Anectodal analysis of fixed gear usage in San Francisco, Boston, and New York.
I recently returned from a vacation that took me to San Francisco, Boston, and New York.
Being that I'm considered, by Davis CA. standards, to be quite a bicycle geek, and have owned numerous fixed gear bikes, I can say that just about every bicycle that passed by or was parked on the street caught my attention at least fleetingly.
What I found most interesting in all three cities, especially SF, was that the brakeless fixed gear was conspicuously absent from the streets as a utility bicycle. In other words, I saw lots of them chained to posts, lots of them being walked, and quite a few being ridden slowly on sidewalks. (including one guy who rode his tarck bike in circles outside the SF ferry building for almost two whole hours one day). I saw almost none being ridden in traffic.
The bikes I saw most often being used for transportation or by what appeared to be bike messengers were old road bikes, mtbs, ghetto SS conversions, and purpose built fixed gears with brakes (i.e. Steamrollers, San Jose's, 925's, Paddy Wagons) - in that order.
It would be interesting (but entirely useless in the grand scheme of things) for someone with way too much time on their hands to actually quantify this observation and do a mathematical analysis of the results (in other words, stand on a corner and count bikes that go by).