Amsterdam again

So I'm in Amsterdam again. On day five, I saw my first fixed gear bike. It wasn't like I was missing them or looking for them. I just find it interesting, one in five days. Meanwhile there are now hundreds of bakfietsen. In some ways, symbolically, a new bakfiets here is kind of like an overpriced double-wide strollers in Brooklyn. Practical, expensive, and yuppie. My brother has one. It cost over €1,000. But these bikes are not at all obnoxious. They're well built. And they hold two kids. I am pro-bakfiets.

And yes, biking here is generally as good as they say.

A man, a plan, 2 speeds!

My plan is unfix my fixed gear, put on slightly smaller (650B) wheels, and coast with joy down the Queensboro bridge. I've got nothing against fixed gears. I've had this bike for almost 10 years. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

Today on ebay I purchased a Bendix coaster brake 2-speed kickback hub. At least from the pictures and description, the man did a great job cleaning and rebuilding these hubs. That's even better than "new in box" because even "brand new" isn't good for 40-year-old grease.

A kickback hub is a rare bird. It has two speeds. You shift, get this, by braking! Crazy. Every time you brake, you shift. Not ideal. But I've ridden one in Amsterdam and it's surprisingly not a pain. The advantage, of course, is no cables and no external shifting parts. These hubs were made on the early 1960s for Schwinn. Sachs also made some from folding bikes (those are even rarer).

There are two speeds: low and high. On the red and yellow bands, the high is the natural speed and the low is geared down. There's also a blue band where the low is the natural gear and the high is geared up. I wanted the high-speed to be more efficient because that will be used more. The difference between red and yellow band is in the type of coaster brake. I don't know anything about coaster brakes, so I went with the yellow band because it's the later (and hopefully improved) design.

The new hub will necessitate a new chainring. My current fixed hub has 16 teeth. This one has 18 teeth. That means the new hub will be as if in a lower gear. If anything, I'd like the higher speed a slightly higher gear. This means my current 46-tooth chainring will need to get uped to maybe 54 teeth.

Also for this bike, the Screamin' Salmon, I got my new peddles in the mail today. They're flat on one side and SPD clipless on the other. I have these on my (sniff... formerly) Bianchi. That bike is currently at the shop getting a new frame. The peddles are great. To Manhattan, I usually ride with bike shoes, but it's great to have the normal shoe option. And these peddles (or at least the one I already have) are weighted so they always fall in the same direction. This way you never get the wrong side when riding. Slide forward for bike shoes, back for street shoes.

All this said, none of this is cheap. I'm spending more on bikes this month than I have in the past few years combined. But it's all cheaper than having a car. It's even cheaper (but not by much) than riding the subway. And luckily I got paid today.

The Limberness of the Fixed-Gear Mind

I received a comment from an editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette telling about this article
"The Limberness of the Fixed Gear Mind" (they left out the the hyphen, not me) by Jeff Guerrero, publisher of Urban Velo, a Pittsburgh-based cycling magazine and daily Web site. It's a great read, probably the best single summary of fixed-gear riding. Hits all the main points sympathetically, including the idea of "being one with with your bike." And yet doesn't go off the deep end.

Here's the text. Click the above link for the proper read. (the drawing to the right, by Stacy Innerst, is from their website)

The Next Page: The Limberness of the Fixed Gear Mind

Look at all the bicyclists whizzing around town. Notice that some never stop pedaling -- until they stop moving. They're on a 'fixed gear' bike: the ultimate in simplicity in motion (if you know what you're doing).

Sunday, September 09, 2007
By Jeff Guerrero
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Bike culture is on the rise, in Pittsburgh and across the nation. Whether you know it or not, you have undoubtedly been passed by a nimble rider on a bike that never stops: a fixed gear bike.

Fixed gear riders can often be seen "trackstanding" at a stoplight, rolling the bike ever so slightly back and forth, eliminating the need to dismount. Their minimalist machine typically features just one brake (if any), a single gear combination and pedals that don't stop turning as long as the wheels are rolling.

That's right -- no coasting.

Riding a "fixie" requires constant pedaling, be it uphill, downhill or on flat ground. To the casual observer, riding such a bike might seem impractical at best -- perhaps even dangerous. Since the ability to change gears and coast has been available since the late 1800s, a practical-minded person might ask, "Why not embrace the available technology?"

The answer is not so simple. The bicycle industry thrives on selling innovations to make cycling easier. Modern road bikes feature 20-speed drivetrains and shifters built into the brake levers. Mountain bikes offer 27 speeds, hydraulic disc brakes and pneumatic suspension. And certain hybrid bikes feature an electronic, speed-sensitive, automatic transmission.

