I remember the first time I saw the movie Premium Rush, I was left completely fascinated by the idea of riding a fixed gear bike. I mean, riding without brakes, not being able to coast, weaving through peak hour traffic, sounds like something that someone with a death wish would do. But then, what bigger adrenaline rush can you get if not this!
After a lot of pondering over whether I should get myself a Pure Fix, I decided to take the plunge on the 21st of May and gift myself a sweet looking Pure Fix Juliet and a pair of gold wheels on my birthday.

Fixed or Single Speed?

Q. What are fixed gear bikes?

As stated on wikipedia – Most bicycles incorporate a freewheel to allow the pedals to remain stationary while the bicycle is in motion, so that the rider can coast, i.e., ride without pedaling using forward momentum. A fixed-gear drivetrain has the drive sprocket (or cog) threaded or bolted directly to the hub of the back wheel, so that the rider cannot stop pedaling. When the rear wheel turns, the pedals turn in the same direction. This allows a cyclist to apply a braking force with the legs and bodyweight, by resisting the rotation of the cranks.

For someone who has always been used to the idea of coasting on the bike, riding fixed seemed like a strict no-no. The Pure Fix original series bikes come with both fixed gear and freewheel riding options. It takes a simple flip of the rear wheel to switch between the two modes. I had dabbled with the idea of riding my commute in fixed gear mode but Bangalore traffic made me think twice about this. So I initially setup the bike in single speed mode.

The first ride

The first thing you notice when you ride a single speed bike is the absence of gears (duh!). Those short nagging inclines on which you typically shift down and cruised leisurely start demanding that extra bit from you. Initially, there is some involuntary reaching out to gear levers only to find yourself grabbing thin air! But then, to be honest, the feeling you get trying to power through those sections of the road (or those flyovers) in the city is so very fulfilling!
The frame of the bike is made up of high tensile steel and the stock grips did a good job at dampening out the road vibrations to a good extent (I do wear gloves when I ride my bike). Also, Pure Fix has done a great job with the frame geometry – neither too aggressive not too upright. The shoulders were not over-stressed and the wrists and elbows were in a relaxed position throughout the ride. Besides that, the bike felt responsive and alive and the 44/16T gear ratio ensure the bike was adequately geared for the varied terrain one generally comes in our city.
The other point of note was the lack of a rear brake (the Pure Fix comes with only with a default front brake). The lack of a rear brake when riding single speed is actually quite unnerving and I definitely recommend installing a rear brake to commute safe on city roads.

Fixed gear mode : Activated

The first thing I did the next day when I reached BUMSONTHESADDLE was to change my rear wheel to the fixed gear mode (approx. after 22 kilometers of riding in single speed mode). I needed the confidence that it would provide when it comes to having rear braking ability and since I had decided not to get myself a pair of rear brakes (for me, the beauty of a Pure Fix lies in its simplicity. And having an additional rear brake set on it just didn’t do justice to how I see that bike).
Immediately I could feel the difference in stopping power. Yes, it does take time to get used to the fact that you cannot afford to coast on a fixed gear bike. But then, its actually turned out to be so much more fun! The heightened sense of awareness, the thrill in trying to manouver through traffic while not keeping a foot down and the joy derived from constant pedalling no matter how the legs feel ; Its like magic! I actually felt more in control of the bike when riding in fixed gear mode than when it was in single speed! In simple terms, riding a fixed gear bike is like trying to tame a wild animal. It does take some time, but at the end of the day, its worth the effort once you get the hang of it. Will I opt to go back to riding it as a single speed? never ever ever never!
I’ve been commuting extensively with this bike and with each passing day I end up falling more in love with it.
Oh yeah, one more thing – the attention one ends up getting while pedaling down the streets on one of these beauties! From people on two wheelers to smoke spewing BMTC busses, their looks say it all. You know you have one hell of a good looking bike! ;)

The good

 

