Standard Shaman Ox, 2004 era

[ediotism]

this post is purely for nostalgia, bikes were so clunky and heavy back in the days! (Sorry for big pictures, no idea how to resize them. actually i do, i think. fuck you.)
EDIT: pictures resized because i'm cool like that


back in 2004/2005 in the hong kong summer. 33'c (that's around 92'f) with 98% (no joke) humidity. i used to go thru 4 litres of water, two full sized towels every 3 hour night session. now i get a heatstroke just looking at the picture.


RNC 30t full titanium sprocket, Gsport homer with ody 13t freewheel. primo comet tyres, original steelwire bead version. (i LOVED those)
Demolition nunchuck pegs (i think) - early era of plastic pegs with a metal sleeve. The ends of the peg crimp in like a motherfucker since i slam them into the ground a lot, making it impossible to put the huge ass-socket (21mm) in to turn the big fuckoff Gsport homer hub bolts. after a few times of filing the inner sleeve for socket clearance, i decided to just saw off the crimped bits whenever i needed socket access.
other parts seen: Gsport homer hub with 13t ody freewheel, 48s 4x interlaced under the 3rd (a la Gsport George) to araya RBJ1 rim. snafu 4130 seatpost bottomed out on the BB, i didn't cut it because i wasn't bothered about weight. Primo Pentagon seat (heavyduty version of hemerroid) with the cover re-done about a dozen times in total from wearing out. the rails were quite bent and rusty but it comes with the sweat of riding in such humidity/heat.

[ediotism]

i used to buy tyres by the half dozen, and generally they get to about this stage before i replaced one - sometimes even worse. the bike parts were generally ridden to death. The pegs are called Bizhouse, they use rubber plumber rings for grip - after a while they cracked and fall off one by one, i bought like 50 extras but never put them on when the old ones fell off. the forks were odyssey minimal offset, the lugs were hacked off shortly after i took off the front brake.


a better picture. i spray painted the spokes individually before i laced the wheel, it took forever. The chris king headset had a FSA mod done, taught by the legendary Sheepdog. I learned so much from the man.
The stickers were about 4-5 layers thick, which means NONE of the bottom layer shows. i guess it's good for holding the frame up from any cracks/ catastrophic failure. looking at it now, the snafu seatpost is so. fucking. long. (it reaches all the way to the BB)


i also bought grips 6 pairs at a time (Ody jimmy levans, they were comfy) and i rode till they are completely worn off my bars before i put new ones on. the bends of the bars get some paint chips and rust which cut my hands, the sensible thing to do was obviously putting some tape over them. See the huge barends? they're oversized full steel ones to help you learn hitchhikers easier (by letting the barends scraped the ground). They weigh about one bike each.
The ody zero offset forks had removable lugs, and it's just a little hole. a spider lived in there i'm pretty sure - i used to see it hanging around my front wheel once in a while.
The seatpost started to rust from my ass sweat. just dont touch it and you'll be fine.

[ediotism]

learned hang-nothings back in 05 august, proceeded to try to learn tricks linking into and out of it for a year to no avail. the cost of creativity often came from pouring 300 hours into trying to make a trick work to no results.


random picture of riding daily at 5am just as the sun comes up for less heat and before going to work. 30'c (88'f or so). i never posted this before since the background gives the location away, and i was scared of paedo's.


just a riding picture. was trying out some flatland specific bars for more clearance for a short while, but the stiffness killed me when i rode street. went back to 2-piece shortly after.
i had a self proclaimed Artist friend (was a hipster before it was cool), who borrowed around 300 quid from me and repaid me with... a picture of my portrait using oil on canvas. the entire picture was painted with black paint as part of his "darkness" series. you can't see SHIT on it. i no longer talk to him, and the canvas was butchered and became the seat cover.
unfortunately i then got black paint on my ass everytime i rode, and all my riding shorts have black streaks. in short, everything was fucked. apart from my immaculate style, obviously.

[ediotism]

reaching 2007, the Araya RBJ1 finally showed its limits. massive chrom flaking and bubbling, hazardrous to touch/grab since the flakes are fucking toxic to the human body. apart from that the wheel was still true and smooth rolling. ironically, i've never used a brake on this rim.

fixing punctures/ changing tires did require gloves for safety reasons, and dont breathe too hard in case you inhale some of that mirror magic.


a closeup of the state of the rim. i think my camera got cancer from taking this picture.
The spray paint (4 coats) on the spokes have lasted surprisingly well

[ediotism]

found pictures of prepping the spokes for spray painting. i taped them at the thread to prevent paint getting there


the spokes were then hung up and received 4 layers of paint. definitely not worth the effort!

