fixed4lyffe

ritchie's fixie article


Forget the trophy girlfriend, the skateboard or the boombox, the coolest accessory to carry round these days is a fixie, or fixed gear bike.

They are beautiful bikes, minimalist and come in a wide range ofcolours and shapes to match your pointy shoes. FAKENGERS derived fromFAKE and MESSENGERS is a term commonly associated with thehipsters/scenesters that can now be spotted in most major cities ridingaround in their newly purchased fluro fixie.

So what exactly is this fixie thing? A fixie bike has no changeable gears and can also pedal backwards - the pedals and chain are fixed. It's origins date back to the early days of track racing in velodromes and was even used in road racing until the '60s when gears made riding bikes a lot easier.

It's probably the humble bike messenger that gave the fixie its current resurgence as the most fashionable bike. Couriers are the TRUE road warriors weaving in and out of traffic and drinking kegs by the truckload (as opposed to mere mortals who drink glasses by the kegload). They have dreads, unsigned bands' cards in their spokes and are riding fearless on the road all the time.

So basically, what's become trendy amongst the youth of today are courier bikes.

Their riders can be identified by the following factors:

• they wear a short-brimmed racing hat that matches their bike
• their grips and pedals and rims and condoms are the same shade of pink
• they roll the WRONG side of their pants up
• they carry a messenger bag around when not riding yet own a backpack

Riding a bike is a good thing - it's carbon neutral, good for you and good for the environment. What is lame though, is taking elements of bike culture and wearing them whilst having a fake-arsed attempt at this culture. It's almost as shit as fat dudes who buy $15,000 carbon road bikes that weigh 0.7kgs and think they are losing weight riding a good 5 kms then drive home from the park.