swisscheese

I rode road bike for about a year for getting to work and school, loving the fact that I didn't have to depend on cars and public transit anymore. I started reading up on fg sometime last spring and really wanted to try it. I bought a pair of rims of a guy I went to school with, found an old Raleigh for $15 and haven't stopped since.

TMonk

same here but replace 2006 w jan 2007

hamfoh

I found out about it from moving to Austin right when I turned 18. Like most things, I mocked it because I didn't understand it.

TheRealFaux

Rode around on my dad's hardrock mtb around the neighborhood for fun after school about 5 years ago. My dad bought a nice carbon road bike a couple years later and let me try it out, it felt way better than the mtb I was using. I knew I probably wasn't going to get an expensive carbon framed bike of my own, but I wanted a more road oriented bike than the mtb I was riding around and a fixed gear fit the bill pretty well.

M_S

I stopped liking derailleurs.

muckymucky

how i: tarckbiek.com

DviousDave

I used to ride cheap MTBs (Target \ Walmart) to commute to work and get around town for the longest. Did the whole: buy it, ride it, destroy it, buy another. The younger guys I skate with knew I rode and invited me out numerous times. I always declined cause I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up on an MTB. Then last June; when I finally could afford it, I bit the bullet and bought a Kilo TT. All I could think when I first started riding it was "why the hell have I been tooling around on that slow, heavy MTB". Shortly after I bought a tool kit and a stand.

redpear

Spin bikes.

striknein

Bought a used mountain bike, started reading Sheldon's site to learn how to work on it, and when I came across all his musings on riding fixed I became obsessed.

RGNY

i spent years riding vintage and modern cruisers. heard about these "fixie" things and how they were related to vintage/track bikes....

some Google-fu and here i am.

Stezzy

saw some sw8fixayz locked up at the local mall about a year ago, was like oh man gotta get me one of those. started the google research and found this site. read a lot and bought a windsor the hour.

PlattsVegas

For singlespeed- I started riding a paper route bike with a coaster brake. Then I converted my downhill bike to singlespeed. Then I rode/raced BMX.

For fixed- I was browsing the internet and came across old pics of track racing, did some research, had a free bike with a useless existing drivetrain, then I converted it. I was the first person (in my generation) in my town to ride fixed

Jared.

I wanted a "road bike without gears". Searched the Innanet and got some input from a friend who is a cyclist, bought a SS three years ago, put a cog and lockring on it a year and a half ago.

FakeFuji

I rode a panasonicmade schwinn for three years and realized i hadnt changed gears and decided i wanted a huge bmx bike with skinny tires

Furyus

Haven't ridden in twenty years. Now that I've gotten a bad leg somewhat repaired, thought I'd get back into riding. I love the simplicity and aesthetics of SS bikes. Building my first now.

Lao_shi

Got a hybrid last year to commute to school and around town (shout out to hilly santa barbara! ironlegz) and got tired of the bike noticeably slowing down in between pedal strokes. Trawled craigslist for a month or two and found my current fuji track nearby. I think I'm ready to sell the hybrid (actually haven't ridden it since I got the fg, so I've been ready to sell for a while) and get a nice non-lockup bike.

yummygooey

I thought they looked cool so I bawd1.

BigglyPuff

My wife, who wanted me to throw out my $50 crap bike a few years back (irony...), wanted to get a bike for her 2 mile school commute about 8 months ago. Looked into bikes for her, tried hers out, led to me getting into bikes, which led to a SS and then a FG.

I know more about bikes now than I ever thought I would, thanks to BF peeps and Sheldon Breezy. And I don't know 1% of what some people on here know.

PluperfectArson

I rode mountain bikes as a kid, then switched over to dirt jumping and BMX as a teenager, then didn't ride a bike for a long, long time. I knew kids that rode fixed, never thought anything of it, until I needed to cruise around town more at a faster pace. I ended up finding BF, lurked around, ended up in this forum, lurked some more, bought a road bike to convert, scrapped that project, ended up with a Kilo TT Pro back in 2008 when I moved back to Beaverton. Now, my bike goes everywhere with me when I PCS.

Santaria

I had a big wheel when I was a kid. First real bike was around 82 when my dad bought me a Redline PL-20. He married a woman whose brother was heavily into helping local kids get involved in BMX in the mid 80s. He started us racing with them at just about the time 26 cruisers came into the scene. I think it was around 86 that he gave me a hand-me down GT "26" with the sweetest frame. I failed hard at racing by most standards but got to ride with a lot of sponsored Redline kids from the Baldwin Park/Chino/Covina area.

Got around on a Huffy 10 speed through most of high school because I didn't see any point in "biking" as anything more than a transportation thing. Joined the U.S. Navy and ended up in Hawaii. Met a guy there who rode with me pretty religiously. He gave me a Bridgestone road bike that was converted to SS due to my inability to work on drive trains. I've owned a lot of geared bikes in the interim, but ultimately came back to fixed gear because I heard a lot of the chatter online. FGSS still has no scene here where I live and probably never will. Biking, in general, is reserved for roadies and convicted drunk drivers. I occasionally see a college kid with something like a Kona with the drops turned up and just snicker. There is no point in bothering to assist, correct or verbally abuse them because they don't care.

JesusBananas

PluperfectArson

Hey, that's how I ended up in Hawaii, haha.

FG scene down here is pretty small from my understanding, but they have a shop that caters to FG, which is pretty nice. I haven't checked it out yet, though.

ThermionicScott 

I'd known about them for a couple of years, but dismissed them as faddish. Then, I read Sheldon Brown's thoughts on them (particularly for winter use), and when my brother offered me an old bike with horizontal dropouts, I figured I'd go ahead and try it.

- Scott

Nagrom_

my derailleur broke.... lol

hamfoh

This drink really got me into cycling though