Originally Posted by SimicRecluse

I'm somewhat new to road bikes, but have been commuting on ****ty walmart bikes most of my life. It wasn't too long ago that I actually did any research on road bikes, and the bike I have now is a Vilano Rampage, of which I am slowly upgrading the various parts on it. I just want to test the waters with road bike racing, and see if I even remotely want to do this as a sport and move up in terms of getting quality bicycles. So would it be frowned upon or look silly to show up to an event with a low end fixie (when everyone else is probably going to have a geared racing bike)? The event in question I am considering is the 28 mile event El tour de Mesa El Tour de Mesa | Perimeter Bicycling and while it is a charity racing event, it is still a racing event. I'm not really sure how well received fixies are in the biking communities in general because they seem to get a bad rap, especially flashy lower quality ones, and I wouldn't want to show up only to be ostracized, or get a lot of hate or weird looks for it, or would people just not care especially at a charity race, and just be happy to see others enjoying their hobby aswell? Alternatively am I worrying about this too much and should I just not care?

And to clarify: my expectations of this race are too finish, I have no delusions of even placing remotely high - though riding moderately quick over the course of 28 miles is within doable for me as I am somewhat fit - though I would think the 70 mile race is out of my league