• Well designed frame geometry – Responsive and comfortable! Perfect for riding inside the city.
• The 44/16T gear ratio is ideal for riding around within the city limits. Neither is it way too hard to pedal up those city flyovers, nor do you find yourself spinning out on flat stretches.
• The high tensile steel does a good job at adequately dampening out road vibrations.
• The deep dish wheels are literally bomb proof and can handle our Indian roads very well. They tend to stay true for a longer time than regular road bike wheels.
• The Wellgo aluminium pedals are of real good quality! Something that caught me completely unawares when I bought this bike. Broad base with pins to provide that extra grip one needs while riding fixed.
• Looks! For someone like me who is very particular about how their bike looks, Pure Fix have done a fantastic job at coming up with gorgeous looking bikes that can be customized to a great extent. From bullhorn handlebars and coloured wheelsets to coloured bartape, chains and saddles. You can do a lot to jazz up your bike just the way you want.
• Fantastically priced!

The not-so-good

• My front brake pads wore off within fifteen days of riding my bike. I would recommend everyone to get a pair of koolstop brake pads along with the bike. They are very competitively priced brake pads and offer excellent stopping power while being durable.
• The bike is designed keeping the urban commuter in mind. If you intend to use it for longer distances a nice saddle upgrade would be worthwhile.

Verdict

The ideal commuter bike that looks great and rides really well for city roads. So be it your go-to bike to head to your workplace or to pick up some stuff from your nearby grocery store, this is all you need. Also, the fixed gear aspect adds another fun dimension to this bike. And for the price tag on it, it surely packs a bang for its buck! All in all, this is one bike I will be riding for a long long time to come.

resource ::
http://blog.bumsonthesaddle.com/2015/06/14/review-pure-fix/

The new Pixar animation Inside Out could easily have been called Out There. It’s as bizarre, imaginative and authentically psychedelic as anything produced in mainstream animation. At this point in the fortunes of the once-infallible creative powerhouse, you wouldn’t have bet on Pixar coming up with anything very outré. Bought by Disney in 2006, the studio hadn’t produced anything truly inspired that wasn’t a sequel since Up in 2009. Given the humdrum quality of Cars 2 and Monsters University and 2012’s well-intentioned but forgettable Brave, it seemed as if the studio had lost its penchant for exotic risk.
But Inside Out is in the top rank of Pixar productions with its combination of audacity, intelligence, wit and emotional reward. Directed and co-written by Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc and Up) and co-directed by Ronnie del Carmen, Inside Out starts from a boldly abstract premise: the narrative plays out within the psyche of a girl named Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias) and the film’s characters are her feelings.
At the start, one of those feelings, Joy (Amy Poehler), asks: “Do you ever look at someone and wonder what is going on inside their head?” The next questions that arise are: what might such psychic events actually look like? And how might they generate a story that can be sustained for 102 minutes? Inside Out meets these challenges with an inventiveness that’s appropriately mind-boggling.
The film starts in a dark cavern, the Plato’s cave of the unformed self. As baby Riley is born, Joy spontaneously appears – a shimmering, big-eyed Tinkerbell-like pixie – and observes Riley’s view of the world on a glowing, cloud-like surveillance screen. Joy is soon joined by other emotions – Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger, the latter characterised as a squat red sponge that bursts into flame when provoked. These five monitor Riley’s life and produce her responses by operating a console of levers and buttons, something between the USS Enterprise and PlayStation 4. Inside Out explores much the same premise – little people busy working in your head – as the Beano’s Numskulls strip, but it’s infinitely more sophisticated and distinctively female-skewed. The film’s real heroine is Joy, a pathologically upbeat micro-manager convinced that only positive feelings count – and Amy Poehler instils Joy with something of the obsessive girl guide eagerness of her Leslie Knope in the TV sitcom Parks and Recreation.
Then crisis comes as Riley, now 11, moves with her parents (Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan) from Minnesota to scary San Francisco, where a new school fills her with anguish and where, worst of all, pizzas come topped with broccoli. The ensuing narrative is set in the far reaches of Riley’s psychic landscape – and it is a landscape. Her trauma triggers the seismic collapse of the “personality islands” – literally, floating landmasses – that define who she is, devoted to such themes as family, friendship and hockey.
A control-room malfunction leaves Joy and Sadness wandering in a vast allegorical geography that includes such landmarks as imagination (a theme park) and the place where dreams are made: a movie studio, of course, where productions range from I’m Falling Down a Very Deep Pit to Fairy Dream Adventure Part 7. In the film’s wildest moment, the wanderers enter a zone of abstract thought, where they are zapped into a series of increasingly simplified geometric shapes, as they – and the film itself – dizzyingly self-deconstruct (“Oh no, we’re non-figurative!”).
Formidably ingenious, Inside Out hits an elusive sweet spot in terms of appealing to children and adults alike. It makes extraordinary use of knowing cuteness, for example. Take Bing Bong, Riley’s long-lost imaginary friend from early childhood, a cat-elephant hybrid made out of candyfloss. Here, the film seems to stray perilously into Jar Jar Binks territory – but while smaller children will warm to Bing Bong as a cuddly oddity, adults and older kids will see something quite troubling in a figure that’s manifestly a primitive creation of the infant mind, poignantly fated to extinction.
It’s in the way that the story depicts the fading of childhood’s mental furniture, and explores the mechanics of forgetting, that Inside Out achieves a universal significance. While specialists may bemoan the simplicity of the film’s mental model, inspired by the “psychoevolutionary” theory of Robert Plutchik, the eventual message – that sorrow is as valuable an emotion as happiness – is delivered with less piety than you might imagine.

