NYC Holding it Down in Berlin
These are some uncommon photos, documenting a slice of the track-bike life in Berlin. Matt Smith writes the accompanying text. I've never seen anything like the scenes with track bikes here. He's talking about his Patelli track and Tony Huang's Fausto Coppi track. These are shot against some backgrounds you won't see every day! Check out the bombed-out church Gedaechtniskirche, (Memorial Church), which was left in state after WWII as a memorial; the Mercedes building; and Martin at the abandoned wooden velodrome. Thanks for sending this in, Matt!
-- Editor
Matt writes ...
I wanted to drop you a line from Berlin, Germany. I moved out here in January
from NYC and bought the fix. Not a whole lot of cats riding fixed-no-brakes
out here, but there's a handful in town, mostly messengers and mechanics, and
mostly other non-Germans.
People here think it's pretty fucked up - I've been refused service and yelled at in bike shops when they figured out I ride no-brakes. It's kind of hilarious actually but some of the cops are less forgiving here, if you don't "fix" it and bring it down to the station (with two working brakes) you have to prove you destroyed it.
A fix mechanic here got caught once but the guy didn't even notice he had no brakes, he just said something about his BMX chain and let him go.
The nice thing about it all is since nobody wants old track bikes for the street you can snag them cheap as hell. I got this MINT chrome Patelli complete with plenty of Campy, Cinelli drops, the works (I put a new wheelset on it though to beat up on the cobblestones - hence the Miche hubs) for 133 bucks. Sick.
We've got more pics if you want, this one is of me on a rainy day in a one-handed track stand in front of an old church bombed out in WWII which they never fixed so it would be a memorial.
© Matt Smith, 2003.
Matt Smith, (matt.smith@gmx.de) works in a software company in
Berlin, used to messenger for a while in NYC. And he rides a cool bike!
