Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - why or how do you think this snow balled so fast?

this fixed thing? its crazy. every where you go, everyone is riding a FIXED GEAR.
it seems to be grow faster than any trend i have seen in awhile a specially for something that isn't that safe or main steam **** quicksilver was in the 80s

Join Date: Nov 2006

You likely started when I was first asking this question and I started (in early 2005) when other people were asking the question before me. It's been building for a long time, yet it just happens to be in a larger spotlight because the other edgy sports have fallen out of favor and cycling as a whole is bigger than it's been since mountain biking came to a head for the second or third time (early 90s).

I blame the parents.

Everybody should remember that anything didn't start getting out of control just after you started doing it... we're all part of the problem.

'cept for me. I get some kind of extra credit for racing on the track.

-cheap
-fashionable
-fun

-cheap
-fashionable
-fun

there are lots of things that meet those criteria that don't tip the way fixed gears have, though. there are more elements to it - media coverage at the right times, the current urban boom, overlap with fashion and the general trend (thanks nytimes style section) of turning (intentional scare quotes) "extreme-y type stuff at the fringes" into the next hot thing.

Was anyone immediately opposed to fixed gears before they got one?

I heard about fixed gears about a year and a half or two years before buying one. This was like '04, maybe '05 tops. I wanted to try it out but didn't go far with that idea because I didn't have any money lying around for a bike at the time, plus I was really into skateboarding still and doing that every day.

Then '06 came around, I saw some fixed gears parked downtown, the idea came back into my head to get one, a friend told me he wanted to try it out and I was initially opposed but the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea, then we both ended up getting our bikes the same day. Incidentally this was around the same time I saw Sheldon Brown, rest his soul, and his fixed gear page.

I had one friend I suggested try them out, he said he didn't like the idea of them, a couple months later he got his first one.

I recently let another friend ride my bike and didn't tell him a word about it, he didn't know what it was, I told him I "crashed it" and it never rode the same since and from now on the pedals just kept goign for some reason.

A month later, that same kid said he wants to buy one.

What is this subconscious shift that happens? 2 years into riding fixed gears, I'm way more addicted now then immediately started.

Everybody should remember that anything didn't start getting out of control just after you started doing it... we're all part of the problem.

'cept for me. I get some kind of extra credit for racing on the track.

'problem' is a very weird term to use for a boom in people riding bikes and having fun.

Oh, you're right.

But I can't click on a bike website without tripping over somebody getting their lycra in a twist about - you know - "the other kind of rider." The one who's less serious than they are, spends more money, knows less, and is pretty much a narcissist of small differences.

That's the problem.

-cheap
-fashionable
-fun
Heroin?


Oh wait, you said cheap. And fashionable.

mark my words the next hipster trend will be lycra.

Simple, easy to fix bikes. Took the hassle out of things as well as being cheap. Its care free and has a relaxed style to it all. Bikes don't have to be perfect, scratches, dings are welcome and just add to the greatness of these bikes.

mark my words the next hipster trend will be lycra.

with codpieces

There probably isn't really that many more fixed gears around, but now people make a conscious effort to seek them out instead of seeing "just another bike."

I commute every day and still see 10 roadies for every fixed rider, and I'm in a pretty big city.

mark my words the next hipster trend will be lycra.

I am thinking old/vintage motorcycles. Cafe racers are kind of the fixed gear of the motorcycle world, old bike, stripped down to bare essentials, modded a little and made for speed.

Ouch don't say that. I totally want a Cafe racer too, nicer ride for longer distances than my scooter. I'm not really worried about fixed gears as I see them more as a vehicle of getting more people on bikes. For a lot of people it's a fashion statement and they will lose interest once it goes out of vogue (like skinny ties, which by the way are still cool), but for some it's merely an extension of their bike geekery (yay me), and some of the people who got into it for fashion will be hooked on bikes and having more people getting on bikes is much like fresh hot cookies. it's never a bad thing.

Ouch don't say that. I totally want a Cafe racer too...

Manx Norton, with the featherbed frame. I want bad...:love:

i'd take a lambretta sx200 or gs160/ss 180 over a cafe racer any day.