Fallout 4 is an engrossing game that lures you in with mystery and the promise of adventure. Its wretched wasteland can be captivating, and you never know what odd person or settlement lies around the next bend. Fallout 4 uses its dark world as a canvas for exciting combat and gripping stories, and when you dig deeper into its post-nuclear-apocalypse version of Boston--defending yourself from violent scavengers and using your wits to climb social ladders--you become attached to the new you, and ultimately invested in the fate of your new world.

Eating, putting on makeup, talking on the phone — these are all things you shouldn’t do while driving. The first two items can certainly wait until you’re out of the car. But there may be situations where you have no other choice except to take a call on the road. In those cases, using some kind of hands-free calling system is a good idea, and required by law in many states.
Bluetooth headsets are one solution, but the earpieces can be uncomfortable. Integrated Bluetooth technology in cars is another, but that’s expensive. So this week I test-drove two in-car Bluetooth speakerphone systems — the $130 Jabra Freeway and the $100 Motorola Roadster 2 — and found that they make a nice compromise between headsets and integrated systems.
Both devices wirelessly connect to Bluetooth-enabled handsets, so you can talk on the phone while keeping your hands on the wheel. They also understand various voice commands, and can even stream music and GPS directions from your phone to your car’s FM radio. Of the two, the Jabra had better sound quality.
I tested both systems in San Francisco and Los Angeles with the iPhone 4 and Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD. As soon as I turned on the Jabra, a friendly female voice walked me through the set-up process. It was as simple as turning on Bluetooth on the phones, and selecting the Jabra from a list of supported devices.
It attaches to your sun visor, much like a garage-door opener. There are various buttons — volume, mute, voice, phone and FM — along the top and bottom of the speakerphone system, and you can initiate calls a couple of different ways.
You can press the Voice button and say “redial” or “last call” to dial the last outgoing or incoming call. To dial a specific contact in your address book, you have to say “Phone Commands,” which initiates your smartphone’s voice-recognition system (such as the iPhone’s Siri app), and then you can say, “Call John.” For incoming calls, you can simply say “answer” or “ignore” without having to touch any buttons.
The Jabra understood all my commands, but I found I had to speak very slowly and clearly when trying to dial by name. Still, it allowed me to keep my eyes on the road and my hands on the wheel, whereas before I would be fumbling through my phone and only half-concentrating on the road.
The sound quality was impressive. Whether I was driving on city streets or on the highway, my friends sounded clear and loud. The volume was almost piercing when set to the highest level, so I had to turn it down a couple of notches. Calls were also still audible even when I had the air conditioning on. (It was quite warm in L.A., in case you’re wondering why I had my AC on in January.)
My friends said they could hear me fine, but could tell I was on a speakerphone. Only a couple of people heard some road noise.
One extra feature I liked about the Jabra was the ability to stream songs and GPS directions from my phone to my car’s stereo. You can do so by pressing the FM button, and the Jabra will then scan for an open FM channel. Once it has found one, you can then tune your car radio to the same station and the Jabra will pipe in the audio.
It came in handy when I was using Google Maps to navigate my way to Disneyland this past weekend, and I didn’t have to struggle to hear the directions, like I usually do when I’m just using my iPhone.
The Jabra has an estimated battery life of up to 14 hours. The speakerphone has a motion sensor that detects when you leave or enter the car, so it will automatically power down when you’re gone and reconnect once you’re back in. A car charger is also included in the box.
The Motorola Roadster 2 offers many of the same features as the Jabra, including the FM transmitter and voice commands. It’s also equipped with motion sensors to help conserve battery life, which is estimated at up to 20 hours. All functions worked well in my testing, though I had the same issue with voice dialing: I had to speak slowly and clearly in order to get it right.

