PSA: Friendly Fallas are not Not Friendly
 

so loads of folks are down in austin, texas for the south by southwest conference festival going on. this city is awesome, seriously one of my favorite places in the US. it's nice and flat and lots of bikes of all types around. our group are almost all into bikes (road, track, mountain) back home in northern california.

out a bar last night, one of our buddies sees these riders and starts chatting to us about how cool one of the rider's bike is (and messenger bag), honestly into it. the dude with the bike FREAKS OUT! he runs up and starts yelling, like that red faced, vein in the head kind of yelling, obviously upset. the scene went something like this:
at this point, we all just ushered our buddy along, not really wanting to get into anything with this freaked out guy. the rest of bike posse are totally embarrassed, except for the guy's girlfriend who looks ready to fight us to the death.

we had a great laugh about it. but there's a learning lesson in all this:

1. the word "fixie" may be seen as derogatory in austin, if my buddy was more sober, he might have said "track bike"
   
2. dont compliment a bike rider's messenger bag. not in austin. perhaps not anywhere. just dont
   
3. if you are around a group called "the friendly fellas", do not approach, the name's a TRAP!

i still think austin is great, btw, no disrespect meant here.

Lots of good stories start out that way.

I still don't get who the Friendly Fellas are, but that's all a little irrelevant.

Personally, I wouldn't really appreciate someone complimenting my 'fixie', any more than a dedicated roadie would appreciate 'hey nice tropical-fish-Lance-Armstrong-bike' or a vintage Camaro restorer would appreciate 'hey cool I saw that in Transformers 2'.

I wouldn't flip my lid, but I would regard the 'compliment' with skepticism until I could judge if the compliment was honest or not.

Say "nice bike". No one gets offended with that.

And yeah, Austin's nice, but it's definitely not flat lol.

true. i think that's where he went wrong as well. walking out of a bar without your head totally screwed on straight probably made the comment seem even more disingenuous. too bad the rider last night didnt take the time to judge the comment, he would've probably had a nice conversation with a fellow bike enthusiast from out of town.

lesson learned for sure ;)

hmm I live in Austin and am pretty entrenched w/ the cycling scene here. I've never heard of these "friendly fellas." Sound kinda crazy, though.

If you see me on a yellow NJS Presto bike w/ a Seagull black bag, feel free to compliment both.

Also...Austin--flat??? I don't think so. Downtown is pretty flat but every other part of the city except the east side is pretty hilly.

SXSW WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I'll be back up on Thurs; you want to ride?

Even downtown isn't all flat, especially if you're going north/south.

Yo!--absolutely. my spring break consists of trying to put in as many miles/see as many shows as possible. Gimme a call when u get in and we'll ride. There is also a thurs. night social ride that night could be fun

I'm there for thurs night. I have your number so I'll give you a call.

Damn I'm jealous! I had a blast at last year's SX. Only problem was that with only a bike as transport out there, I would get totally nervous about some drunken frat pig****er kicking my bike while it was locked up somewhere. I mean, there are entirely too many drunk people on the streets. Honestly, it kind of changed my views on alcohol in general. I don't drink, but I never had a problem with anyone else drinking until I had to walk through a SX crowd. Seems like weed being legal would make a lot more sense in the general public-health-and-safety and overall enjoyment kind of way. But that's an outside issue.

100% ab bike theft prevention. I get super paranoid every time I got to Austin w my bike. I took my bars and saddle w me when I went for ACL.

you gotta have a beater in this city. I have an old Specialized steel road bike that a friend gave to me, and I use it whenever I need to lock up somewhere. I do lock up my nice bike at certain places, but definitely not for long periods of time. I've also become pretty shameless about just taking my bike into places w/ me.

If you are so personally identified with your stupid bike that you cant deal with a compliment without extreme paranoia / anger / skepticism, you might want to reflect on that a little...
I am constantly in awe of the dickheadedness of people who identify themselves as cyclists. Lighten up please!
Bikes actually make me "happy", thats why I ride them...

Being too into bikes can actually make Canadians into *******s... that aint easy folks.

I don't get it.

I think maybe you need to relax.

"Nice bike."
"WTF do you mean by THAT?"
"I mean I like your bike, it's cool."
"Who are you? What kind of bike do YOU ride?"
"What?"
"I'm evaluating your compliment so I know how to feel about it."
"OK, have a nice life."
"WTF do you mean by THAT?"

:)

I'm with you on that one, man.

I don't think it's being too into bikes, I think it's been too far up one's own ass. :)

the guy in question clearly doesn't like the association made w/ being a fixie rider, so he felt the need to justify himself by explaining he is a hardcore, multimodal cyclist.

I don't really see why you would ride a fixie if you were so embarassed by it. That's like hanging out at a gay club and then getting pissed when another guy hits on you.

Methinks the "fixie" rider was also drunk. Drunks don't communicate very well. Solution - don't drink.

I think the its more like standing outside the club smoking a cigarette, and having some random guy from the street walk up to you and say 'nice gay club'. There's nothing wrong with being gay or being in a gay club, but the possibility that 'gay' was an insult would make the conversation uncomfortable.

Its context:
"Nice colorful Lance Armstrong bike- I should look into getting one someday and selling my car, I'd be a lot healthier that way"
"Nice colorful Lance Armstrong bike- next time I see you ******s in your tight clothes riding in a group taking up the whole lane, I'm gonna run you off the road!"

That's very true. Alcohol makes people aggressive. Pot, OTOH, makes people less aggressive, and is not addictive, unlike alcohol, nicotine and caffeine, all three perfectly legal.

What was my point, again?

So riding a fixie is the same as smoking a cig outside a gay bar?

+1

Troll Much do ya???

In St louis if someone said nice bike...fixie..ect...I would think they want to rob me for my bike. Especially someone buzzed walking out of a bar. That being said there is more to this story than that was told.

ha , if someone yelled to me "NICE FIXIE, I LIKE YOUR MESSENGER BAG!!" I would've thought they were being sarcastic LMAO