meltron

On any given occasion while out for my long weekend rides, I see a few different riding clubs out doing there thing. Looks like a lot of fun. Sometimes I'll ride with them, other times I just keep to my route.

I was wondering, are there any fixed gear riding clubs in NYC? Sounds silly and I apologize if it comes off that way. Would be nice to ride 20, 30, 40 - (more?) - miles with a group of peers on fixed gear bikes. Is that a stretch?

I'm thinking I'll probably need to save for a decent road bike and just join one of the other local clubs, but was hoping that a fixed gear cycling group existed.

cheers.

obstacle

I know there are groups that get together here and there for somewhat serious fixed riding, either on the road in the city, in NJ or out at the track at Kissena. There are some of us that get together for nightly rides in central park as well. Most of what you'll find, as far as non-track semi-organized fixed gear riding, in NYC is going to be kids in tight jeans doing bar crawls, playing bike polo or doing alley cat races*. If that is your thing, cool. Finding more serious/grueling fixed road riding is much harder though...

*I'm not slamming these at all, they are hard, but more social than riding...which again if that is your thing cool.

meltron

Thanks for the reply obstacle. Yea, naw, plenty of the other stuff (polo, cats, trick sessions, et al) already exists. Not really interested...

I am looking for more of the aforementioned "group ride", much like when the roadies get together. I really enjoy that a lot, but like you said, it feels like a rarity in NY. I catch a few older guys riding fixed in CP during the weekends or on my ride up to Nyack sometimes. Again, rare...

"There are some of us that get together for nightly rides in central park as well." I'm totally down for this. Is there a place I can sign up for meet times or to join this group? How far is it to Kissenna sans car? I don't own any sort of vehicular transportation so my thought is that getting up there regularly would be a challenge.

cheers!

kmart

On some of the local group rides here out of 50+people there are always one or two fixed-gear riders. I bet a lot of the roadies in your area have their fixed sitting in their garage asking the same question as you. Maybe if show up to one of your local roadie club rides on your fixie you will inspire others to ride their fixies more often too.

obstacle

Yoshi can answer the kissena questions and more organized fixed gear riding stuff. I've seen posts around here from a few others about morning rides, sometimes in the park, sometimes out to NJ. Personally I ride almost nightly in the park, often fixed. I've ridden with a handful of people from the board here or there around the park. More recently a few nights a week I've seen groups of 3-5 people riding fixed around the park. Nothing "official" though. Any group rides in the city, be it from a club our otherwise, will generally be roadies with maybe some guys on fixed gears. Though I think there are enough of us on the board that are somewhat to ver serious cyclists that are also fixed riders and not into the hipster scene that we could start some kind of "organized" fixed gear group ride come spring (since many people resort to indoor roller riding starting about now until March).

If you ever want to ride in central park on a week night, usually after 9pm for 20-30miles PM me. This time of year I'm running more than I'm riding but if you did want to ride I would gladly take the night off from brutalizing my body running and spin some fixed laps around the park.

obstacle

Tried this with a few club rides and CRCA training rides. Usually some of the people riding are interested in fixed gears, some say they have a fixie, most are total road snobs who laugh at you only until they can't seem to drop you in the pack. I'm a roadie as well and the group rode with alot over the summer was a CRCA team with friends involved as well, for a total of maybe 15-50 people on various rides. On the first ride I showed up fixed, by the end of the summer there were 2 others that were riding fixed regularly with me. Not massive numbers.

Again, maybe having a proper "organized" fixed group ride of NYC riders (you know us lyrca/spandex/clipless clad kooks) might be a cool idea. I've ridden the NJ rides fixed many times. It's lovely to get out on an open rode fixed.