All of these technological advances facilitate higher speeds over a wide range of terrain, and ultimately help cyclists achieve what they set out to accomplish.

But just like an archer prefers the bow and arrow to a submachine gun, many fixed gear cyclists feel that riding a bike loaded with modern conveniences is unnecessary.


That's not to say every fixed gear rider wants or needs to be challenged to the hilt. Many cite more esoteric reasons for their choice in bicycles. Anyone who rides a fixed gear understands the concept of "being one with the bike."

If you want to ride faster, you have to pedal faster. If you want to slow down, the opposite applies. The technique for speeding downhill necessitates a Zen-like state where the rider relaxes their legs and lets the pedals push back into their feet. Even achieving a high rate of speed on flat ground requires the fixed gear rider to develop a high cadence (the number of pedal rotations a cyclist can make in one minute). It's interesting to note that cycling great Lance Armstrong was known for his exceptionally high cadence of 120 revolutions per minute.

When it comes to slowing a fixed gear down, better riders eschew conventional handbrakes in favor of using their legs to control the bike's momentum. The technique involves gradually applying reverse pressure against the pedals to slow down, and intermittently locking their legs to induce a series of controlled skids until the bike comes to a halt.

While it may not be the easiest way to get the job done, it certainly is fun.


A popular misconception is that a brakeless fixed gear cannot be effectively stopped.

While it's true that having a front brake is considerably safer, experienced fixed gear riders have an immense amount of control over the bike even without. The control comes from body position, as the farther forward riders positions themselves, the easier the rear wheel skids. As the rider returns to a normal riding position, his or her weight centers over the rear wheel, increasing the coefficient of friction and consequently intensifying the braking power.

By and large, the fixed gear's greatest appeal is its simplicity. And while the fixed gear's aesthetic appeal is undeniable, the real beauty is in its near flawless functionality. With just one brake and one gear pairing to adjust, there's very little to go wrong. Thus, the bike requires virtually no daily maintenance.

For bicycle couriers -- whose livelihood depends on having a functional bike at the ready -- the fixed gear is an appealing option. The same holds true for college students and bicycle commuters, many of whom also appreciate the low-maintenance aspect due to time or monetary constraints. Still others simply grow tired of malfunctioning gear shifters and dealing with overly complicated brake setup.

Plus it's undeniable that fixed gear bikes are something of a fashion statement. In the 1986 Kevin Bacon classic "Quicksilver," pop culture took notice of fixed gear bikes, and that popularity continued to grow throughout the 1990s. Along with the omnipresence of Timbuk2's tri-colored messenger bags, the bicycle courier look came into vogue. Suddenly the once inconspicuous fixed gear riders had a burgeoning audience.

More influential than the mainstream media's attention, however, has been the Internet's role in the proliferation of fixies. Web sites dedicated to the fixed gear subculture typically garner a fanatic response, and new sites continue to spring up daily. Among the most popular sites is www.fixedgeargallery.com, a hub for readers to showcase photos of their personal bikes.

Of course there's a certain camaraderie that comes with riding a fixie in the city. Birds of a feather flock together, and like-minded cyclists are especially prone to forming cliques. While the stereotype of "young white male wearing calf-length pants and a retro-styled cycling cap" is well-founded, the fixed gear community is remarkably diverse and inclusive. The informal society includes people from all walks of life -- from punk rock college girls to aging fathers with mortgage payments and office jobs.


Unfortunately, riding a fixed gear is not for everyone.

While fixies perform well in flat cities like Chicago or New York, the steep hills in cities like San Francisco and Pittsburgh pose a challenge that many riders are not eager to overcome. And for cyclists unfamiliar with riding in the city, riding a fixed gear in heavy traffic is a daunting proposition. Even some fixed gear enthusiasts eventually revert to a freewheeling singlespeed or a multigeared setup, often citing knee pain or a need for greater speed and distance.

On the other hand, many fixed gear riders ascertain the experience strengthens their legs, improves their cycling skills and sharpens their reflexes. While you don't need to be an expert cyclist to ride a fixie, chances are anyone you meet riding one has more than a cursory knowledge of cycling culture and history.

And while riding a fixed gear is not necessarily rebellious in and of itself, the rejection of modern convenience does make a statement. Regardless of their rationale, one commonality among fixed gear riders is a deep-seated love of cycling.

Where It All Began: On a Track, an Endless Loop

Fixed gear bikes are not just a modern urban fad. Since the inception of bicycle track racing, the only bikes used on the wooden banks of the velodrome have been fixed gears.

From the 1890s through the 1920s, bicycle racing was among America's favorite spectator sports, often drawing crowds that rival modern-day sporting events. Despite losing market share to road races like the Tour de France, track racing continues as an Olympic sport and remains a popular activity where facilities exist.

