I'm a total noob, but I'm already addicted to the SSFG simplicity. Simple to build. Simple to customize. Simple to ride.

I could care less if they become unpopular. Still gonna ride em.

+1mil

hipsters.


there i said it.

I fell for the romancing a lot of folks at work my expressed for fixies, and I liked the 'bare-bones' mentality of the bike style so I decided to give one a try. Don't think I could ride anything else, the control is a lot of fun. Definitely not a hipster...

I don't think FG popularity is waning so much as it has been in one of the periods of being "cool" and now things are going back to a state of population stability. There has always been a (hard)core group of riders who enjoy the benefits and simplicity of FG, and periodically the general cycling community notices them and sees them as "cool". Then after putting one together and riding it for a while, the "normies" either convert it back to multi-geared or sell it to someone else while proclaiming all of the benefits of riding one (such as "learning to spin circles").

It's a great example of Stephan J. Gould's theory of "periodic equalibrum". The core FG group rides around barely being noticed by other riders, then someone spots the single cog and excitedly discusses it wth other "normies", then there is a rash of enthusiasm in the general population that changes the scope of the FG population for a period, then the "normies" seek out the next "cool" thing and the core FG population stabilizes again. This is how younger riders get involved, to replace the older riders that die off, all the while maintaining the size of the core FG population.

The same thing happen with unicycles......

More and more FG/SS bikes all the time here in northern Wisconsin, which if the pattern follows other fashion trends means FG/SS is dead and buried everywhere else.

+2mil

The band was Skin Like Iron. An awesome hardcore band from the bay. Fixed riders in Santa Cruz have died down for sure. I could really care less.

I was a hater of the fixed gear until my friend let me try one out. It really is a different experience. Now I have one, and I don't think I'll ever flip my rear wheel back to the freewheel.

Hahahaha the latter paragraph never occurred to me. I gradually switched to single speed w/ coast brake to fixed in the past 11 years I've been riding. I just LIKE the control, feeling, and work-out of riding fixed gears. The though of worrying about aesthetics over quality (cough Urban Outiftter bikes? "LOL") and looking through Craigslist for some cool Deep V's to color coordinate with the rest of the bike... That never entered my head as the primary reason to own a bike. Although, as a person of art and fashion, I do consider the aesthetics somewhere after quality of the ride.

hipsters. Are they waning????

nope, they'll just jump to the next cool thing.

I don't know about ya'll but... Los Angeles has soo many fixie riders.. LOL

I've noticed less recently too.

I think it might have something to do with winter happening right now.

is there like a hipster almanac to predict future cool things??

Yes. The Pista is out. Only guys named Wayne Kerr own them these days.

vice

Hahahaha

Excellent!

can you buy one off the shelf at Walmart or Target yet?

Don't forget, it's also winter and BRICK in a lot of the country and northern hemisphere. Once march-april rolls around things will pick up in the entire forum a lot with the fair weather riders.

I think you're just noticing a drop off in users of this forum ever since the re-design..... I'm one of them. Okay probably not what you were referring to, but I rarely use this forum anymore... I used to check this forum constantly throughout the day, and ever since the re-design, I can't stand to look at the front page anymore. There was something about the old site that was so much easier to browse. This one feels way more cluttered.

everybody is moving onto hipster road biking.

https://bikefag.wordpress.com/2009/06...r-road-biking/

i can totally relate to the part of the article talking about passing roadies on a 7 speed vintage lugged steel italian bike. that was a great feeling, until they smoked past me 10 minutes later.

Hipster (1940s subculture)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Hipster, as used in the 1940s, referred to aficionados of jazz, in particular Bebop, which became popular in the early 1940s. The hipster adopted the lifestyle of the jazz musician, including some or all of the following: dress, slang, use of cannabis and other drugs, relaxed attitude, sarcastic humor, self-imposed poverty, and relaxed sexual codes.


Did you storm the beach at Normandy on your "fixie"?