"Disclosure: I hate single-speed. I have no interest in fixed gear. I really like derailleurs and consider what Frank Berto calls "gear phreaking" and gear changing itself to be a vital part of the cycling experience."

Ah, I just like bikes... don't really care how they're set up, just so they're being ridden. I don't like seeing stuff hacked off bikes, though. I try to set my bikes up a bit different; I think I'm going to set up an old Follis with half-step gearing, for instance, think it'd be cool around RVA. And I wanna build a FG snow bike out of an old Trek MTB. To bad it doesn't snow here that much... I like the wrenching and the difference twixt rides.

"Do they LIKE walking their caponized bikes up hills?"

I dunno... a lotta fixed gear fashionista hubs (NYC, Chicago, my own RVA) are pretty flat. The only place I can think of that has a lot of fixie riders plus hills is SF, though I am old and cranky and prolly wrong on that. There's a lot of fixies in RVA, but very,very few are seen in Charlottesville, just up the road and much much hillier. Could be RVAs art school, or it could be C'villes hills. I dunno. I don't usually take my fixies to C'ville when I visit (though I have). RVA's got hills, but if you stay in the fan/northside/west end, they ain't much.

What does blow me away are the faux fixies. Either they're built with a kid's bike coaster hub (and I wonder if the riders really understand the maintainece on those) or with a freewheel. At least three times I've seen riders brakeless on a freewheel, which makes me wonder, although that might explain why a) they're going real slow; and b) they're riding on the sidewalk. Stick a couple brakes on, folks. Please. And I see too many fixie riders who apparently cannot a) trackstand or b) skid stop or c) resist stop, all riding brakeless. You can spot em cause they go real slow and run all the lights in the fan...

My fave had made his bike a single speed by removing all the mechs, shortening the chain and putting it around the middle cog of his freewheel. In a mad quest for fashion, he had, when removing the mechs, also removed the brakes. Don't worry, though, he could brake by the simple expedient of scuffing his feet on the ground... I kid you not.