In Japan, track racing still enjoys tremendous popularity in the form of Keirin racing. With over 50 racetracks, highly trained professional riders, strict regulations and heavy betting (reminiscent of American horse racing), Keirin racing is a 1.5 trillion yen industry. Not surprisingly, nationally approved Japanese track racing equipment (stamped NJS) is highly sought after by American fixed gear enthusiasts.

Despite not having a true velodrome in Pittsburgh, the city's track racing heritage is kept alive thanks to the Pittsburgh Masters Velo Club. Every other Friday throughout the summer, Oscar Swan puts racers through their paces on the paved bike track on Washington Boulevard. Swan, a bike rider and racer since the 1960s, leads them through classic track events such as the Madison, Snowball and Match Sprint races.

Interested participants can visit www.pittsburghmastersveloclub.com for more information.


First published on September 9, 2007 at 12:00 am

Jeff Guerrero is the publisher of Urban Velo, a Pittsburgh-based cycling magazine and daily Web site: www.urbanvelo.org

Fixed-gears need brakes

So I was riding my fixed-gear bike to work the other day. While going over the new horrible series of bumps on Crescent St. as you approach the bridge, my chain came off. It’s never happened before. And it wasn’t a big deal, because I have a hand brake on my fixed-gear bike. So I stopped and put it back on. Chains on one-speeds aren’t supposed to come off. They can’t come off if you’re paying attention and make sure it’s not too loose. But mine was too loose (how often do you check your chain tension?). There’s a belief that true fixed-gears don’t need hand brakes because your feet do it all. 999 times out of 1,000, that’s fine. But that’s not good enough. All I’m saying is don’t ride a bike without a back-up brake.

Fixed Gears in the Times

It’s not a bad article. Actually, once you get past the part that implies fixed-gears can't stop because they don't have brakes, it’s surprisingly good. But I can imagine writers convincing editors about their story about these crazy people that ride bikes… get this… Without Brakes(!). FYI, my fixed gear has fenders and front brakes.
Live to bike another day, I say.

The article implies that you have to buy an expensive fixed gear. Not true. One of the reasons to ride a fixed gear is that you can take almost any old frame (like the one abandoned on a fence because somebody stole part of it), and put a fixed cog on it and a new chain and you’ve got yourself a bike for almost nothing. It wasn’t that long ago that you couldn’t buy a fixed gear. These bikes were the intro course into bike building, the cheapest way to assemble a bike from parts. Part of what made a fixed-gear culture possible was that every one was hand built, usually by the person riding it.

They were also, as long as most people couldn't ride them, short-term theft proof (great for messengers). Anybody trying to ride away would quickly get thrown off.

So now can we put a moratorium on articles in the main-stream press about fixed-gears? I think the topic has been well covered. Sometimes a bike is just a bike. And there really are lot of other things to write about in the urban bike world.

Unstoppable
New York Times
April 29, 2007
By JOCKO WEYLAND

WHEN is a bicycle not like other bicycles? To begin with, when it has no brakes, or at least no visible brakes, or possibly just a front brake. That means you can’t ride this bike very well on your first try, and certainly not very gracefully, easily or safely.

The rear cog is bolted directly to the hub, so that whenever the vehicle is in motion, the pedals go around, making coasting impossible. This bike doesn’t have a shift lever or extra sprockets, and the chain is shorter and wider than on traditional bikes.

There are no fenders, and the rear wheels are probably bolted onto the frame to deter theft. You slow down by reversing the pedals, or skidding, or doing a skip stop. And that’s just the beginning of the differences between your run-of-the-mill 10-speed and a track bike, or fixed-gear bike — fixie for short — as it is also known.

Many fixed-gear adherents contend that their bikes are the ultimate and all others are pretenders. And these fixed-gear zealots are a growing presence on the streets of New York. Perceived by some as nuisances, or as troublesome, anarchist Dumpster-diving punks who happen to ride bikes, they are occasionally reviled, but they are also the subject of curiosity and interest. Just as die-hard skateboarders 15 years ago stood on the cusp of providing a new lifestyle, so the fixed-gear bike culture could be the tip of something that nobody can accurately predict but something that is huge.

Riders of fixed-gear bikes are as diverse as bike riders in general. Messengers are big fixie aficionados, but more and more fixed-gear bikes are being ridden by nonmessengers, most conspicuously the kind of younger people to whom the term “hipster” applies and who emanate from certain neighborhoods in Brooklyn. You see these riders weaving in and out of traffic without stopping, balancing on the pedals at a stoplight and in the process infuriating pedestrians and drivers alike.