Triumph Thruxton, or if I ever win the lottery one of THESE (http://www.ducati.com/en/bikes/my2008/ModelPage.jhtml?family=SportClassic&model=SCSPORT1000BIP-08)

this fixed thing? its crazy. every where you go, everyone is riding a FIXED GEAR.
it seems to be grow faster than any trend i have seen in awhile a specially for something that isn't that safe or main steam **** quicksilver was in the 80s

Look to your own sig for the answer. You like to advertise that YOU ride a fixed gear bike, even have picture sets of these said bikes posted on a public picture server that ANYONE can see. YOU propagate the fad, YOU are the reason the trend is growing so fast. . . give yourself a hand! :thumb:

blame it on kanye west!
that solves everything.
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/Traderindeath82/kanye-west-track-bike-cinel.jpg

on that note though, trek was doing casting calls for a commercial here in town, i had a buddy do it and he said that the lady who talked to him before his audition said to make sure and put emphasis on how he rides a fixed gear and was a messenger etc etc. and how they're aiming for that consumer group in the commercial, they're paying people $500 to weave in and out of rush hour traffic in downtown for it. but trek of all companies, who's next huffy.

youtube ?

My feeling is that single speed movement, if you will, its a respose to the cycling industry. I think that people want to ride a bike but modern bikes are getting more and more complex and for no real reason but to sell the next bike. Personally, I love to see conversions all over the place. The recycling of older bikes is the biggest upside to this trend.

My feeling is that single speed movement, if you will, its a respose to the cycling industry. I think that people want to ride a bike but modern bikes are getting more and more complex and for no real reason but to sell the next bike. Personally, I love to see conversions all over the place. The recycling of older bikes is the biggest upside to this trend.

you have a decent point, but i don't agree - the cycling industry is growing in a lot of different places, including those ridiculous high-end things. "cycling is the new golf," more rich folks buying expensive cabron - excuse me, carbon, how silly of me - and custom frames. i mean, it's not just single speeds and fixed gears that have boomed, it's not just bikes that look like fashion accessories. it's high end things, too. there are way more custom steel framebuilders than there were a decade ago. and i don't know my ass from my elbow about mtb and bmx stuff, so i can't comment.

but cycling is on the up and up. fixed gears are a part of that - a unique part of that - but i think they're in line with the cycling industry, not in response to something different.

maybe also.. gas prices are teh suk :p

i really don't see what the downside is to more people biking... even if it is a fad it will get people out of cars for the two years that they are into the fad. is that so bad?

Oh, you're right.

But I can't click on a bike website without tripping over somebody getting their lycra in a twist about - you know - "the other kind of rider." The one who's less serious than they are, spends more money, knows less, and is pretty much a narcissist of small differences.

That's the problem.


A solution is to simply ignore the whiners lest you be thrown in the pile with them.

There's a thread in the Roadie Forum about who's worse, the Fred/curmudgeon/Luddite who won't spend a nickel on his bike that he's been riding for the last thirty years or the Poseur who rides a $12k custom bike in full teamkit or the messenger that rides whatever will get him through the day or Bob, who thinks his Trek Navigator with front suspension fork and gel saddle is the bomb and doesn't understand why anyone would need anything else?



"I can't wait to hit the MUP on my bike!"
http://ablognamedsue.typepad.com/a_blog_named_sue/images/2007/05/30/smilin_bob_3.jpg

Speaking as a n00b who just got a fixie, here's my take and motivation...

I hadn't owned a bike for several years now. I rode BMX fanatically for years as a teenage boy - somewhere, there's an ancient Mongoose with no original parts left but the frame, because I broke EVERYTHING on it. But as an adult... well, several years ago, my old Giant mountain bike was stolen, and I had little motivation to ride then, so I went without. But my current job is a potentially great seven-mile commute along relatively safe and pretty bike paths, and I'm getting out of shape in middle age, and as a good liberal I feel guilty about gas, so why not?

So a bit over a week ago, I started looking for a new bike. I was looking for an okay-budget road bike or cross bike at my LBS when I ran across a Redline 925. The single gear intrigued me, so I took it for a spin and LOVED it. But resisting the urge to impulse-buy (and slightly sticker-shocked by current bike prices - I hadn't bought new in 15 years!), I started looking around. THAT'S when I found out that single/fixed bikes are fashionable right now, and there are lots of options!

