Fast Boy Cycles, maker of fine handcrafted bikes and sweet wooden fenders that you just can’t buy (because he’ll only make them for you if you buy a bike), had this “Assless” bike in his gallery. Prompted by the obvious question “why”, I contacted Ezra “Fast Boy” to see what the deal was.
The “why” turns out to be a little sad but also inspirational. Ezra was diagnosed with cancer a bit back and has been going through chemo and radiation. The doctors told him he couldn’t ride because the pressure from the seat may aggravate the tumor. Solution? You’re looking at it. Thanks to donations from Chris King, Phil Wood and White Industries, plus Ezra’s buddies putting together some donations, here’s the answer to riding your bike with cancer.
According to Ezra, the fork has less trail than normal to keep the bike from swaying side-to-side too much while pedaling. Here’s the rest of his response:
“Thanks for your interest. Yeah.. the assless is a pretty fun bike. I built it for myself over the summer after being diagnosed with ass cancer. They told me I couldn’t ride a bike. I asked if it would be ok if the bike had no seat. Â The doc said, ‘so.. what? Â you’re just going to stand the whole time?’ Â ‘yeah.. Â that’s right.’ He just shrugged at me and said, ‘yeah.. that’d be fine.’ So I built an assless bike.”
Click on the images to enlarge. Â Ezra’s cancer blog is here and his gallery of other bikes is here.
