Originally Posted by Bandera

All,

I enjoy riding my Fixed Gear bicycle; it is simple and uncompromised by multiple gears or the slacker’s ability to coast. You pedal it and it pedals you right back, fair is fair.

Being both old and out of touch, as well as living in a rural cultural backwater, I have little to no contact with younger people other than to shout “Get off my lawn!” at them.

This spring I was riding my old fixed gear road bike on a favorite route when I chanced upon the start of a Serious Group Ride. I could tell just how serious by the sparkling pile of plastic aerodynamic wunder-bikes and the fact that they were waiting for one of their number to finish droning on and on about his hydraulic shifting system and electric brakes so they could all start off in the wrong gear, un-clip and fall down in a $$$$$$$ heap of bloody scratched plastic.

Here’s a snippet of conversation overheard as I turned onto Chip Seal Loop:

A)“Dude, check out the Fixie!”
B)“Yo, I Totally remember those.”

Two things here to think about:

1) I assumed that speaker A) was a mentally challenged person whose linguistic abilities were permanently frozen in the Infantile mode of a toddler. By referring to my Fixed Gear as a “Fixie” I assumed that if asked to describe a bowel movement he would refer to it as a “Poopie”.

2) Since speaker B) was of an age to be chewing on a Barney plush toy in his crib when I converted my road bike to fixed gear he must possess the rare gift of Photographic Memory.

“How wonderful that two young men of such disparate abilities can enjoy the camaraderie of cycling together.” I mused.

In assuming that these young folk were Idiot Savants I was only partially correct.

-Bandera