In Williamsburg and points south of Grand Street, these bikes are legion. But they are fast gaining popularity, not just in those bastions of trend followers, and not just among 22-year-olds. Fixed-gear bikes are being ridden all over New York, by messengers, racers, lawyers, accountants and college professors — a diverse and not necessarily youthful cross section of the city’s population. They’re being ridden by people who work in sandwich shops and don’t know or care about gear ratios and bike history, and by people who have been racing these bikes for years in places like the Kissena Velodrome in Flushing, Queens, with its banked, elliptical track. They’re ridden by militant vegans who are virtual encyclopedias of arcane bicycle history, by thrill-seeking members of renegade bike gangs like Black Label, by shopgirls, street racers, Critical Mass riders, your aunt.

There’s also the phenomenon of city riders returning to fixed-gear biking’s roots and getting back to the track, entering races like the Cyclehawk Velo City Tour, to be held at the Kissena Velodrome on May 6.

These disparate riders represent a rainbow coalition, a movement that’s about bikes as part of a way of life, as an identity. Although fixed-gear bikes can be seen as a trendy accessory, they also allow a mild form of rebellion against what many of these bike riders see as a wasteful and insipid way of life. Fixed-gear riders embrace the contrary notion of taking a different route.

“We own the streets,” the spray-painted stencil reads. Not really, but fixed-gear riders are, in a benign way, promoting an alternative to accepted norms.

Anarchy in Motion

So what’s the big deal? It’s just a bike, right? On some level, yes. Two wheels, a chain, a cog, a seat and handlebars. But in the way that one of Marcel Breuer’s vintage Wassily chairs is just a chair that costs $10,000, the top fixed-gear bikes are just custom-made bikes that cost 10 times as much as a regular factory-made bicycle. The pinnacle of two-wheeled transport, they are beautiful objects with simple, clean, stripped-down lines that make them look fast even when they’re standing still.

“They’re the prettiest bikes out there,” said Gina Scardino, owner of King Kog, a store on Hope Street in Williamsburg that sells only fixed-gear bikes. Indeed they are, with a modernist blending of form and function and a look that matches what they’re made for, which is going really fast on a banked velodrome track.

But the question arises: Especially in this city, isn’t it insane to ride a bike that you can’t easily stop? By riding a bike that’s meant to be raced around a special track on the chaotic streets of New York, aren’t you risking life and limb?

It doesn’t make sense. But that may be the appeal, and has been ever since the bikes appeared on the scene more than a century ago.

Fixed-gear bikes have a rich past. Before the invention of the derailleur, the device that made multiple gears a reality, fixed-gears were the racing bike. The original Madison Square Garden, built in 1879 at 26th Street and Madison Avenue, was built for a velodrome. Races testing speed and endurance drew huge crowds, with the top riders among the sports stars of their day.

The bike races at Madison Square Garden were all the rage around the turn of the last century. A velodrome circuit flourished around the country, with the best racers earning $100,000 to $150,000 a year at a time when carpenters were lucky to make $5,000. And all this was happening on the forerunners of the bikes being ridden today.

Johnny Coast’s Coast Cycles sits at the end of a desolate cul-de-sac in the heart of Bushwick, Brooklyn, near the Myrtle Avenue stop on the J, M and Z lines. Mr. Coast, a 31-year-old with dreadlocks down to the small of his back, is a former squatter and current member of Black Label.

Coast Cycles is not your typical bike store stocked with rows of three-speeds and road bikes, along with locks, water bottles and other doodads. It is an old-fashioned, one-person workshop where chickens wander in from the yard. Here, Mr. Coast builds two or three custom-framed bicycles a month, most of them fixed-gears, “tailored to suit a body’s dimensions, to an individual’s geometry and affording the maximum of comfort, design and style,” as he put it in an e-mail message.

Mr. Coast, who works surrounded by Bridgeport lathes, jigs and blueprints, is a believer in fixies as a metaphorical extension of a squatters’ lifestyle that connotes, as he puts it, “living a certain way, subsisting on recycling, not wasting, finding liberation, freedom as a revolutionary act, like in a Hakim Bey sense, primitivist, spiritualist anarchism.”

He laughs at the absurdity of a brand like Mountain Dew approaching Black Label with an offer of sponsorship, as he says happened last year, and is wary of exploitation of the fixed-gear bike culture by corporations that have little to do with biking. “I saw what happened to skateboarding and surfing and punk,” Mr. Coast said grimly.

Look, Ma, No Brakes

The dangers of a small world getting bigger were vividly illustrated a few months ago when a hipster wearing square-frame glasses wandered into King Kog. The store, which sells fixed-gear bikes starting around $800 and going up to the thousands, also carries Jason Chaste’s Fortynine Sixteen clothing line, named for a gear ratio, and high-end parts like Sugino cranks, Izumi chains, and Dura-Ace and Ciocc frames.

