The Start Of It All

My name is Kevin Nguyen, I am 16 years young, and I have been riding fixed gears for about 3 years. During my freshman year of high school, the fixed gear scene really began to blow up which was how I got my first encounter. My friend bought a conversion off of craigslist and soon after, I followed, buying a (way too big) Schwinn Traveler Conversion off of my friend's dad. I was a part of the first wave of "Hipsters" but I didn't mind the hate, I had found something that I really loved to do. With this bike, I did small rides here and there but my parents were skeptical about me riding long distances. I rode this bike for quite some time though and eventually decided that it was time to upgrade to a real track bike. My first true Track Bike was a Mercier Kilo TT off of bikesdirect. When I got it built up, I accidently stripped out my cranks which led me into the mechanical aspect bikes. Over time, I sold things I didn't need such as my Ipod and PSP in order to get money for bike parts and tools. With this bike, my parents were getting used to longer distance riding and even let me go on some community rides like TKO and Organ Donors. I was agitated by the toe overlap and short top tube so I ended up selling the Kilo tt and buying another bikesdirect bike, the Motobecane Track. This bike lasted me the longest out of all the others simply because it was what I wanted in a bike at that moment, it had no toe overlap, a relaxed geometry (which i didn't completely understand why yet), longer top tube, it was properly sized, and I had upgraded it evenly, unlike my Kilo which had mismatched wheels. During the time I had this bike, I was opened up to the FGFS world, I started learning wheelies and riding fakie and I was hooked. I tried to 180 on it and I bent the fork so that was my chance to upgrade to a Fu Man Chu fork that I bought from Epic. I also beefed up the tires to 28c which I thought was huge. Next, I had found mini bmx bars at the swap meet for $10. The bike was fun but I rounded out the cranks really quick because I weigh 180. This stopped me from tricking and I tried to sell the bike to get a Trick Bike but no one was buying so I ended up trading for a S&M LTF Bmx Bike which I later traded for a Volume Cutter Complete. This was hands down the best commuter bike I have ever ridden but it still had some problems. The cranks were still track so I didn't trick other than wheelies, fakie, sliders, and barspins. At this point in my Fixed Gear Life I was understanding geometry, tools, and most aspects of Bikes so I didn't hate the cutter for having such bad barspin clearance. I understood that it was made to be a commuter that could take abuse, not a trick bike. I used this bike to get everywhere I went and lasted longer than the others but I once again thought it was time to upgrade. I traded the frameset for a Dk Kvant (which I am selling ATM). I had enough money to buy a frameset but needed a little more cash for some other miscellaneous parts. I ended up buying a Milwaukee Bruiser Frameset off of a guy in SD and he was nice enough to throw in bmx cranks and a bunch extra for no extra charge. This allowed me to complete my bike without having to rush selling the BMX Bike. I just transfered the majority of the parts off of my Cutter. This leads me to where I am right now, with a complete FGFS bike, getting into tricking, understanding how to fix and assemble bikes, and just my bike IQ in general is a lot higher. I wanted to start this blog to document my life and the rise of this new fantastic sport. Thats whats on my mind but we'll see how this blog turns out through the up and coming new year.

My First Love