Look ma, no gears!

Our arguments for riding fixed or single speed bikes are three-fold.

The first is that the fixed gear bike is the essence of simplicity and elegance. It is a bike stripped down to its fundamentals. ”Gears… just add clutter to an otherwise streamlined and effective machine where you put in a bowl of pasta and you get out miles and miles of transportation,” says JF. The perfect symbiosis between bike and rider is achieved when your legs synch up with the movement of your back wheel. BG, who has tried nearly every type of cycling imaginable short of those weird recumbent things, has this to add. “Nothing else is remotely close to being as smooth as a fixed with high-pressure tires and a new chain. Any other argument, pro or con, for any other bike style, pales in comparison to that one pro.” Well said.

Our second argument is that the fixed gear or single speed bike makes you stronger. Riding fixed also gives you better skills as a rider -”to go with your sweet bowstaff skills, you generally develop better riding skills (powering through the whole rotation, and giant muscles because you have to accelerate in that high gear and continuously pedal)” adds JF. Plus you get a smug feeling of superiority when you hear someone behind you shift gears to try and pass you because you are faster than all of their gears combined. Natch.

Lastly, riding fixed makes you a total badass. Rick laughed at yours truly when I said I don’t like shopping. But I don’t. I just like to have better stuff than other people. In bikes, this translates into the fixed gear bianchi. The fact that it is shiny and Italian only makes its obvious superiority manifest on an aesthetic level as well as an operational one. People notice when you are riding this elegant, sleek machine. Ms. Ulty noted that ‘it sparkles like santa’s eyes.’ Even if some of them are jaded dirty hipsters, turning heads is an added bonus of the hardcore-ness that comes when you lose all those clunky gears. “ahh yes, i must admit, i do like to show off the track-standing. it totally works for scoring with chicks.,” says BG. Plus its just more fun. Once you go fixed, youll never go back. Witness our own Ms. Ultimate who just this weekend tried riding fixed the first time and bought a track bike within 24 hours.

In short, Chicago streets beg for fixed gear bikes. They are a natural combination like Sunday and brunch, or CU and ice cream. They make you fast like a puma and agile like a…. puma I guess. But the point is you are riding the simplest machine possible and becoming a better cyclist and more badass while doing it.

SIgned,
The Italian Bicycle Special Interest Group
(miss casual, ferrari, the viking)

I'm not 100% committed to the fixie camp yet, it still makes me a little nervous, but i do like the stripped-down aesthetic of the bike and it's a tight ride. i'm also as fast as a laser on the thing.

I tried several brands before settling on the KHS flite 100. I rode the Bianchi pista, Cannondale's model, the Kona, a retro-looking Schwinn Madison, the fuji track bike and maybe another. I liked the Cannondale the least, both in terms of ride and style (but it was the most expensive bike I looked at) then, working backwards, the Schwinn Madison (if it comes with two brakes, why bother with a fixed gear?), the fuji, the bianchi probably tied with the kona, and of course settled on the KHS. I'm happy with my purchase; it just felt like the most comfortable frame combined with the slickest ride, and it's a bonus that it's not the same bike as everyone else has. Joe and Nick in the cycle shop told us it'd be a faux pas to have matching bikes. They're sized a bit differently (I got the 50, but was comfy on anything between a 52 and 54 on the other bikes). I was told the Kona may be the best value, because it's something like $620 now but they may jack up the price to over $1000 after this introductory year, and the components are top notch. At least that's what Rapid Transit says. I've seen a couple on the street since this weekend.

Those are my two cents. I don't think I'll be riding the new one all the time, but it's definitely more fun than my hybrid, which needs a major tuneup anyway. For example, it's supposed to rain later today and I have stuff to do after work and wanted to ride, but I'm nervous about taking Mr. Speedy out on slick roads. I wish I had picked up my old bike from the shop so i could have ridden it. I'm sure my skills will improve with time, but I'm certainly keeping my old bike.

1> rejection of cheap and superior technology is not something to be proud of, it is a mark of self effacement to create obstacles for oneself to overcome. are you driving a pentium at work so you can feel superior to that nerd in the cubicle next door who sadly has to rely on a dual 3Ghz processor to get his work done on time? i think not.

2> beware of your false pride in your niche: people in general are joiners, but like to feel exclusivity at the same time. in athletica, this is often manifest by the B-level athlete creating new genres in order to view themself as a specialist/amongst an elite; i.e., by reducing the sample size of your competitors, you become remarkable. see "ultimate frisbee" or "Gay Games" as examples. hmm.

