jhaber

I moved to Calgary in January and have noticed a lot of fixed gear bikes in the downtown core and kensington area. That said it is no where near 4 out of 5 bikes. What I find most surprising is the number of female messengers in the downtown core, a lot of whom seem to be riding fixed. I would say however that places like Ottawa and Toronto (esp if you are around spadina/kensington) have more fixed bikes on the street (they also have more people which helps).

Mostly I notice the lack of high end nice fixed gear bikes in Calgary. While I have seen maybe a handful of what I consider nice builds on the streets here, in Toronto it is a regular occurrence. I think this is due to the shops in the area, while Toronto has Bikes on Wheels where you can tarck out your bike easily, Calgary's high end track bikes are mostly only to be found at campione cycles which is not a hipster oriented bike shop like bikes on wheels but rather a high end bike boutique in my mind. If anything I would have guess Calgary should have more fixed bikes than it does due to the fact that out of Calgary, Ottawa, and Toronto it is the only city with a velodrome. Calgary is also littered with high end tri/road bikes like Cervelo (which is also odd as they are made in Toronto).

Maybe some one can comment on fixed bikes in Vancouver compared to other major Canadian metropolitan areas.