Change my mind if I'm wrong, but calling my bike a fixie sounds like someone calling their "heavily modified car" a legit car. When in fact, it's a ricer with an exhaust pipe that emphasizes what the car really sounds like. Calling a bike a fixed gear seems much more proper. A fixie to me is someone who believes in form over function, when in fact I believe it is always function over form. I'd rather have a bike that I'm not physically attracted to the appeal of it, but is very responsive and fits my needs, over a bike that looks very flashy, yet is uncomfortable to ride in every way. What are people's thoughts?

Your definition of "fixie" versus "fixed gear" is highly personal, like they all are. Bottom line, "fixie" is just an informal slang-word used to denote "fixed gear". As far as I'm aware there isn't any additional inherent meaning.

Personally I like to use the word fixie because it ruffles a lot of feathers among those who take themselves too seriously. I freely refer to my Wabi as a fixie and my Dolan as a track bike. To me FG bikes on the road are fixies and FG bikes on the track are track bikes.

So for me it's about the application and less the machine. But that's just the way I like to use those terms.

faith trust and fixie dust

I prefer fixed gear but I try not to get worked up if someone uses fixie. (Unless they say fixie but their bike actually has a freewheel, because that nonsense will not stand, sir!)

fixie is the new black

edit: actually no, nvm, "fixie" is so 2012

Fixied that for you.

Maybe I'll follow suit when I show off my Paramount to other cyclists. I'd like to see at least one person get flustered.

[MENTION=3283]caloso[/MENTION] (Unless they say fixie but their bike actually has a freewheel, because that nonsense will not stand, sir!)

-you said it. stand up to those frauds!

Every time I hear fixie I think of the Schwinn Pixie. Imagine a Pixie fixie with training wheels.

It seems like an almost pretentious thing, the ''cool kids'' in the know will scoff at anyone who calls it a fixie... and those who have never gotten into the ss/fg culture are predisposed to the term fixie so thats what they use. I've heard ''fixie'' come from really dumb college aged kids, to bicycle shop owners. Seems to be a if you know, you know kinda deal. Just my .02...

I personally call it a fixed gear, BUT do I care at all what someone else calls it? **** no! Call it a turd covered in more turd, don't care

^
me too.

Perfect. The irony of calling your Paramount a "fixie" is enhanced by the fact that it's a great bike! Blasphemy I tell you!!

Gotta go all-in and call it a sweet fixie.

sw8

Bringing a bike snob to melt down will be very satisfying, ya know??

^
good point, could make things easier [MENTION=234196]mtb_addict[/MENTION]

I never liked that word it seems to have inherit distain. Fixie.

it does, which is also it's appeal

Mrs. Reagan also taught me to just say no to shifting and be kind to elderly bicycles.

30–40 years ago, the term in British English was usually "fixed wheel" — for the same reason that you have a "freewheel" rather than a "free gear".

"Fixed gear" seems (to me) to be a modern expression, no better or worse, but a new way of saying the same thing.

"Fixie" was initially used as part of the trend for hipster urban types and at that time seemed to refer mainly to fashionably minimalist bikes with over-styled handlebars.

However, in the normal course of events, language develops, words lose their meanings, or gain new meanings, and new words take their place. Awful and awesome used to mean the same thing as each other; expect and anticipate used to mean different things. I think the overlap in meaning between "fixie" and "fixed" (either gear or wheel, or just "fixed") is now bigger than the differences.