There is also a free Motospeak app that you can download to your smartphone. It allows you to listen to and dictate text messages through the speakerphone, but it’s currently only available for Android devices.
I installed it on the Droid Razr Maxx HD, and when a new text message arrived, the Motorola Roadster 2 announced who sent the message and asked me if I wanted to listen it now. After I replied “yes,” it read the message in a somewhat robotic — but still understandable — voice.
You can dictate a reply, but the results were never 100 percent accurate. In one case, I said, “Sure, let’s meet at 5 at Roam Burgers” and the Motorola wrote, “Sure, let’s meet at 5 at Wilburger.”

I think the app is fine for listening to text messages, but writing one was almost as distracting as doing it right from your phone.
My biggest issue with the Motorola was sound quality. It has a smaller speaker than the Jabra and, as a result, the audio doesn’t sound as full or rich as the Jabra. Instead, voices sounded tinny or as if they were coming through a cardboard tube. Turning up the volume made voices sound muffled. My friends on the other line noticed some background road noise, but it wasn’t a major issue.
If you need to make calls from the road, an in-car Bluetooth speakerphone can help make the task easier. The Jabra Freeway and Motorola Roadster 2 are two solid systems, but the Jabra drives away with the win, thanks to its excellent sound quality.

(Editor's Note: The Asus ROG G751 is now available in Malaysia and Singapore at the starting RRP of RM8499 and SGD2898)
How can a high-end gaming laptop like the Asus ROG G751JY-DH72X ($2,999 as tested) beat the competition without dominating the gaming benchmark tests? By being competitive, while coming in for less money, and outclassing its competitors on a feature-by-feature basis. That's how. The G751JY-DH72X comes with a fourth-generation Intel Core i7-4860HQ processor and Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M graphics. To that it adds 32GB of memory, a 512GB solid-state drive (SSD) and a 1TB storage hard drive, a 17-inch In-Plane Switching (IPS) display, and ergonomic features that make gaming more comfortable. The fact that it packs in so much and still comes in at a reasonable price, gives it the oomph to jump to the top of the heap as our latest Editors' Choice for high-end gaming laptops.

