The Advocate

Hierarchies in Bike Culture? (Pt. 1)

Will Weikart

This is the prequel to Part II which appeared in the last issue of The Advocate.

A conversation I had recently in McCarren Park in Greenpoint set me thinking and I’d like to know what YOU, biker, think about it. These, for me, are not new thoughts, but a resurgence of old ones, and represent my increasing inability to stay quiet and confused.

The issues I bring up here have surely been debated here (in NYC) and other places (probably online) where bike culture(s) seems to be growing. I’m not on any such discussion lists so I am not privy to them, if they have indeed existed. I do bike almost everywhere, everyday, and I do the Critical Mass ride every month, etc. I love biking, I like bikes, but I am ambivalent about the growing bike culture (or at least some practitioners)… Why?

I was recently chided by a couple young, wise-ass dudes who ride track (fixed gear) bikes. (I ride a 12-speed road bike, FYI.) If you don’t know what a track bike is, they’re the ones with only one gear and no breaks – so, in essence, you have to constantly pedal\, and apply reverse pressure on the pedals to slow down. I have been wondering what the growing allure is of these bikes and I have a theory (probably, again, not new), which I will elaborate. So this piece is basically about the pros and cons of both 10/12 speed road bikes versus track or fixed-gear bikes, and why the latter is so popular and increasingly so, it seems. While this may be understood to be a polemic of road vs. track bikes, I also must admit that I have plenty of great friends on both sides of the divide and I have nothing prima facie against your choice of bike!

The hierarchies I refer to, if you had not already guessed, are the silent but omnipresent ones (at least here on NYC streets it seems) that basically say: track bikes (/riders) are coolest; road bikes (/riders) are next; and most everything else comes at the end (mountain, hybrid, vintage, BMX or whatever). There does seem to be a hierarchy based not solely on “coolness” but also on real class/race/age/neighborhood distinctions. For instance, many mountain bike riders seem to be Chinese food delivery guys or decidedly “uncool” sporty types or folks new to NYC biking, whereas most track bike riders are young and/or “hip” and tend to be white, male (I won’t say well-off financially, necessarily, but it helps, right? I know a lot of you are as dirt poor as I). Meanwhile, many BMX riders are young Latinos, and so on. The point is that bikes and accessories, and the bike/rider assemblage, are signifying (read: they are semiotically significant).

The signifying apparatus also extends into bike accessories, as I find that the “coolest” riders also use the big messenger bags, etc., which I find uncomfortable, bearing down disproportionately on one shoulder. This also, by the way, relates to my theory, as you will see.

While I have never been told so explicitly, I suppose that the benefits of the track bike include that fact that there is less there (derailleur, brakes and all that come with them) and, hence, less to go wrong. It is a simpler, more stripped-down machine, and on these grounds, I too appreciate the aesthetics of this kind of bike. You are also essentially stuck in one mid-range “gear,” so riding yields more of a workout. Your wheels are not “quick release” so you don’t really have to lug around a huge, heavy kryptonite chain, but only a small u-lock. I’d also mention: the ability here to do cool “track stands” – but this does not hold much weight for me. Sorry. I guess the frames are also lighter material and there is less stuff generally, so you have a super-light bike.
Cons? I hear that they are horrible for your knees since you constantly have to apply reverse pressure. They are generally more dangerous unless you are an experienced rider. I think you actually have to go SLOWER all the time, since you have no breaks – applying reverse pressure is your breaks and so you require stopping distance.

Similarly, you can’t start out as quickly from a stopped position since you are de facto in a higher gear all of the time. I think you may not be able to go around curves as fast, either, or at least as sharply, since you have to keep pedaling and (hence) your pedal may scrape the ground and cause you to wreck.

I am admittedly curious about the track bike (I have only ridden one (like) once and just briefly, not far) but based on what I know/think and have experienced, the 10/12-speed road bike is far more practical – for reasons I won’t elaborate since they are implicit in the description above. Basically, NYC is not a TRACK. You typically have to start and stop a lot. So why choose a bike for tracks? That’s where the theory comes in.

The Theory

My theory around the increasing popularity of track bikes for city use partly revolves around the simple but vague explanation that track bikes are simply cool(er), and you (the rider) are therefore cool(er) if you ride one. But why should this be so?

There is a mystique here amidst all the automobiles whizzing by. From the perspective of the non bike rider (or non-urban bike rider), we bikers (including especially bike messengers) look “crazy.” (As an aside, we can admit that there is a racial component as well: most or many messengers are black or Caribbean/West Indian, which calls to mind a whole other signifying, exoticizing set around primitive/emotional/non-rational etc.) And bikers are conscious of this “crazy”-ness, and eat it up. It looks like what we do is so dangerous, so risky. To some extent, it is, but as I found out, your perspective totally changes once you actually RIDE. Where there seems to be little or no space to an onlooker (pedestrian or auto driver), the biker can see a huge space and imminent potential. I’m really just referring to playing with spaces between cars, momentum and the time/space nexus at traffic lights, etc. Plus the adrenaline kicks in and we get delusions of grandeur and omnipotence. So to some extent all bikers tend to look “cool” and dangerous to non-bikers (or at least in our fantasies), especially when flying down Fifth Avenue, weaving in and out of cars. So with the general and positive increase of late in bike culture, here and elsewhere in urban areas, there has developed a need for some to distinguish themselves from the others, to make themselves stand out. Hence, the track bike. Track bikers are EVEN MORE CRAZY: these fuckers don’t even have breaks! How many do you see wearing helmets? I’m guilty of not doing so, but I think that track bikers on the whole are least likely to wear a helmet.
Problems: sure, the casual observer (pedestrian, auto driver) cannot and does not typically see (nor does s/he probably care) that some bikers ride track versus others who ride road bikes etc. (As you won’t probably notice the difference unless you yourself are a biker). So you might argue that without recognition, the hierarchy breaks down. But the argument is more or less based on the perceptions and perspectives of the bikers themselves.

So, what is the allure of the track bike? They seem to me both less practical and even slightly masochistic. I DO still need to try one more substantially – so my experience is limited. But is this just another example of masochism in everyday life? A present-day corset, if you will? The high price the body pays for fashion?

The dudes I mentioned in the opening paragraph were also young and at least one was “straight edge” – so this discredits them, to me, from the start (not the age but the purity-fantasy bullshit). But it makes sense with my theory: that the track bike (/rider/signification) is tendentially slightly masochistic, macho, and somewhat impractical, at least for cities. Bike culture here in NYC seems to be fast becoming a subset of “hipster” culture – a whole other, convoluted essay, for sure, as almost no one is a self-described hipster, and there is no clear notion of what constitutes hipsterdom—though we all know it when we see it. I sensed this when a friend of mine, much to his consternation, got on his bike in South Williamsburg and a neighboring non-hip/local/townie-type (I’m imaging a middle-aged or older working-class Puerto Rican guy) accused him and his biking friends of being “hipsters” (which here I am thinking of in a way to signify “gentrifiers,” as I like to think he also was).
Also I am reminded of another friend who sees biking as a purely cultural/“fun” activity, and who hates people who make it “political”…How is it that issues like public space usage, public health and safety, and oil dependency/pollution/consumption are not immanently political?

Again, no offense to you friends who ride track bikes. This is obviously not intended towards you.

Toward a car-free NYC…

Will Weikart is a student in the PhD program in Sociology at CUNY GC. At the time this essay was written (approx. July 2004), he was anti-hipster.