[ediotism]

one of the seat re-surfacing i've done with fluffy fabric. it looks good for approximately 3 riding sessions then it turned into my anti-theft device.
(this wasn't on my shaman per se, but rather on my WTP pony before that, but it's the same seat that lasted many years and many re-coverings)


oh fuck!! i actually found pictures of when i first got the frame from Arker, who i meant on this site... absolute top guy he was, he sent the frame to a powdercoater for me, who baked it yellow. the lugs were already hacked off, which was a crazy mental thing to do back in that time period.


frame anti-crack treatment finished


this may have been the very first build i did with the frame - 44t ody utility sprocket i think. not sure on accuracy but picture metadata says june 2004. i slept with the bike in my bed when i got it built, i was that happy. (of course i didn't have a girlfriend)
it looks like i've never changed the wheels/pegs throughout the frame's lifetime, but i've ridden a few different wheels sporadically. the gsport homer was still the best for smoothness/strength, i ended up giving away the freecoaster wheels i had.


-------- THE END ----------

[Narcoleptic Insomniac]

I approve.

[Aesop Rock]

I am filled with feels.

[LeonLikesToRock]

that was cool.

[paranoidmexican]

Awesome

[streetStreet]

I remember always seeing Paul Osicka in ride representing that for standard in the ads. it's paul osicka right...?

[dude...]

very cool, enjoyed that a lot

[alaskun]

This is one of my all-time favorite bikes

I usually hate yellow stuff, but the stickers/parts/frame always sucked me in...

Sometime around 2004/2005 I got a red shaman from Chris Cotsonas (odyssey), off of bmxboard.

It was the frame that was used in a black-and-white evolver (brake) ad. somebody please post that ad. I've found it in my magazine stack a few times, but never scanned/capped it


sadly, a friend's brother took the bike out and got it stolen one night around 2006, and I STILL stress over that thing. Any bike I see at the dump gets my hopes up.

I never took pictures of the bike itself aside from this one

but here's my bmx-test profile on it from ~2005

Bike Description:
A red standard shaman set up for flatland and street...

Frame: standard shaman - 19.5"
Forks: odyssey flatforks
Bars: haro slims or odyssey barrios, depends on my wrists
Rims: hazard lite in front and alex triple wall in back
Hubs: back= lsd ody new style cassette with 12t cog, front=odyssey hazard
Stem: odyssey format
HeadSet: king or unsealed pig
Seat: haro or hemeroid
SeatPost: haro
Cranks: profile 177mm
Pedals: jim c's with albes grind plate on the right
Sprocket: rnc 25t lite
Chain: half kool, half normal
Tire: back= duro x-performer, front= revenge
Brake: tektro, front only until I get all the right peices for a gyro
Brake lever: modulever
Cable: super old bright green cable from a mountain bike
Grips: haro or big cheese
Barends: haro
Pegs: eastern pivots on the left, haro and snafu smooth pegs on the right (I grind on the right, and most of the time only stand on the left pegs for flat)

Favorite Riders & Companies: www.flatlandfuel.com
www.pedalbmx.com
www.bmxboard.com
Reviews Submitted...

you can't post this bike too much, ediot, I always like seeing it

[ediotism]

I remember always seeing Paul Osicka in ride representing that for standard in the ads. it's paul osicka right...?

it's more than likely paul osicka, but i think he rode the Tao, which is 18.x" TT. The shaman is 19.5" and was my sole reason of not riding anywhere near the level of osicka. honestly, the guy can just bust jam packed incredible links in a 2mX2m living room avoiding furnitures whilst blindfolded, you can't compete with that.

[ediotism]

sadly, a friend's brother took the bike out and got it stolen one night around 2006, and I STILL stress over that thing. Any bike I see at the dump gets my hopes up.

it sucks that chances are the bike theif has no idea of how particularly good this frame was and would just pawn it after doing wheelies/ whatever. it's probably a personal bias but the few times that i came across people riding shamans, they always seemed to ride in ways that opened my eyes and gave me new ideas. took me a while to realise i had a lot of emotional attachment to that frame.