Tallinn Bike Check

Ok, I was wrong about the lack of FG scene in Tallinn, Estonia. As I've now been corrected, thanks to Risto and Teller, here are links to check out Risto and Kalev's bikes, both real nice and swishy looking rides. 

Us Helsinki boys & girls will organize an excursion to Tallinn next summer to hook up with you guys. Saku beer, Pirita Velodrome and all that.   

Macaframa Continental European Premiere

We already talked about this, but now it seems that in fact it might not actually even be the Continental Premiere like advertised. Who cares, especially if & when we don't speak/read Italian, ;) 

Only three days to go now. 

You're in a bit of hurry already to get those Easyjet tickets to Tallinn. 

EDIT.

There's seemingly no end to the amount of misinformation I'm spreading (see comments...). But anyhow, this will then be the real Continental Premiere, wooohooo!!!

Macaframa European Premiere - Tallinn, Estonia, Jan 15th 2009

Finally. The European Premiere of the most anticipated fixed gear movie of the year, MACAFRAMA. But where? In Tallinn, Estonia, of all places. The city, which according to me only couple of months ago didn't even have any fixed gear bikes. Well, it turned out I was wrong, of course, and one of the riders, Risto from the Sahtel Mag, has been keeping busy and here's the result:

SIMPEL SESSION 09, Jan 14th-16th. 

Almost legendary BMX/Skate event, including a three day bmx/skate/snowboard movie festival. Macaframa and Fast Friday are the only FG movies there but the whole program looks really interesting in any case.  

I've also been told by people-in-the-know that the level of BMX riding at the Simpel sessions is about the best you can see anywhere and that the afterparties are fuuuuunnnnn, probably due to the cheap drinks and liberal local licensing laws... 

EDIT. 

Ok, so it's more like the Continental European Premiere then. 

Sahtel Mag on MASH SF

Estonian Sahtel Magazine did a nice and pretty huge article on MASH SF on their latest issue, you can read it in English here. There's lot of nice pics there too. 

If you actually read the whole interview, Jonathan says some pretty controversial things about doing tricks on track bikes but I'm not going into that. And the whole article as it is printed in the mag is also here. 

Another thing. Some time ago I visited Tallinn and wrote here that it seems that there are no fixed gear bikes in Tallinn. Well, it turns out that I was wrong. There are people racing on the Pirita velodrome, and in addition to that my secret sources now tell me that there are at least two people riding fixed gear bikes on the streets of Tallinn. I'll get back to this later.  

Tallinn Fixed Gear Scene Report Part 1.

I visited Tallinn the capital city of Estonia on business for two days last week and as a result of my trip here's the first part of my admittedly rather limited Tallinn Fixed Gear Scene Report.

So to cut to the chase, apparently there are no fixed gear bikes in Tallinn, period. 

I mean, I didn't see any during my stay and when I visited the city last time and spent five days there last September I didn't see any fixie bikes or stuff either. 

No disrespect to my Estonian sisters and brothers but it kinda looks a little like the Tallinn people have been all too busy making money-money during the recent few years' credible economic boom that cycling trends such as this hasn't really registered over there.

I did see, though, lots of people on boring supermarket mountainbikes and one bike messenger but he was riding a geared MTB/ATB bike. I also saw one hipster/art student-ish looking girl who was riding an old men's coster brake bike (didn't catch a photo, sorry...) with fenders and shit taken off and the bike had been very recently painted bright red so obviously she was trying at least a little bit. 

On the other hand, I did see several roadies all clad in spandex and riding nice looking and very expensive road bikes, so at least there's some serious cycling thing going on there. This also fits nicely to my hypothesis about all the money-making and the cultural yuppie-aspect to do with that. 

I did also see a bunch cool old old Soviet-era single speed coaster brake bikes like the pic at the top but as I said, no fixed gear bikes whatsoever. I visited two local bike shops (Velo24.ee & RattaPood) but didn't see one single piece of equipment that could have been considered fixie/track specific. There were some BMX parts, though. 

I also visited the Velodrome (YES!) but I'll save that for the Part II of this report. 

However, despite the disappointingly non-existent FG scene, Tallinn does have something cool there bike-wise. The traffic sign design for cycling was super fresh, just look at this nice sign, racing bike, or is it actually styled on a proper track bike(?!), with drops and all, instead of standard bike that most of us are used to in our traffic signs. Well done! 



But hey, if there are any Tallinn or Estonian people reading this and I got it all wrong, please correct me. However, just to strengthen my argument, when I returned home to Helsinki and took a 10 minute tram ride home from the harbour, during that time I randomly saw three fixed gear bikes. So even if there really aren't THAT many FG bikes here, compare that to the time I spent hanging out in Tallinn.

To be continued...