The other day I stepped out of the bedroom to find Vic in the living room with a hacksaw modifying my rear dropout so that I could install a fixed speed hub and convert my sweet tour bike into something brutal for winter.
Then, sweating, I woke up. Vic sleeping soundly, the clock luminescent at 3:12, and my bike safe in the living room. I’m obviously sick: fixed speed bike lust.
Over the last month, I guess I’ve caught the fad bug that I’ve been mocking for too long. A couple years ago, it seemed the messenger set in brutally hilly Seattle started riding around on fixies, swooping with their architectural drawings and legal documents to a gloved hand brake stop against the skyscrapers downtown. I thought they were insane and still do. But here’s the deal: Boston is flat, my commute it short, and I’m lazy at cleaning my bike, so a fixie would be one way to ride on through the winter. My training book recommends it. Rationalization: yes. With a wind chill under zero, it’s hard to hop on a bike, fixed or not. Of course, the problem with lust is that the more I look around, the less I want the handy winter commuter bomb and the more I want something sexy like this Raleigh. Where in the hell would I ride this in Seattle? And would I feel any more confident that the thieves would leave it alone in Cambridge? How am I going to get the money?
See how invested I am in my illness. Fixie in 2006.
4 Comments
It’s funny, I have been lusting after a fixie for a long time now. When I was younger (and lived on the prairies) I used to run a fixie in the winter. Now I live in North Vancouver at the top of a mountain, am way older, I yet I still want one. Am I crazy…..
I got a single speed yesterday. I think I’ll ride it around for a month the way it is, and then see about converting it over to a fixed speed. I’ve never been on one, but boy howdy, I really really think it must be tons of fun to ride around. I don’t know how much I am fooling myself though with riding it though the winter here.
Now, I this to say about you, a fixed speed and NORTH VAN!!!! Have you lost your mind? If you lived downtown, it might be just fine, but North Van is one giant mountain.
You would have amazing thighs. You would probably have to buy size 42 pants just to squeeze your thighs into….
the fixie is now a very standard item for the neo-hippie crowd (now modernized to “hipster”), although the most of them dont know how obvious it is to the rest of the bicycling community that their “off the shelf” bicycle is just a weak attempt at fitting in. not that that option is neccessarilly wrong, but combine a $2000 bike with a weeks worth of intentionally unwashed hair, and the incongruity is brilliant. being a dude of meager fundings (aka student) building my own fixie was not only an immense pleasure, but also the only way i could afford one (or any bicycle, really). ironically, it was built and ridden in san francisco- a place known for its hills and hills a plenty. but being a logic oriented design student, i found my self struck with a seemingly impassible dilemma: the sheer aesthetic of a fixed gear was just inappropriate for the hills. so as long as i had a regular “task” bike, the validity of a “cruizer” (in this case a fixie) lay untouched.
now i live in london, where it is RIDICULOUSLY flat so all i have is a fixie, but the distances i ride, and the lack of hills allow for this quite easily. (not to mention london is NOT bicycle friendly, so serious distance rides equal a half signed death warrant; more than minnor distances and i take PT, its just too nuts here, too many close calls…)
c money
Bummer about it not being good riding in London, I’ve never really been.
The pics of you making your fixie are an inspiration. And that bike looks sweet. I need to build a bike just for the pleasure and know-how, though I can’t think of any bike I need at the moment. I could snazz up my Univega with a new paint job and bars, but then I think it is going to be destroyed by road salt anyhow…