PeopleAreIdiots

There's a group of kids in my neighborhood in Chicago (Id say probably between 13 and 16 years old) who are always out riding their flashy Aventons in traffic. Kinda reminds me of when I was a kid and skateboarding was the cool and edgy thing all my friends where into. One time when I was like 13 I was screwing around at a skate park with my friends thinking I was as so dope and I noticed that all the other skaters were giving us sideways looks. Now I sorta get how they must have felt hahaha. Im actually happy to see kids that age getting into fg but I wish they would at least spend some of their parents' money on helmets and front brakes, or at least foot retention for both feet...

Aside from these kids though, most of the other non-geared bikes I see are crappy single speeds with either only a front brake or only a rear brake. Most of the nice looking fixed gears I see look well used and loved.

The only place I've been where it seems like the hype hasn't quite died is NYC. Still tons of hipsters (or post-hipsters nowadays I guess) with their supreme hoodies walking a lightly used mid-tier brakeless fixie around. I do notice that the super colorful bikes with deep v's seem to be out of vogue in favor of those aero looking aluminum track bikes though.

Anyway, I think people defenately still get into fg/ss for the aesthetics, otherwise I would expect fewer crappy ss bikes with risers and no rear brakes. There are plenty of cheap and crappy road bikes and mountain bikes so there has to be a reason people forgo the convenience of multiple gears (plus the familiarity as I bet most people grew up riding a geared bike of some kind). Most people, I think, would prefer to ride a bike they think is cool so there must still be a 'coolness' to fg/ss that hasn't totally disappeared. However my impression is that this coolness is mostly only relative to other bikes, kindof like how people (who weren't into cycling or anything) used to have a preference for mountain bikes before this whole fixie fad started. During the fixie fad though, I think people used their fg/ss bike as an accessory that showed everyone how cool they were. So basically nowadays fg/ss's are still cool bikes but they don't themselves make you seem cooler, they're just bikes. That's as it should be in my opinion, however it is a bit sad that cycling in general will likely never see another explosion of mainstream interest like that again.