Following on from our last post about how lucky kids in our hometown get to roam around the forest on their bikes as if they own the joint, here comes another example of a bicycle-based subculture liberating youngsters from their day-to-day lives. We found an excellent report from Soweto, South Africa this morning while we imbibed our morning joe.
Spinners, and their associated stylemeisters in the Stance camp, are a new group rapidly making themselves up as they go along.
By retrieving a couple or three bikes from the dump, tearing them down, welding them back together and cobbling together elongated drivetrains, customisers create bikes with outrageously long rear ends that enable them to drift. With the rider furiously (or casually) pedalling while leaning over the front end, the unweighted rear wheel can spin and be coaxed into sliding sideways. With the addition of chopped up PET bottles or chains to the rear tyre, they spin and slide even better.
Already spreading to India, this DIY bike boom is going to annoy people with nothing better to be grumpy about on a global basis, soon.