“Um, I’m looking for a track bike,” the visitor said.

“What’s your price range?” Ms. Scardino asked.

“Three hundred dollars,” the visitor replied.

“Hmmm, you might want to try Craigslist or eBay,” she suggested gently.

When Ms. Scardino asked the visitor how he planned to use the bike, he answered, “I’m just going to be cruising around.”

You got the sense that this wasn’t the place for him, but also that he might come back one day. As he put it when he left: “I like your shop. It’s neat.”

At Bike Kill, an annual racing event sponsored by Black Label and held in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, nobody seemed worried about the issue of fixed-gear biking becoming too popular; everybody was having too much fun.

Vehicles used in the event, held on a blustery autumn day near the Samuel C. Barnes Elementary School, included tall bikes (two frames on top of each other with a seat about six feet off the ground), bikes with metal rollers as front wheels, tiny bikes and BMX bikes (little single-gear bikes used for tricks) and, of course, fixed-gear bikes.

Stopping on a Prayer

Mr. Coast was there, along with members of Black Label’s Minneapolis and Reno, Nev., chapters and members of other biker groups like C.H.U.N.K. 666, which has footholds in Brooklyn and Portland, Ore.; the Rat Patrol, from Chicago; Dead Baby, from Seattle; and the Skidmarxxx, from Austin, Tex. A lot of unwashed dreads, denim, leather and facial tattoos were in evidence, along with a carnivalesque assortment of voodoo top hats, orange jumpsuits, bunny ears, Mexican wrestling masks and a Pee-wee Herman doppelgänger waving from his Schwinn cruiser.

There were copious drinking, including a contest to see who could ride around in a circle while drinking a six-pack fastest, and the “Blind Skull” event, in which riders wearing big foam skulls over their heads pedaled until they fell over or ran into somebody.

Toward 8 p.m. the drunken tall-bike jousting began, with knights of both sexes armed with padded plastic “spears.” The only dissonant note occurred when a cassock-wearing interloper on Rollerblades with a motor attached was expelled by a Black Label member. “Get your motor out of here!” the biker yelled.

That’s the cardinal rule. No motors. For environmental reasons. Or practical ones, recalling the West Indian messengers who pioneered urban fixed-gear riding in the 1980s, bringing their ingenuity to New York from the islands, where bikes that didn’t have much of anything on them to steal were a decided advantage.

But pinning down what constitutes the fixed-gear movement gets complicated. After all, what does the insanity of Bike Kill have to do with someone like “Fast” Eddie Williams, who runs the bicycle-themed Nayako Gallery in Bedford-Stuyvesant, has published a book of photographs of messengers and competes in Alley Cat and Monster Track street races?

Mr. Williams’s scene is the messenger scene, in which he has been a participant since the early 1980s, when he first encountered the West Indian messengers hanging out at Washington Square Park. “I saw them riding,” he said. “I liked how they maneuvered, stopped at a red light and didn’t step down. And I thought, ‘How do they do that?’ ”

Mr. Williams got a Matsuri, a fast fixed-gear bike, and started working as a messenger. Twenty-five years later, he’s still at it, looking incredibly fit and younger than his 43 years. “Track bikes are not made for street,” he conceded, “and sometimes I need a hope and a prayer to stop short.” But he rhapsodized about their charms. “It’s like playing chess,” he said. “You think out your moves from a block away.”

John Campo, the salty-tongued director of the racing program at the Kissena Velodrome, is another fixie aficionado. As with Mr. Williams, the fixed-gear lifestyle seems to be a healthy one; Mr. Campo looks at least 15 years younger than his 60. Biking isn’t his profession — he’s a jazz musician who has played with Miles Davis, among others — but it is undeniably his passion.

Mr. Campo missed out on the glory days of the Kissena Velodrome, but he tells tales about the father of Vinny Vella, the actor who plays Jimmy Petrille on “The Sopranos,” racing at Madison Square Garden to win enough money to buy a scale for the pushcart he sold fish from, then earning enough to open a fish store on Elizabeth Street. Mr. Campo remembers all the Polish, German and Italian bike clubs, and he remembers Lou Maltese, a member of the Century Road Club who held many cycling records, including the 100-mile national record in a race from Union City, N.J., to Philadelphia.

‘A Zen Thing’

Far from worrying about fixed-gear bikes getting too popular, Mr. Campo yearns for them to return to the their prominence of a century ago, and he welcomes street riders to Kissena. “These kids are lovely,” he said. “They come; they win, lose or draw; they have a great time. This is an American spirit thing, to be free, to do what you want to do and express yourself in your own medium, like surfing or skating.”

