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Stair step over the Alps & slide down the other side with 8bar’s crit team

Written by Cory Benson
24 Comments
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8bar-team_road2milan_tease

Just a quick one here as we’ve seen the silly fixed gear antics from the 8bar crew before in their multi-day crossings of the Alps. But this year with their more organized (or at least better kitted out) crit racing team, they drove from their Berlin HQ down to Milan for the Red Hook Criterium at the start of October. The 8bar Team couldn’t resist pulling the van over as the hit the base of the Alps again to pedal up and over the Splügen Pass as they went from Switzerland across to Italy on their way to the Red Hook Criterium Milan 2016. Hop past the break to watch them huff it over the top, then skid precariously down the other side, as well as the official director’s cut from the race itself…

The drive to Milan was about getting the friends together for a fun road trip.

Pedaling through the Alps was apparently a little team building exercise ahead of the race which saw their Dutch rider David Van Eerd finish inside the top 10 in the nighttime Red Hook crit. Word is that 8bar will have another video installment to release in three weeks as they round out their Road 2 Milan adventure.

8bar-bikes.com
Cory Benson
4,364 articles

Cory Benson is the EU Tech Editor of Bikerumor.com.

Cory has been writing about mountain bikes, enduro, cyclocross, all-road, gravel bikes & bikepacking for over 25 years, even before the industry created some of these names. Prior to Bikerumor, Cory was a practicing Architect specializing in environmental sustainability, has designed bike shops & bike components, and worked as a bike shop mechanic.

Based in the Czech Republic for 15+ years, he is a technical mountain biker, adventurous gravel rider, and short & medium-haul bikepacker. Cory travels extensively across Europe riding bikes, meeting with key European product developers, industry experts & tastemakers for an in-depth review of what’s new, and what’s coming next.

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Cowtowncyclist
Cowtowncyclist
8 years ago

The no brakes thing is just beyond me. It somehow makes more sense blow through $100 tires than to just put a set of calipers on your bike? It is like something out a Zoolander movie.

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Marcassin
Marcassin
8 years ago
Reply to  Cowtowncyclist

Hipsterism at its best

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Andyroo
Andyroo
8 years ago
Reply to  Cowtowncyclist

Watch their faces, I’m pretty sure they are having fun. $100 is about the same as going to a concert and hitting a bar after–at least with stupidity like in the video you have a cooler story to tell on Monday than fuzzy memories and waking up with a wadded up bar tab in your pocket.

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Veganpotter
Veganpotter
8 years ago
Reply to  Andyroo

Skidding isn’t cool story, it’s skidding a tire…

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oldfieldcycles
oldfieldcycles
8 years ago
Reply to  Veganpotter

um, did you ever skid your tire on a coaster brake bike when you were a kid?

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Veganpotter
Veganpotter
8 years ago
Reply to  oldfieldcycles

Totally, I could do it with my rim brakes now. It’s still not cool. I wiped boogers under my desk in school too, you grow out of it.

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STS
STS
8 years ago

The key word in this article is the tenth: silly. ’nuff said.

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Woody
Woody
8 years ago

Is there nothing a fixed gear bike can’t (read shouldn’t) do?! This makes even less sense to me than fixed gear crit racing. Darwinism at it best.

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Kernel Flickitov
Kernel Flickitov
8 years ago

Always an interesting lesson in the lack of tolerance whenever anything is posted about fixed gear bikes. Whoever told me decades ago that cycling was the most accepting and inclusive sport was unfortunately full of it. Seems disparaging others if they’re not a carbon copy of yourself is the common theme these days. Pretty sad.

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dhbomber
dhbomber
8 years ago
Reply to  Kernel Flickitov

You are right Kernel…As an avid cyclist of most disciplines (bmx, road, mtb) I really love riding and racing (crit) my fixed gear bike! The “hipster” thing is SUPER OLD now, Crits are super fun and challenging to race on a fixed gear bike, and overall cruising on one is the best feeling ever. Put some brakes if you want, no hate. I just don’t get the hatred towards the whole fixed gear scene around here. Curiously this only happens in the States. Europe is pretty accepting of it’s fixed gear racing scene. I just don’t get it. It’s a bicycle! I am a cyclist, I could ride a walmart fat cruiser and have tons of fun on it!

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Antipodean_eleven
Antipodean_eleven
8 years ago
Reply to  Kernel Flickitov

Ya know, it’s part of the job around here to see what’s going on in the world of cycling. And after farrrrrr tooo long watching, I have to say what I see cropping up, is, well, dull, boring and an endless rehash of the same thing. There are exceptions of course but for the mainstream, yeezus it’s dull. Just watch your Instagram feed for proof.

BUT!

I should be at the opposite spectrum, being in ‘that age bracket’ but all the interesting stuff I see is with these guys. There is more experimenting with bikes that are ridden, more pushing what riding is about, less posing at the cafe with a 10k carbon wunder bland, they do silly things that are fun and more often than not, they all look like they are having a good time going.

In many ways what I see going on in the fixed/SS ‘road scene’ is more akin to what I remember riding used to be like – build a bike the way you want and then go ride it and have a great, somewhat silly time doing it that leaves you laughing over beers.

