The Advocate

Hierarchies in Bike Culture, Part II

Will Weikart
How ironic—a couple months after writing part I of this essay (to appear in the next issue—think of that as the “prequel”), I was at the anti-RNC demos committing the CRIME of riding my bike with others when I was arrested and had my beloved Peugeot 15-speed seized by NY’s “Finest” for about a month. Anyway, my point is, I ride just about every day (for commuting and/or for fun) and I was bikeless for an indefinite period! Having increasingly lost the capacity to deal with enclosed and moving spaces, I emailed a very generous friend who owns a track bike (a.k.a., fixed gear, fixed, fix, “fixie”) and asked if I could borrow his bike, since he was taking a hiatus from it, switching temporarily to a free-wheel. Bingo.

I had VERY little experience on a fixed bike, but I’m a pretty strong urban biker by this point with a lot of control, balance and confidence (heck, my feet never touch the ground even on free-wheel, so put that in your pipe, fix snobs!). I approached the totally brakeless newbie—a dinged-up 1960s French frame by Mercier—gingerly and with much caution. I even wore a helmet the first day I rode into Manhattan (this lasted all day long). What I discovered, and what you may know, is that riding a fixed bike is a totally different riding experience, because the back wheel is permanently affixed to the chain. That means that you can’t coast along without pedaling. Fixies will even go in reverse if you pedal backwards!

The first night, for example, I was riding slowly around Greenpoint to practice, and suddenly I felt my right leg/ankle area being rapidly and forcefully sucked in two diametrically opposed directions. Naturally I panicked, and, probably for the best, allowed myself to simply fall over to my right—stunned, pathetic—and onto the pavement. I looked down and my pant leg had gone into the gear. My foot had of course been strapped to the pedals, which kept on moving forward so—you get the picture. Luckily the force broke the foot strap free altogether and my pant leg ripped away.

Lesson #1 on a fixed gear bike: ALWAYS, ALWAYS make sure your (especially right) pant leg is WAY up.

I’d be dead now if this had happened as I was going down the bridge or in dense traffic. If you don’t want to look like LL Cool J in 1997, roll up both sides to an even length and endure potential comments about expecting a flood. It’s worth it.
Luckily I had some organic salve left over from when the NYPD released me after 30 well-deserved hours in custody. A lovely medic friend of mine was waiting outside 100 Center (the police holding tank) when I got out, and she applied the ointment to my swollen, slightly nerve-damaged wrists. (The cops had cuffed me excessively tight with the plastic at least twice. Thanks, fellas. C-P-R baby.) The leftover salve remained applied to my right ankle for weeks after.

As of today I’ve ridden the fixed for nearly a month. I’ve gotten used to it—indeed, rather addicted to it —and now, finally, I can speak from direct experience and expound on the theories from Part I.

Riding a fixed gear is fun as shit for reasons that are hard to convey. Not long after my initiation, I visited some websites for urban fixed-gear riders and heard passionate ruminations about the joy of “fixies” from riders. So yeah, some of it is true, I guess. Somehow it does feel more “ZEN”—to the (albeit quite limited) extent that I know what the hell Zen feels like. You do go generally slower, you need more space to stop, and you need more space to accelerate from a stationary position. It totally changes one’s riding strategy. But fixies also keep your legs fresh and eager for the up-hills.

Part of my personal attraction is to the often slow, methodical pedaling movements necessary to keep the bike going, which fit with a minimalist aesthetic. The fixie is light as hell and makes you feel like you have razor-sharp sensitivity and control, especially at slow speeds, and you can’t help but be seduced by the increased bad-ass mindset you get from the unearthly smooth, utterly silent stealth of riding one. Much slower speeds are possible (instead of putting your feet down), and you can turn corners more tightly than on a free-wheel. Other fixed riders inevitably turn their heads to check you out.

When going fast, you can’t stand up. You can only stand up (a bit) if you are going at a slow to medium pace. This makes bumps—like those hideous and mountainous speed bumps on the Williamsburg bridge, for example—particularly jarring on the downhill. Sharp turns can also be treacherous because, if your timing is off, your down-stroke side may catch the ground.

Well, most of the points I made in Part I turned out to be correct. But I really didn’t anticipate the elegant, luxurious ride to be had on a fixed gear. It changes your consciousness on the road and in some ways it may make you ride more attentively, and hence more safely. Excluding the pant leg incident and the pedal scrape, things have gone just fine. The fixie is analogous to the car enthusiast who insists on stick shift over automatic; or worse, me continuing to smoke because it just feels good, even though I think I am capable of quitting (I just don’t have any desire to). I do see why so many straight-edge dolts I have encountered ride fixed gears—it IS macho, no question about it. It is more dangerous overall and less practical in many ways than a free-wheel with breaks. Some might romantically cite the “over-technologization” of the bike, but that doesn’t do much for me since I’m no primitivist, Luddite, purist, or nostalgia-monger. Sure, fixed riders suffer no loss in stopping power in wet conditions, but their stopping power is never good to begin with!

I have to give back the fixed soon and I am thinking of one day buying a fixie (maybe after I get health insurance). My commute time on the Mercier has been decreasing incrementally, a change that is due not to my own conscious effort, but practice.
Finally, a prediction: the next plateau of “craziness” will be a free-wheel with NO BRAKES. Now that’s truly BADASS. I thought of it first!
Oh, and by the way, regardless of what kind of bike I ride, I have decided that I AM a hipster and so are all of you. You can’t escape. Just accept it. As one friend pointed out, “I’m not against hipster-ism, but I am against snob-ism.” Kudos, friend. You can be one without the other.

Will Weikart is a nice, affirmative hipster in Sociology at CUNY GC. Part III may be on “Dialectical Movement or the Plane of Pure Immanence: Fixed and/or Free?”