thing I have noticed is the shortness of the frame. This is especially apparent at the end of a tailwhip or fire hydrant where it feels like I have to be quite compact to get my foot back onto the frame. I also find my feet grinding on spokes or other things more than I remember. Once I get fully used to it, I think the shorter frame will help me as I'm only 5'7" tall. I imagine it will be easier on tricks that involve getting over the top tube of the bike. I had trouble with those types of moves on the Streetbeat which had a fairly long frame.

Another thing I've noticed about some of the new bike parts is the quality control is crappy on some of them. My Swiss Miss bars are nice, but they came pre-rusted on inside of the clamp and the clamp bolts. I will clean off the surface rust and replace the bolts at some point in the future, but you shouldn't have to do that on new parts. Maybe it was the same way back in the day and I just didn't notice. A minor gripe for what is a sweet bike.

Comment by Andy Johnson on July 2, 2009 at 11:01pm: Awesome Joe. I have no doubt this weird bike will help to open up a whole new bag of tricks. Looking forward to riding with you tomorrow!

Comment by Joe Cicman on July 2, 2009 at 10:42pm: oh man - Not I'm psyched to write.

I bought a Hoffman EP back in 2001. I had been out of riding for about 8 years at that point. When I bought it, it was so evolved that I was just totally blown away. Having taken 8 years off I didn't know that the revolution had specialized bikes so much that you couldn't ride park on the same bike your rode flat. I learned that the hard way. This was my first indication of just how much things had changed.

Nevertheless, it took me about 2-3 months before I was starting to learn tricks that I just couldn't do on my old GT Freestyler or Haro Master circa 1990. In particular, I was doing Messiahs cleanly and doing cliffhangers without destroying my nads. Also, bars-forward hitchhikers. Then, after I ground off my front brake lever and didn't replace it, I went brakeless for a few months. I learned long, balanced hang nothings - and even triple whips (I pulled 1 quad whip brakeless). So, I'm thinking - after an 8 year hiatus and only riding on the weekends, how in the hell could I be pulling all this new (for me) stuff. Was I really so distracted by chasing tail on campus that I wasn't progressing fast enough as a rider? I concluded that it must be the geometry that's doing it.

About 5 years ago I finally tweaked the EP's rear triangle beyond function and bought an Ares. Holy crap! This bike is unbelievable. It didn't even feel like a bike at first - no-sweep bars, kept in line with the forks, enormous fat hollow pegs, tiny sprocket, radial wheels, plastic pedals, (still this padded seat - like old men have sensitive asses - I just don't get it). Oh - and light as hell! This was a total flatland machine - I mean completely tuned, completely adapted to flatland. Pointless for anything else; barely fit for riding to the spot. But it's so incredibly nice to ride. It's light-years ahead of the stuff I rode when I was riding full-time.

To this day I have zero complaints with this bike - the only down-sides are:
1) The radial wheel design loosens your spokes quickly. You have to tighten then before every session
2) The chrome plating on the wheels is very different - you get stipples now. A buddy of mine told me this was some EPA regulation that banned the chemical goodness that made chrome plating more resilient. Too many damned 22" spinners polluting ...I digress.

Anyway - in conclusion...Ride! It's awesome.

Comment by Andy Johnson on July 2, 2009 at 9:23pm: ...and I've never seen so many scratches and bruises and blood and giddy expressions on him! --Andy's wife

RSS

Welcome to
Elephant Glide

Sign Up
or Sign In