3> i guffawed at miss casual's assertion that she enjoys the feeling of "superiority when you hear someone behind you shift gears to try and pass you". Ignoring the implication that you are not being passed by "geared" riders (absurd), i will simply take on the psychological side of the misses' claim: in the self-help world, this is called "pre-rationalization of failure". knowing that you will be bested, you invent obstacles for yourself which can be scapegoated for your own
shortcoming. having given yourself substandard equipment, of course it can't be due to your own flaws that i passed you...i hope you sleep well at night on your bed of lies.

3.1>No offense dipshits, but i pass you people all the time. you are in no world faster. you are simply more dangerous because half of you can't stop for a fucking stop sign. you take forever to get going from a full stop and so, you do not stop. Fixie riders are doing wonders for the reputation of cyclists all over town by the way they are perpetually cutting through lanes of traffic and doing anything to avoid stopping. if them muscles is so strong, why are you so desperate to conserve your momentum?

4> you are all cavemen. you reject technology, let your hair and beards grow unkempt, and sweat your way all over town hunched over your outdated machine. strangely, you all enjoy careers that require some modern skills---bjorns coworkers tell me that while he rarely speaks to or looks at anyone other than the australian girls in the office next door, he is in fact capable of operating some fairly high tech equipment. joe works with computers and jess must use some kind of advanced computing method to balance her credit cards, so i'm at a loss. i'm pretty sure that claire is a chimney sweep.

5> “Nothing else is remotely close to being as smooth as a fixed with high-pressure tires and a new chain." well I probably can't disagree with that, but it sounds pretty damn dainty to me. but then again, i don't get my hair cut at the Aveda Institute. i cut my own hair. i also have a girlfriend.

6> last but not least; i like getting where i'm going on time. i like being able to ride slow, to ride fast, whatever the situation requires. i have all that you have and more, and don't bullshit me that your bike cost less than mine, because i know what you guys spent. don't bullshit me that your bike is more reliable, because i've never had a derailleur or brake failure during city riding---i have had tires blow, and chains break. i'm pretty sure you all still have to deal with that stuff.

clearly the only way to solve this is some sort of cho-joe-style race.

ok. tbr threw down. touche. i was all set to get a laugh by making sweeping generalizations about the stereotypes of riders of geared bicycles, just as tbr has done for us fixies. but being a bearded, shaggy, caveman who's rejected technology, i copied, but failed to paste, an extensive dissertation that i had written on the subject. i then copied something else, losing the original manuscript into the depths of this baffling computer. i'm just a caveman, your modern technology scares and confuses me. i don't know much, but what i know is this: a single-speed bike is a better machine for navigating the streets of chicago.

let's take a look at the landscape of cycling in chicago: it's flat. it's paved. that's it. what part of that needs gears? you want to ride slow? pedal slow. you want to ride fast? pedal fast. it's really not that complicated. what do gears do for you? they add friction to the system, and they add more things that need to be maintained for a smooth ride. i've worked in bike shop, and i've done my own repairs, and some for my friends, for nearly twenty years. what's the hardest component to dial in? if you guessed derailleurs, then you guessed right.

more? ok. shifting is hard on the teeth of the sprockets, and it's hard on chains. to tbr's point on breaking chains - the only chain i've ever broke was on a mountain bike. i raced bmx for 5 years (those are obviously single speed), and never broke a chain; and there's WAY more torque put onto a chain during the start of a bmx race than is ever put onto a mountain or road bike chain. competitve racers replace their chains every year. fine; chains are replaceable, as are sprockets. but eventually, the freewheel mechanism inside the rear hub is going to wear out, and one day pulling away from a stop light, you'll step on the pedal and the whole system will slip a quarter turn. it happend on my mountain bike. now what do you do to fix it? well, unless you have super $$$ stuff that justifies the big repair cost, you buy a whole new rear wheel. awesome.

me, i toss the chain into a bath of degreaser, soak it while i clean other stuff, then throw it in some lube, wipe it down, and i'm good to go.

i'd like to directly address tbr's point 3.1)
i have to agree that there are a minority of riders in chicago that are creating bad blood towards the whole cycling community. many of these riders ride fixed gear track bikes. but don't blame the bike. geared riders are just as capable of blowing stop signs; it human nature to do things the easy way, and coasting through a stop sign is certainly much easier than stopping and starting, gears or not. everyone blows stop signs; from the spandex-wearing lance wannabes, to tbr's freeride buddies, to bike cops. no one likes stopping if we don't have to.

weaving through traffic? don't try to claim innocence here tbr, you and i have done some stupid shit through traffic. and have you ever rode with mercer? he does all that shit, and he's got a geared bike.