After that, I visited several more shops, and rode what I could find. The real revelation was trying a Surly Steamroller - my first true fixie. After the initial shock of it, I loved the immediacy of riding fixed. Now, I'd seen the bike messengers on fixies (I work downtown), and my wife's uncle races fixies, but I'd never thought of them as something practical before. But I have a very zen approach to every technology I deal with (for example, I shoot a 50mm manual-focus lens on my DSLR - no auto-focus or zoom for me). I want my hardware to provide simplicity and immediacy, and generally dislike automation or anything that allows my mind to wander.

After more looking and soul-searching and penny-counting, I settled on a Cayne Uno, which I had set up for fixed rather than freewheel. I've had it a couple of days now and I'm THRILLED with it - not just the bike, but the whole fixed-gear approach to riding. It's making me conscious of just how inattentive I can be with derailleurs and freewheels, not to mention how stupidly gear-obsessed the bike scene can be. (It's called G.A.S. - Gear Aquisition Syndrome - in the camera and guitar worlds, dunno if it's called that here)

Now, as for the faddish quality of it... being a cheapskate and seeing that new single/fixie bikes are fashionable, I started trolling Craigslist for gently used fixies that the trend-followers were unloading. There weren't any. There were homebrews and stuff for not much less money than my Cayne Uno ($350 vs $500), and some super-cheap fixies that I didn't trust, but there weren't any 925s or Pistas or Steamrollers going for cheap. This tells me that those who are following the trend are DIGGING their fixies! And if that's true, don't expect it to fade like a fad. Expect it to become a permanent new segment of the new-bike market, just like mountain bikes, cross bikes, road bikes, and recumbents.

I dunno, fixed gear bikes really haven't taken hold in Cincinnati. Granted, I see more and more every few weeks, but they are still relatively below the radar.

I guess Mark Twain's comments about Cincinnati were right...

I've had it a couple of days now and I'm THRILLED with it - not just the bike, but the whole fixed-gear approach to riding. It's making me conscious of just how inattentive I can be with derailleurs and freewheels, not to mention how stupidly gear-obsessed the bike scene can be. (It's called G.A.S. - Gear Aquisition Syndrome - in the camera and guitar worlds, dunno if it's called that here)


Yes, everyone seems to forget that the actual experience of riding a fixed gear is quite incredible. I know people hate all that "...it's like this zen thing..." sh*t but some of that is true. There's something in the feeling of it. Riding a single speed or a coaster brake bike, which I was well used to, has nothing on riding a fixed gear bike. You get hooked on it, at least I did. And I've ridden a bike all my life basically.

Brifters. Just the word.

I mean, who the heck wants a bike with "brifters"?

I went fixed when I realized that, while I love my old Miyata with gears, the only interesting new bikes were the San Jose, Raleigh xxix, Redline, IRO etc. The people who are designing these bikes seem energized.

The carbon, race bike, hybrid, etc. stuff just isn't authentic. You know it is being done by "product managers" with drawings and spreadsheets, not by bikers that want to hold metal in their hands. All great products, but totally divorced from the ground.

But I still say it is the brifters.

I dunno, fixed gear bikes really haven't taken hold in Cincinnati. Granted, I see more and more every few weeks, but they are still relatively below the radar.

I guess Mark Twain's comments about Cincinnati were right...

WRONG
cinci has alleycats, fixed commuters, midnight riders, goldsprints, the coop, drinking gangs, girls on bikes, bike polo, and other folks with only 1 gear and no fear of hills...its just not been written about in citybeat.

Yes, everyone seems to forget that the actual experience of riding a fixed gear is quite incredible. I know people hate all that "...it's like this zen thing..." sh*t but some of that is true. There's something in the feeling of it. Riding a single speed or a coaster brake bike, which I was well used to, has nothing on riding a fixed gear bike. You get hooked on it, at least I did. And I've ridden a bike all my life basically.

That's certainly true for me. Riding fixed just sucked me right in! But I'm also probably atypical. I already had a very strong predisposition for simplicity and non-automation, based on my experiences in many other fields, from writing software to playing music to taking photos. It seems like a natural extension of attitudes I already had elsewhere.

WRONG
cinci has alleycats, fixed commuters, midnight riders, goldsprints, the coop, drinking gangs, girls on bikes, bike polo, and other folks with only 1 gear and no fear of hills...its just not been written about in citybeat.

oh, i know, i just meant that there seem to be far more road/mtb riders than fixed gear riders. even then, no excuses for me for being so disconnected with the cinci bike culture!