Surfing and skating are mentioned a lot in relation to fixed-gear bikes. Something about these activities prefigures much of what is going on today in the bike community. Surfing 50 years ago and skating 25 years ago were small, below-the-radar pursuits with their own rituals and secret codes and vernacular. Now they’re billion-dollar industries, popular the world over. And in the opinion of many aficionados, a little bit of soul was lost along the way.

Bicycling is obviously different; there are more bikes than cars in the world, and bikes have a longer popular history, not to mention the fact that fixed-gear bikes predate “regular” bikes. But something about the trajectories of surfing and skating from unexamined, semi-underground secret societies to blown-out cheesy “sports” could forecast the future of the fixed-gear bike.

Surfing and skating retained some of their rebelliousness, in part because of the varied, unpredictable demographic of who is involved: 5-year-olds and 80-year-olds of both sexes, doctors and garbage collectors, law-abiding citizens and criminals. That makes the skating or surfing “movement” hard to locate exactly, just like the amorphous bike movement.

Johnny Coast. Gina Scardino. Fast Eddie. John Campo. The menagerie at Bike Kill. It’s a broad swath. The group also includes people like Toni Germanotta, a 42-year-old owner of an art studio that serves the apparel industry. “When you’re on a fixed gear,” said Ms. Germanotta, who works in the garment district, “it gives you a higher skill level. You have to be constantly aware, always watching the road. You don’t just ride, and it feels a little crazy.”

And it includes Kyle Fay, a designer for Urban Outfitters who is a relatively new convert. “You take the blame if you get hit,” he said. “It’s self-reliance, being responsible for yourself. It might sound kind of corny, but it’s a Zen thing, being one with the bike.”

And it includes Alex Escamilla, a 23-year-old book artist from Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

“I had a couple of friends who made fun of me for riding one because it was trendy,” Ms. Escamilla said. “But the problem with looking at bike riding as a trend is that you lose sight of everything that is positive about bikes. You know, the renewable energy source, exercise, convenience, saving money, saving time, community, seeing the city in a whole new way, blah blah blah.”

Besides, she added: “Track bikes are fun. And they’re beautiful.”

Jocko Weyland is the author of “The Answer Is Never: A Skateboarder’s History of the World.”

Happy handle bars for a fixed gear

After 7 years and many (4?) attempts, I finally found comfortable handlebars for the Screamin' Salmon, my fixed gear.

It finally involved:

1) buying handlebars in Amsterdam
2) sawing off the end of those handlebars
and 3) buying a new extended high handlebar stem with minimum reach




The handlebars are right at seat height. Maybe an inch higher. This allows upright posture. As I wrote once before, unless you're sprinting, fixed gears mean you can't really rest your weight on your feet (because you can't rest your feet). As a result, there's a lot more weight on your ass and hands. On drop handlebars, weight is more evenly divided between feet, seat, and hands. Take feet out of that equation, and well, it just doesn't work. Hands aren't designed to take that weight.

And yet I see people with fixed gears all hunched over drop handlebars. I don't get it. Seems like torture to me. And I like drop handlebars.

The angle on my handbrake isn't quite right. I want the whole thing lower, but rotated that way, the brake handle shoots out a funny angle. I'll have to play with that a bit.

My earlier posts on handlebar heights and fixed gear bikes:
http://bluebirdbike.blogspot.com/2005/06/handlebar-height.html
http://bluebirdbike.blogspot.com/2005/06/ handlebar-height-and-fixed-gear.html

Fixed-Gear 101

The only thing weird is that it's sponsored by Puma. Fixed-gear 101 makes great bathroom reading. Download the pdf version.

Handlebar height and the fixed gear

I was biking on the Screamin’ Salmon, my fixed gear bike, and think I discovered the answer to the handlebar dilemma: why are lower handlebars more comfortable on my Bianchi and less comfortable on my fixed gear. The answer has less to do with the style of handlebars, as I mentioned previously, but the kind of bike.

You sit a lot more on a fixed gear. On a road bike, when you coast, your legs are supporting a good part of your body, and your ass is supporting the rest. Your legs are often supporting all your weight, as when you go over a bumpy stretch. Then your butt is hovering just over your seat and your hands are barely grasping the handlebars. The bike and your legs take all the bumps. This is why bikes don’t need shock absorbers.

(I have to say, shock absorbers are kind of fun, but that’s for another post. I think shock absorbers can even be dangerous inasmuch as they may make you relaxed about going over bad pavement. You can’t ignore bad pavement because some potholes in this city will eat you and your bike alive, shocks or not.)

