More on Fixed-Gear Culture

An cool NY Times article on Fixed Gear bike culture.

In this past week of riding, I figured out why bike messengers use fix speeds: at stoplights (which are the least pleasant element of riding in an urban environment), it is easy to balance and stay "on" the bike. Nothing sucks more than needing to take your feet off the pedal as you're waiting for the light. It is much more preferable to be able to balance and start riding from a standstill...which I imagine is easier on a fixed gear.

With my bike, I'm stuck sometimes trying to circle around and lean on posts, etc, trying to stay "on" the bike. A fixie would be easier to maneuver in small spaces.

I never would've come across this info if it weren't for how much I was enjoying my new bike. Frankly, I don't care for these attempts to define "movements" and the weird, sub-culture and fetishization of the fixed gear bike, exemplified here:

Mr. Coast, who works surrounded by Bridgeport lathes, jigs and blueprints, is a believer in fixies as a metaphorical extension of a squatters’ lifestyle that connotes, as he puts it, “living a certain way, subsisting on recycling, not wasting, finding liberation, freedom as a revolutionary act, like in a Hakim Bey sense, primitivist, spiritualist anarchism.”

I am more attracted to the following appeal:

Track bikes are not made for street,” he conceded, “and sometimes I need a hope and a prayer to stop short.” But he rhapsodized about their charms. “It’s like playing chess,” he said. “You think out your moves from a block away.”

When I ride to work, I think about my route. Without gears, you can't take a steep hill. Any hill is a challenge and you need to build up speed to make it ridable. Now, when I ride around the streets, I'm aware of terrain, space, incline, stop and go, traffic. I also see more of the land and the people and the houses in my neighborhood.

I don't think I'm hardcore enough to get a true "fixie" but I'm incredibly happy with the simplicity, weight, and the mental and physical exercise in this new bike.