My bike is a little purple bike that use to be my girlfriends. but she doesnt ride it and i broke mine so i got it for free :)
it gets me to her house since my car got a flat and im poor :(

nah, you bought it cuz u like purple, dont lie.

I agree with most of that other than the bike shop shit. Big bike companies are the cheaper way to go if you can actually get to the companies headquarters, because they will sell the parts at about half the price. For instance, my frame is an S&M ATF. Sells for $400 retail, but since I called S&M instead of going to a distributor, it only costed $211. Although most companies won't hand out deals like that over the phone, unless you know someone in the company or are friends with one of thir riders. It takes a walk in to get that shit. Or a warranty and a couple freinds in the buisiness like mine.

But you are right, on a complete bike, they will install a lot of crappy parts on a great frame and sell it for as much as possible. So going to a bike shop and dealing with someone who specializes in road bikes is your best bet. You can tell them what you are looking for, and they will tell you what suits you. BUT, make sure you are dealing with someone that specializes in the type of bike you want. If you don't then I guarantee they know about as much as you do about the bike. All the shops around here other than the one I helped open, specialize in Mt bikes and road bikes, but they sell BMX parts. Every time I go into a shop like that(rare occassion) they try to tell me that what i'm choosing is shitty and I shouldn't get it. But I should buy some crappy parts they reccomend. They only know what they are trained for or what they have worked on. Keep that in mind. Or else you're going to pay for something you don't really want.

Small bike shops will also rip you off though. They get less buisiness most of the time, so to be able to keep up with the bills and also keep a little profit, they sell their merchandise at an outrageous price. So this is my opinion. Go to a large bike shop, one of the ones that gets a lot of buisiness(they'e the ones that realize selling their murchandise at a competative price will bring them buisiness.) The road bike specialist will set you up with the same great bike as the other smaller bike shop, but you'll spend a lot less.

YOOO Caniboid THATS what i like to see.. i love to ride....
nice bike... illl hook up some pics of mine.. i need to take some pics.
what kind of back hub you running?
do you ride trails?

Thanks man! It's a Shadow Rant V2. I've been building trails for about 6 years, and love to ride them! Haven't ridden any in a while though. Got hurt, but I plan on getting back into them this summer. I live right smack dab in the middle of the best trail scene in the world, so there's no way I wouldn't ride them :D

These are some of the close ones to my house. Cant get much better than Solame!

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o304 ... solame.jpg
1 more of em to give you an idea of size.
http://bmx.transworld.net/files/2009/02/26/fit_10.jpg

If you've watched Building The Underground then you know a little bit of what there is around here. Got any dialed trails near you ?

awesome... yeah i havent rode trails for bout a yr.. i wreck hard core on em..nd i dont know.. we have some pretty sick trails out this way.. pa prob has the best trails around..

Oh you live in PA ? Hell ya, They have some pretty world renowned trails out there as well. They're like the 2 best places to live as far as trail riders are concerned.

If ya like some good style check this out. Shows some of the better sets around here. Ones like 40 minutes south of me and ones about an hour north, but there's a lot of other shit inbetween.

http://vimeo.com/10511998

those shits are nuts... me nd a few of my buds are building some. but i liive 1 hr. away from caddy nd shit. so its pretty dank.

hahaha i dont wear that shit. i wear normal clothes still. bitch.



I have a Jamis. Not very popular brand bet in my opinion very nice road bikes. If your just starting out i might suggest just a trek bike, they are reliable and kinda cheap..

true

haha ya. Just thought it was kind of funny at the monent. I see so many large groups of men riding their road bikes together in tight colorfully spandex around here. Right on eachothers asses takin wiffs lol. But I don't know if I really believe you weed. If you're really into road biking, I know you at least own a fruity spandex suit, lol.

well caniboid, i wear a spandex suit when i do crosscountry (the t-shirt only) and believe me or not, i would never ride my bike in the trails without it. i bet they're working way harder on their bike than every other bmx'er, im not saying it's harder though, bmx is hard, im just sayin' that it makes a huge difference through the wind/lighter and the heat seems less hard to deal with...

i think you should start to wear some caniboid when you ride your bmx ;) haha i'd pay for pictures though :P

Ya lol, i'm just F*CKING around. I know what spandex does, and how it helps.

You couldn't really consider either sport harder than the other. I think bmx can be just as hard physicaly, just because it is extremely hard to continuosly try a line over and over until you pull it. It takes a lot of different muscle that a road biker wouldn't even know was there. But it works both ways. Riding cross country, you'de use muscles a bmxer would rarely or never use. But when you're riding around a skatepark, it's all muscle. As long as you understand how a bike works and how to use the terrain, you can pump. Wich is just using all the muscle in your body to shift your weight with the angles of the park to keep a consistant speed, or gain a lot of speed...Or lose speed. Same goes for trails. Then there's street and vert riding. They all are so much alike, yet so much different, because of how differently you have to ride them. Along with all the muscle work, you have adrenaline pumping constantly, once, you get that going, it just drains you that much faster. All the muscle work and everything else is just 10% of BMX. The rest is all mental, wich takes the largest toll on you. Let's say you're at a 10 stair and you want to wallride down it. It takes a whole lot more energy just to sit there and stress yourself out over whether or not you are going to pull it, than to just actually man up and do it. Wich sucks! Some people tend to just look at things for a second or 2 and then just go for it so they don't have to deal with the whole mental block thing. But that can get you hurt pretty badly if you don't take the time to plan it out. I don't know where I was going with the last part of this paragraph LOL. I kinda just spaced the subject and started thinking about how riding really is. Get's me all excited :) To bad it's midnight and i've gotta wake up early or i'de go out and ride.

Trust me, if I had a roadbike, i'de use it quite often. Not only for just going on long rides and having fun, but it would make me a better biker. Extra muscle makes things a whole lot easier, and I definately wouldn't mind that :)

Lol no i dont own any suit. but i do ride around in groups of like 8 ppl biking. its fun man, taking up a whole lane and pissing off cars. if i got a biking suit i would never wear it unless i went on a super duper long ride haha

Ya man I know what you mean about taking up roads with large groups haha. It's fun having a huge group of riders in Portland riding through downtown. Not really caring where you're destination is, just enjoying the ride! I remember for the first few years that I rode, we'de have a group of like 30+ people riding from spot to spot. Security would never even try to kick us out because there was so many of us. Sometimes like 5 cops would show up. We'de all take off, just because it was fun. They never really new wich one to chase because so many riders scattering like that just confused the shit out of them lol. But in the end we'd always meet back up in the same place and move on to another spot.