As opposed to riding a normal free-wheel bike, you can’t really coast on a fixed gear. You can, but you have to let your legs turn with the wheel. Because of this, you don’t support yourself with your legs when you “coast” on a fixed gear. Rather than, in effect, standing, you sit on your seat and divide your weight between the seat and the handlebars. Going over bumpy pavement while still peddling is one of the skills you (by default) must learn on a fixed gear. It’s not how you normally ride a bike.

The lower the handlebars, the more weight gets shifted from your bum to your hands. That’s no problem if your legs are holding most of your weight. But if you’re not using your feet for support, low handlebars mean that too much of your weight is on your hands and arms. This hurts.

So raising the handlebars on a fixed gear means your seat takes most of the bumps on the road. And a well-padded seat I have. This also explains why more novice bikers like high handlebars. It’s better for your weight to be on your seat than on your hands. A more racing position, on the other hand, puts most of your weight on your legs, with your seat taking most of the rest and your arms, by pulling and pushing on your grips, primarily give you more peddle power.

I don’t know if all this is right, but at least I think I’ve figured it out.

Fixed Gear. The Screamin' Salmon has a new look!

The Screamin' Salmon has news look!




Of course almost nobody reading this knows the old look. But let me tell you about the Screamin' Salmon. This bike was originally built and named in Boston by my friend Ryan Tacy. It was also ridden by John Gertsen. I underpaid one of them (I think Tacy) back in 1999 and it became mine. It’s the only bike of mine with a name.

It's a fixed-gear bike. I learned to ride this bike in Baltimore. I didn’t bring my Bianchi when I moved to Baltimore in late 1999 so I’d be forced to ride the Salmon. It worked. I rode it to the police academy everyday for 6 months and less so after I had to buy a car. But it was my Baltimore bike.

Then it sat in the Cambridge basement for the past four years (it actually improved a bit as Tacy put some more work into it). It’s not easy to move bikes long distance without a car. I have a bag large enough (and specifically designed) for bikes. And thanks to the Chinatown bus (they don’t care what you throw down there), I finally brought it back about a month ago to its new home in New York City. It’s mine again!

A fixed-gear bike means you can’t coast. When the rear wheel turns, the peddles turn. A little nomenclature: all fixed-gears are one speeds, but most one-speed bikes are not fixed gear. Most bikes are free wheel or free hub, meaning when the rear wheel goes forward, the peddles don’t go with it. And any bike that doesn’t have a derailleur can be called a single track. A single-track bike (it’s not a very common term, I don’t think) can be your old 1-speed, a fixed gear, or an internally shifting bike with many-speeds (like the Bluebird).

And all track bike (racing bikes for track racing) are fixed gears; but not all fixed gears are track bikes. Most fixed gears you see on the street, like the Screamin’ Salmon, are converted road bikes. Now you can actually buy a new fixed gear in a bike store. This is a new development. It shows they’re gaining popularity, but they’ll never be mainstream.

How can you spot a fixed gear? Look at the rear cog. If it looks like a racing bike and it’s only got one cog in the rear (as opposed to a standard “10-speed” setup), it’s probably a fixed gear. But it could just be a one-speed. Next, look if there’s a rear break. Fixed gears don’t have rear brakes. That’s what your legs are for. Many fixed gears don’t a front brake either, but more on that later. Finally, look if the rider stops peddling when he or she slows down. If the rider coast, it’s not a fixed gear.

Finally, look at the rider. Is the rider a white guy with dreads? Is the rider somebody you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley? Is the rider somebody you wouldn’t want to date your daughter? Is the rider somebody you’d like to date? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then the bike is probably a fixed gear. If it is a fixed gear and you’re caught staring at it, feel free to give the rider a knowing nod and a sly smile.

Fixed gears are very old-school (I’m talking 19th-Century old-school, not Afrika Bambaataa old-school). Fixed gears are very popular among bike messenger. Fixed gears get you some street props. They’re generally considered hard core. But in general, being able to coast is good. He who invented the freewheel was on to something. So why, you might ask, would anybody want to ride a one-speed fixed-gear bike?

Fixed gears have a couple of big advantages over “normal” bikes:
1) They’re really light. There are no extra parts like deralleures and breaks and shifters.
2) They’re really simple. Because they don’t have extra parts, they really get to the essence of what a bike is about. And there’s less that can break.
3) They’re so efficient to bike. Nothing takes less energy to peddle than a fixed gear. It’s a combination of light and efficient. There’s no wasted effort on your part. What you peddle is what you get. No friction, no noise, just power.
4) They’re really precise and easy to steer at very low speeds. Useful for city riding.
5) They’re great going uphill. Many people find this surprising. I did. People have gears for going uphill. It doesn’t makes sense that a one-speed is better. But fixed gears always pass racing bikes going up hill (and everything passes mountain bikes. I really don’t get why people have mountain bikes with big nobby tires in New York City. It just don’t makes sense). I’m not 100% sure why fixed-gear bikes are so good uphill. But it’s got to do with being light, being efficient, and the fact that you have no choice. Since you can’t downshift, you just have to keep peddling. The ability to zoom uphill, to me, is the main advantage of riding the Screamin’ Salmon. Pretty much the only big hill where I go is the bridge into the City. On a fixed gear, I know that the half-mile Queensboro Bridge uphill will be a piece of cake.
6) You’re much more “at one” with your bike when you’re riding. I don’t want to get too Zen here, but trust me on this one.