Internet blog and forum-driven fashion, nothing else. Fixed gear bikes have always had some training value for enthusiastic road riders, but the fixie craze isn't really about that. I guess it's not too bad if it gets people into bikes and then many later realize that having gears is one of the pleasures and skills of road riding.

Unfortunately, the fashion-driven ones seem to spend a lot of time on the sidewalk, the wrong way on one-way streets and running red lights because they have no brakes. Whereas road riders have always tended to imagine themselves as Tour de France racers, fashionable fixie riders tend to imagine themselves more as law-ignoring urban anarchists.

The internet is a very powerful influencer of trends. Since Copenhagen Girls on Bikes became such a popular, well-known blog over the past year, I've already noticed a few girls riding with high heels this season even in little, backward Ottawa. I don't think I ever saw one before this.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2410/2505026291_43b66cca92.jpg?v=0

pwned

I blame it on the democrats.

Internet blog and forum-driven fashion, nothing else. Fixed gear bikes have always had some training value for enthusiastic road riders, but the fixie craze isn't really about that. I guess it's not too bad if it gets people into bikes and then many later realize that having gears is one of the pleasures and skills of road riding.


NOTHING else? There's no joy in it? Did you not read what I wrote? When I started looking to get back into biking, it was actually riding SS/fixie bikes that sucked me in, not fashion! I've had bikes with gears before, but never loved them. Every bike I've ever loved was a single-speed. Silence, simplicity, low maintenance, less consumerism, a more conscious style of riding - all of these factor in.

Since getting back into bikes got me into following Internet forums over the past couple of weeks... well, I've seen FAR more high-handed, arrogant sneering at "fashionable" fixie riders from the road/MTB folks than I have cooler-than-thou sneering from the fixie riders. Mocking all fixie riders as fashionistas is no more fair or rational than knocking road bikers as a bunch of badly dressed consumerists with more money than sense.

Ride the bike that suits you, enjoy it, and geek out with those who share your love. But don't sneer at those who ride differently from you as misguided or inferior. It's... rude.

Internet blog and forum-driven fashion, nothing else. Fixed gear bikes have always had some training value for enthusiastic road riders, but the fixie craze isn't really about that. I guess it's not too bad if it gets people into bikes and then many later realize that having gears is one of the pleasures and skills of road riding.

Unfortunately, the fashion-driven ones seem to spend a lot of time on the sidewalk, the wrong way on one-way streets and running red lights because they have no brakes. Whereas road riders have always tended to imagine themselves as Tour de France racers, fashionable fixie riders tend to imagine themselves more as law-ignoring urban anarchists.

The internet is a very powerful influencer of trends. Since Copenhagen Girls on Bikes became such a popular, well-known blog over the past year, I've already noticed a few girls riding with high heels this season even in little, backward Ottawa. I don't think I ever saw one before this.

:twitchy:

-cheap
-fashionable
-fun

drugs beat fixed gear in all of those categories

What's this thing you call "fixie"?

tarck bear?

drugs beat fixed gear in all of those categories

Please tell me where the cheap drugs are

Just saw this on youtube.. thought it was kinda appropriate :)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UPWAL06pDds&feature=related

Internet blog and forum-driven fashion, nothing else. Fixed gear bikes have always had some training value for enthusiastic road riders, but the fixie craze isn't really about that. I guess it's not too bad if it gets people into bikes and then many later realize that having gears is one of the pleasures and skills of road riding.

Unfortunately, the fashion-driven ones seem to spend a lot of time on the sidewalk, the wrong way on one-way streets and running red lights because they have no brakes. Whereas road riders have always tended to imagine themselves as Tour de France racers, fashionable fixie riders tend to imagine themselves more as law-ignoring urban anarchists.

The internet is a very powerful influencer of trends. Since Copenhagen Girls on Bikes became such a popular, well-known blog over the past year, I've already noticed a few girls riding with high heels this season even in little, backward Ottawa. I don't think I ever saw one before this.

Biased much?

this fixed thing? its crazy. every where you go, everyone is riding a FIXED GEAR.
it seems to be grow faster than any trend i have seen in awhile a specially for something that isn't that safe or main steam **** quicksilver was in the 80s

What's not safe about it? I feel more safe on my fixed gear than I do on my 27 speed cross bike.

i think we should all be paying more attention to the bro trend

Those dudes scare me.