tbr's arguments against fixed gear bike seem to center around the folks riding them, rather than the bikes themselves. he claims that reliability isn't an issue. i'd claim that has more to do with the fact that tbr goes through bikes faster than charlie sheen goes through hookers. you need to keep something for more than a month if you're going to be passing judgements on the reliability of that item. it's a simple fact that fixed gear bikes are easier to maintain, and require less of it. tbr conceeds that a fixie rides smoother; i didn't ask about your haircut or relationship status. besides, why would i want to tie myself down with one "girlfriend"? trackstands get chicks.

cps - tell the fixie riders who complain of knee issues to use a front brake. that takes all the stress of stopping off of the knees. i know, because i have:

- a fixed gear bike
- a front brake
- bad knees

if they refuse for whatever reason, then they fair game for ridicule.

as far as your question about the liberal/open-minded/dirty hippys who embrace nostalgia, i think most do it because they think it's cool to be different... just like all their friends. there are some, though, that choose to forego the onward march of technology because the new stuff often takes away some of the visceral appeal, the emotion, from the experience of using whatever item it is.

in our case here, i choose to abstain from gears because i like the purity of pedalling a fixed gear. i've ridden all types on the streets of chicago (except recumbants, those aren't bikes, they're dumb), and the fixie is where i've settled. my car has an old-school 5 speed; is the automatic faster at shifting than i am? probably. are the new dual-clutch, paddling shifting transmissions better still? absolutely. but they take away the feel of driving a sports car, and i like that feel, so i stuck with the manual. i could extend the same argument towards the other products you mention.

another check in the 'plus' column in favor of fixies - they are an oft-prescribed training tool for riders of all disciplines. the fixed gear smoothes out a rider's pedalling cadence, and helps the rider recruit and develop muscles through the full pedalling range. using more muscle groups in a more coordinated manner results in an overall more efficient use of energy while riding. that leads to more success in endurance cycling sports, or less energy expenditure while cruising the city.

Gunder – I’ll concede that everyone is attracted to the path of least resistance. Every cyclist in Chicago has blown through at least a couple stop signs. Part of the appeal of cycling in the city is being able to outrun congested traffic. The difference is the *ability* to stop. I’m talking about a fixie without front brake here. Isn’t the brake distribution on a bike with two brakes something like seventy percent to the front? That would mean a fixed bike without front brake would necessarily have a much longer stopping distance—regardless of experience on the bike. With a front brake this argument is moot.

While it’s true that a front brake seriously cuts down on knee stress, starting from a stop is unaffected (of course). While soreness is telltale, not being sore doesn’t mean you aren’t slowly wearing them down. Running is bad enough; I refuse to add a fixie to the punishment.

“the fixed gear smoothes out a rider's pedalling cadence, and helps the rider recruit and develop muscles through the full pedalling range” This is a good point. Riding a fixed gear is a catalyst for improving riding efficiency and developing muscle, but biomechanics will improve with any riding. It’s just a matter of putting miles on. If I can do that without undue joint stress I’ll do that, even if it is a slower means. You have to admit that the majority of cyclists are occasional riders or commuters without the muscle development to handle a fixed without damaging themselves, few of us being BMX stars…

As far as the whole manual transmission analogy goes—where to start? I like to think I fancy driving with five speeds because it’s more efficient. Though, to be fair, I also sometimes think I’m some derivative of James Bond. I would never use the latter to convince someone a stick shift was better. Same thing with “visceral appeal, the emotion” once someone argues for how something “feels” they’ve steered from viable material for a rational discussion. (e.g. bad-assity)

Maintenance hasn’t been a problem for me and my geared bike. I’d put several hundred miles on my Miyata 7-ten before even adjusting the derailleur, which took only a few minutes.

As for women, two points: I don’t think I’d be interested in the chicks a trackstand would fetch and no, it doesn’t make sense to stick to just one i am happy to stick to one woman becuase miss casual is the best thing ever. Word.

russell: i enjoy THE CONCEPT of timeliness. is that better? how's your wife like that workout mix i made her?

1. i want to know the other topics that would similarily raise the hackle of our gentle viking.

2. as an outsider to this particular discussion (i am very stupid and ride a mountain bike in the city), when i first heard of people riding fixed gears without brakes in the city i was shocked. can't think of a dumber thing to do. i know looking like fred flinstone is cool (thats why i had the pteradactyl garbage disposal installed), but on the rare occasion when i bike commute to work, stopping when big suv's cut me off is somewhat important.

3. russel - we need to drink and commisserate soon, you know why.

That kid fell over immediately after the flash fired.

I think using gears is fun. I guess since it's on both sides of the equation it'll have to be disregarded.

Talking about bikes is making me sleepy.