I’m not delusional. The fixed gear bicycle’s cultural moment has come and gone. Out went Red Hook Crit and fixed gear freestyle, and in came ATB riding, gravel and bikepacking for would-be cyclo-hipsters looking for something outside the classic jock-roadie-versus-enduro-bro dichotomy. 

One need not look further than the Steamroller-shaped hole in Surly’s catalog for proof of my analysis, but to boot, Cannondale hasn’t made a track frame since they were on CAAD 10, and there’s no more Langster or Allez Sprint Track from Specialized. Perhaps most tragically, Bianchi has phased out the Super Pista, and Cinelli regrettably added internal cable routing on the renowned Vigorelli. Brands like State and Crust are still holding it down for the devoted, but the industry has otherwise largely given up on bikes with horizontal dropouts. 

The consequences of this shift are far-reaching, but I think its biggest cultural hit is the homogenization of what it feels like to ride a bike. Of course riding a mountain bike feels different than riding a road bike. And certainly riding a department store bike feels different than riding a $10,000 showroom piece. Differences in geometry, gearing, componentry, tire tread/pressure/volume— these all are distinguishable characteristics between one bike and any other. But still, you pedal to propel yourself forward, you coast when you go down a hill or need to recover, you actuate a brake with your finger when you want to trim speed, and more often than not, you have a bunch of gears to choose from. In a nutshell, this is how 99% of people interface with a bike 100% of the time.

There is another way, however— an ancient art now sequestered to far-off velodromes, a shrinking guard of noble bike messengers and cultlike practitioners like me who can’t put their belief behind themselves. Why should you ride fixed, you ask? I’m about to tell you in search-engine-optimised list format.

 

1) Riding a fixed gear is easier than you may think.

Fixed gears are the closest thing to a perpetual motion machine that I’ve ever encountered. Most of you may already know what a fixed gear is, but I’m still gonna break it down Sheldon Brown style. A fixed gear bicycle (“fixie,” “track bike,” etc.) is one which is driven by a cog fixed to its rear hub. Because of the absence of a freewheel or freehub or “XD driver” (yawn), if the bike is moving forward, the cranks are, too. We’ll get to it in a bit, but this also means you can pedal the bike backwards to propel it backwards and resist forward motion in the cranks to slow the bicycle.

I did a really bad job in physics in high school, so engineers, please skip ahead a few lines because I’m gonna sound like an idiot. Phew. Ok, so because of this closed loop between the rear wheel and the cranks, a fixed gear in motion is super easy to keep in motion— if it’s in motion, you’re already pedaling. I think the best illustration of this is on a climb that is well-suited to the gearing on your new fixed gear. On gentle grades like 3-4% with a ~75 gear-inch set up (that’s a 700c-wheeled bike with a 48x17t gearing), you will probably notice that you are almost floating up the hill compared to your performances on coastables. The pedals turn themselves over as long as you will them to. With the added benefits of an overall lighter bike, a shorter chain and no derailleur pulleys suckin' out those precious watts, a fixed gear is a dream to ride up most steady hills if you get your gearing figured out.

Fixed Gear bikes not yet set into motion at the 2024 Tour of Newport News

2) Riding a fixed gear makes you a better rider.

Get ready for two hard truths. You coast too much and you brake too much. I know the vast majority of cyclists are not out to make fitness or skill gains and simply take pleasure in getting some wind in their face. That’s fine, but braking and coasting only do one thing— slow you down. Slowing down is boring and inefficient because then you have to speed up again. Simple.

I’m being partly facetious, but there is nothing but truth in the fact that riding fixed will make you more efficient. By forcing you to make an economical pedal stroke, fixed gears will pull the mask off of any biomechanical missteps you have in your fit. Forget the myth about “pedaling circles”— that’s not what I’m getting at. And besides, GCN debunked that shit like five times. When you go really fast on a fixed gear, your legs can spin at 120RPM+ and there’s nothing you can do about it besides adapt.

If racing is what you’re into, you know that limiting the time you spend on the brakes equates to free speed. Well, not really. My view is that every time you touch the brakes, you are spending hard earned watt-dollars to get back up to speed later on. And speaking of dollars, in this post-disc-brake world, pads and rotors cost too many of them.

When you begin your fixed gear journey, you will almost certainly start with brakes, and please do! Inevitably, though, you will learn core skills like jump-stops and skids. Once you get those down, consider taking that rear brake off. As you dial it in, you will begin relying on the front brake less and less. Pretty soon you’ll realize you’re not using it at all. At that point, you might want to take the front brake off. Do it, but don’t stop there. Because skidding, jump-stopping and even little resistance speed-checks are taxing on the legs, you will soon gain a preference for not slowing down at all, which brings us to our next point.

My Cinelli Mash Parallax

3) Brakeless riding will give you spidey senses.

I made it this far in a fixed gear article without mentioning the 2012 film Premium Rush. Unfortunately that streak stops right here. In the opening scenes Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a New York City messenger, demonstrates an ability to foresee hazards on the road before they fully manifest. He anticipates cab doors opening, cars switching lanes, pedestrians stepping out into traffic and fellow cyclists going for the same line he is. For as corny as the rest of the movie is, I think they nailed that part.

I was diagnosed with an attention deficit issue super early in my life, and thanks to modern medicine we now understand that these disorders can exhibit themselves in myriad ways. There are inattentive kids, there are hyperactive kids, there are obstinate kids and countless other flavors of bad munchkin, but inattentiveness was probably my main behavior. As an adult I can still zone out for entire conversations, passively nodding “for sure, man, yeah, for sure!”

Eventually I started riding brakeless and getting a little spicier with my lines, and I slowly started to recognize an entirely new set of stimuli. Until that point, I don’t think I’d given my full, undivided attention to anything. Suddenly I was noticing shadows in my peripheral vision, predicting traffic light patterns and trying to read yinzer drivers’ minds, all while riding a bike. This is an ability everyone can and should train, because the best defense is a good offense.

 

15 years old, probably fresh off a screening of Macaframa

 

4) The community is beautiful.

We out here! Yes, there are still people who haven’t switched up. Honestly, the past two years have had an uptick in fixed gear events and hype, and because the scene is small, it is spread out but tight-knit. On the sanctioned side of things, Tour of Newport News and Summit Point Cycling Classic added fixed gear categories to their omniums. Chocolate City Criterium in DC had a fixed race, and the Phildelphia Riverfront Criterium added one this year. 

Monster Track, perhaps the most infamous alleycat in the US, just turned 25 last year and brought racers from all over the world. If you like alleycat vibes with some dirt and distance added, Richmond VA’s Mountain Cat 100 had a deep fixed field last year. And the sickest part? Once you do your first fixed race, it’s almost guaranteed you will know someone at your second one.

The start of Monster Track XXV