 Design and Features
Thanks to the large screen, the system is understandably beefy. Its matte-black chassis measures 53 by 416 by 318 mm (HWD) and weighs 4.8 kg. The 17.3-inch, matte-finish In-Plane Switching (IPS) display gives you the benefit of both a wide viewing angle and reduced reflections from ambient lighting. It's a bright screen with a 1,920-by-1,080 resolution, which on first flush can seem a little small when high-end ultraportables have 4K screens, but 1080p is better for mobile gaming. Smooth animation in 3K or 4K gaming would require at least three GPUs, which is impractical in a laptop. For example, the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3k has trouble maintaining smooth frame rates at its native resolution of 2,880 by 1,620. The G751JY-DH72X runs fine at native resolution with all the eye candy turned on (more on that below).
The red, backlit, chiclet-style keyboard contrasts with the black chassis, and is quite comfortable to use, with enough space for a full numeric keypad. The spacebar is wider on the left side, to give you a wider area to hit with your left thumb while gaming. The touchpad has two physical mouse buttons, and the cursor keys are offset from the rest of the keyboard. The keyboard deck is also tilted toward the user, which makes it more comfortable during long gaming sessions. Above the function keys are five keys: one to bring up Steam, three customizable macro keys, and a key that can start a game video recording to play back for yourself or friends later. Speakers are loud and clear, with a subwoofer for a little extra low-end sound. The system has dual rear vents, so heated air is channeled away from the user.
Connectivity is excellent: The sides of the system are chock full of I/O ports. You'll find an Ethernet port, a headset jack, an HDMI port, a line-out jack, a Thunderbolt port, four USB 3.0 ports, and a VGA port. For wireless connectivity, there's 802.11ac Wi-FI and Bluetooth. The system comes with a Blu-ray/DVD burner combo drive, so you can install older games and watch movies on disc. Speaking of movies, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M can drive up to four displays simultaneously (the internal display, HDMI, mini-DisplayPort/Thunderbolt, and VGA), allowing you to have game screens, instant messaging, Web browsing, and a movie all playing at once.
The system comes with two drives: a 512GB SSD for bootup and a 1TB 7,200rpm SATA hard drive. That's plenty of space for games, movie files, music, photos, and myriad other programs. There are a few preinstalled programs like Flipboard, Fresh Paint, Line, Music Maker Jam, Netflix, Twitter, and Zinio, but most of the programs on the Windows 8.1 Start screen are the usual Asus and Microsoft utilities. The G751JY-DH72X comes with a one-year warranty with accidental-damage protection, free two-way shipping for that year, and a 30-day Zero Bright Dot guarantee.

Performance
The quad-core Intel Core i7-4860HQ processor runs at 2.4GHz stock speed. Asus includes overclocking utilities to tweak performance of the CPU and GPU, but we tested the system in the stock configuration. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M graphics processor helped the desktop score playable frame rates on our Heaven (55 frames per second) and Valley (59fps) gaming tests at extreme-quality settings at full 1080p resolution. That was a lot smoother than competitors like the Alienware 17 (2014), the Asus ROG G750JZ-XS72, and the Origin EON17-S. The only other competitor we've seen lately that can play at extreme levels smoothly is the $3,676 (as tested) Origin EON17-SLX (2014), which has two Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M GPUs to help with the heavy lifting. The 3DMark scores are likewise close, with the G751JY-DH72X scoring 4,324 points on the Fire Strike Extreme test, just behind the 4,932 points of the Origin EON17-SLX on the same test.

Battery life is average for a gaming laptop, at 3 hours 4 minutes on our battery rundown test. That's within a few minutes of the three hours and change garnered by the Alienware 17 (2014) and the Origin EON 17-S. The outliers are the Origin EON17-SLX (1:13) and the battery champ Asus ROG G750JZ-XS72 (5:32). Basically, all of these systems will work untethered for a short period of time. Gaming-oriented processors and large screens tend to drain battery life quickly.
So how does the Asus ROG G751JY-DH72X end up on top? By beating the former Editors' Choice Origin EON17-SLX on price (the Asus rig is $700 less), better ergonomics, double the system memory, and much more storage (1.5TB vs. 990GB). The G751JY-DH72X is also 110 grams lighter than the EON17-SLX, has a more durable power adapter connector, and lasted almost two more hours on our battery rundown test. Sure, the Origin rig is ultimately a bit faster on games, but not always significantly so, and certainly not worth the extra $700 in the balance of features and performance. Simply put, while the Origin EON17-SLX may have the best extreme performance scores, the Asus ROG G751JY-DH72X is still quite competitive, and the money you save can be used to buy a backpack, a gaming mouse, and a lot of games.

resource  :: http://asia.pcmag.com/asus-rog-g751jy-dh72x-1/1279/review/asus-rog-g751jy-dh72x

Riding Position