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Champs
Champs
8 years ago
Reply to  Kernel Flickitov

Edginess is the fixed gear scene’s stock and trade, and after a decade of the same old whip skids it’s worn down to the cords like so many Vittorias.

You can’t hold the ball forever, son. The tolerance clock ran out.

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Kernel Flickitov
Kernel Flickitov
8 years ago
Reply to  Champs

Your attempt to justify lame behavior towards others because of the kind of riding they prefer is pretty weak, son.

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Allan
Allan
8 years ago
Reply to  Kernel Flickitov

“Whoever told me decades ago that cycling was the most accepting and inclusive sport was unfortunately full of it.”

Seriously, who has EVER said that? For as long as I can remember, cycling has been the furthest thing from an accepting and inclusive sport. I think I first learned of the word “Fred” 25 years ago. Roadies hate each other, let alone other forms of two-wheeled (or one-wheeled) transportation.

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Echtogammut
Echtogammut
8 years ago

Dropping the brakes in crit racing makes complete sense to me. If you are using your brakes in a crit, you are riding wrong and threat to others around. Going down the alps without brakes, just sounds like tire murder and is going to be annoying and possibly dangereous for everyone who is trying to pass you.

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Veganpotter
Veganpotter
8 years ago
Reply to  Echtogammut

You’re still breaking with your legs and taking corners slower than people using calipers due to pedal strikes. As for this Alps thing, it’s just showing off a desire to try to be cool…

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Allan
Allan
8 years ago

I feel sorry for all those tires.

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theOracle
theOracle
8 years ago

I’ve ridden plenty of high Mtn passes on a fixed gear but always with at least one brake. Fixed is fun, I get it. However, the novelty of riding brakeless down mountains is painfully slow, boring and simply put ignorant. You can be successful for a while but the day will come when you inevitably go down really hard. Either you’ll skid through that tire and puncture, drop/break a chain or some dickhead driver forces you off your line or off the road. To each their own I guess. What’s with the narrow risers? Or those better for weaving through all that traffic while climbing and descending mountains?

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Woody
Woody
8 years ago

Track bike. The clue’s in the name

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gringo
gringo
8 years ago

What a waste. Ecologically this is just sad.

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Oli
Oli
8 years ago

No brakes, but at least they have helmets on. Safety first!

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oldfieldcycles
oldfieldcycles
8 years ago

let people ride what and how they want. cycling as a sport and as a culture is so diverse that you cannot just throw everything into a few categories and call it a day. there are definitely things that i am not in to and even think are dumb but why should we judge others. one of the funnest bikes i have ever ridden was a Victory high wheeler reproduction which the owner had just ridden double century on. would i want to ride that far on one? no, but riding it for an hour was a blast.

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beat_the_trail
beat_the_trail
8 years ago

I don’t get the non-inclusive thing… I started out on BMXs decades ago as a kid, then moved onto MTBs in the early 90s. I started working at my LBS when I was 14 years old around ’91 or so, and the roadies would come in and look down their noses at the “fat tire” bikes. I rode an old Panasonic to and from school, and had Gary Fisher MTB I hit the trails on. Seemed logical to have two bikes, tires are expensive, and knobbies hate the pavement. I college I only had room for one bike and there was an extensive trail network only a 10 min ride off campus, so I just had my MTB to get to class and thrash on the trail. Now-a-days, I have a road bike, a single speed (freewheel, not fixed), a MTB, a commuter/grocery getter and a CX bike. I don’t care what others ride, and don’t care if they’re the butt-sniffing, lycra-clad roadie, the handlebar moustache and tight jeans fixie kid or a baggy shorts MTBer. I ride will all of them and let my skill and fitness do the talking.
Sidebar:
A couple years ago, I started riding with a group of middle-aged guys on road bikes. Typical Saturday morning group about 15 strong that likes to run a ~20mph pace. My first outing with them I showed up on my mid-80s Centurion Dave Scott with seven-speed Shimano 600 and downtubes. I was wearing my baggy MTB shorts and a t-shirt, full fingered Fox mtb gloves and my XC shoes. They all were pretty weary of having to wait for the Fred. About 10 miles in as I was leading a big climb and started to drop a few guys, one of the faster guys pulled up and asked me to back off and let the group catch up. Of course I was happy to, it was a group ride and I wasn’t out to prove anything, I was just out to enjoy a pace line and have some fun. Once we all regrouped, I started getting the sandbagger comments, and general “Fred” harassment. So I hung middle pack for a bit and popped back out front about mile 30 to relieve the few guys that had been leading. After that I led for another 10 or so miles and tried hard to keep the group together, but as people get tired, I started half-wheeling some of the slower guys. I went off the lead and let the others pull for awhile. At the end of the ride, once everyone got back together, a few of the slower guys were still ball-busting me, but the fast guys had gotten over my attire and old steel bike and demanded I come back for next week’s ride.
I guess pride got in the way of the guys who couldn’t keep up on $5000 worth of carbon and $400 of kit. The guys who just wanted to go fast and enjoyed the challenge of mixing with a new rider, didn’t care.
Don’t let your idiotic pride keep you from having fun.

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Robin
Robin
8 years ago

Meh. The video seemed to be more about style–maybe more like a commercial–than riding. I’d like to have seen more about the actual climb and descent.

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