Fixed gears also make you a better bike rider. You learn how to ride a bike much better when you can’t coast over bumps and through turns. The first time you ride a fixed gear, it’s tough. You can’t stop peddling. You instinctively try to coast and you almost get thrown by the peddles. The peddles will move you. Momentum is on their side.

When you learn to ride a fixed gear, it’s a little like learning how to ride a bike all over again. And since you don’t forget what you already know, you become a better biker.

But breaking is what tends to define a fixed-gear bike. Many don’t have any brakes. But that’s just dumb. Why not have a front brake? Chains can brake. Rarely. But they can. Why risk it? But most fixed gears, including the Screamin’ Salmon, have a front-wheel brake.

To slow down on a fixed gear you just sort of reverse peddle. You can’t really reverse peddle, of course, as long as you’re moving forward. But you apply force in the backwards direction. To break medium hard you basically stand on the peddle as it’s coming up. It’ll lift you, but you’ll slow it down. A lot.

With a little practice on a fixed-gear, you can also lock your legs and freeze the rear wheel, This slows the bike down with a rear-wheel skid. But I’d just a soon use the front brake for quick stopping. And using the front break lifts the back of the bike up a little, making it easy to lock the rear wheel. Fixed gears require toe clips or bike shoes. Your feet have to stay on them peddles.

If you can't picture this, think of your old Big Wheel (I don't think I ever had one--I was on to "real" tricycles pretty quickly--but I sure thought Big Wheels were cool, especially the skid-inducing read-wheel hand break). Big Wheels are fixed gears, or they would be if they had a gear. You slow down on a fixed gear like you did on your Big Wheel.

I think a fixed gear is safer to ride than a normal bike if you tend to ride fast, like I do. Because the fixed gear is a one-speed, you tend to bike slower on the level roads than you would on a 10-speed. But slow and steady wins the race. And on a fixed gear you also start slowing down a bit earlier.

What’s the downside? Not coasting can be a downside. But really there’s only one: going downhill. It’s not as fun or as fast on a fixed gear. You can’t go too fast downhill, because your legs have to keep up. And it’s not as fun, because you can’t coast after you crest a hill.

Truth be told, if I could only have one bike, I’d take my Bianchi over the Screamin’ Salmon. But the Screamin’ Salmon or any fixed gear is a great second bike. I probably ride it half the time I could take my Bianchi. Especially for short to medium distances.

So what’s the new look? (please excuse the--as Ali G might say--digestion) The handlebars! The Salmon had straight mountain-bike handlebars. I didn’t like them. They were too hard on my arms, especially my wrists. It’s much harder to absorb shock in your arm on straight handlebars and with your fists straight out and horizontal.

I’ve always wanted to try these handlebars. So I ordered me some Moustache Handlebars on e-bay. About $35. And I had to buy a road-bike brake lever (about $20). Along with looking slick, these handlebars give your hands lots of positions, a huge advantage. Because of the multiple hand positions, moustache handlebars aren't great with brakes and shifters (which demand that your hand be on them). But they're perfect for a fixed-gear.

The brake lever is up on top so that I can put my hands anywhere on the bars. And you don't need to keep your hand right on the brake on a fixed gear because your legs are the main brakes. I'll cover the bars with handlebar tape. I have some coming in the post. The only obvious disadvantage to these bars is that they're a bit wide. Not good for sneaking through stopped cars and avoiding side-view mirrors.

And I took off the bar ends for the old handle bars and put them on Katie’s bike. I feel like it’s good charma to put a bit of a old bike on a new bike. Like passing the flame.













The real color is actually a bit more pink than in these pictures.



Want more on fixed-gear bikes?

Of course, Sheldon Brown has something to say about fixed gears.

This a good article from Wired.com. I especially like the comparison between breaking on a fixed-gear with breaking on a Big Wheel. I stole the concept from this piece.

Here's another very good article called the fixed gear purist cult mentality thing. This article reminds me, did I mention how smooth a fixed gear is? Very.

And the fixed-gear gallery.

Finally, a quick "how to."