What is hip???Do you think you know???

Yes Marian you are honest and all of the lost suburban hipster idiots are smarmy. Ok some of these people are of course nice, legitimate bike people who in fact have personalities. Bike people are nicer than average people. However a big chunk of them-Last year they were listening to a band that is 1% cooler than "good charlotte" only less famous and they were going to hot topic with their mom's amex card. This year they are fixie people- why- because they have no identity. Fixed gear bikes were hip two years ago and everyone I know with one has to have whatever cool new thing that comes out so that no one suspects them of being poor.I-pod-check, digi camera phone-check , plaid vans-check, ah what else need I wear to join the facist army of white people????

Um material things giving you street cred??? Street cred is shit anyway-its meaningless. If people only think you're cool if you have the newest material thing in the white people world-like barf. They'll all be Yuppies in no time. I don't respect someone based on whether they have a pool or a trampoline or a brand new fixie bike. If they need to compensate for their bad personalities by showing off their toys, they will eventually be exposed thru their own words. OH poseurs in Brooklyn..they move to Brooklyn so they can have the guy from the Strokes hairdon't from five years ago and also wear the outfits they also wore five years ago...If they dress really bad like its the eightes and ride a fixie bike THEN they'll become the prom queen. Then no one will be on to the fact that they're vacant because they'll be hiding behind the uniforms!

I ride a hybrid and it KICKS ASS!!!
Its ironic, no, that bike people are starting to suck so much because its being killed by trendyness. My brakes have saved my ass in traffic many times. If you're really a bad ass bikerider, then you don't need to go around telling everyone you are. I ride my bike to and from places and I don't ride it to gain street cred with a boys club of bar a-holes. Its exactly like football my friend was saying today, and its all about immature guys trying to look cool to other immature guys based on how much money they spend on their bikes. How lame is that!!

Like I'm sure Ashley Simpson rides a fixie and dyes her hair black and wears stripey tights. HOW BAD ASS to need to be like everyone else!!
I actually like to ride the fixed gears...I just think its so lame that people are supposed to keep up with the latest fad if they want the time of day from their neighbors. I know so many pious vegans who eat vegan junk food 247, are ASSHOLES, only speak to other vegans, and think they are hard when they come from a development in the burbs, + all their friends are whiteys, and ps they are sheltered. If you want to know them you have to be a vegan who sustains life thru tofutti cuties, frozen salt licks disguised as veggie burgers, and similar crap marketed to "alternateens." Being vegan is cool - being a cop is uncool. Its just like tatoos- if you don't drink the kool aid and get a tatoo you aren't cool. Tatoos make you TOUGH, right? I don't think so .. I feel like a rebel because I don't have some bad tatoo.

The fact that there is now a semi-sizable contingent of (in my opinion) elitist types means that bikes are now considered (semi)cool.

It's easy to complain about those kinds and these kinds, but let's all look at the silver lining.

More people riding bikes=good thing.

So let's all hope that this "bikes are cool" trend continues.

Whoa! that was some rant. excellent!
I ride a stock SanHoe too, right down to the plastic pedals. Wanna derby? SanHoe is the way to go! No MUSS no FUSS. I can tell you lots of storys of janky fixe breaky downie spendy money to keep riding janky fixe.

I'm with Marion on this ride.

I'd say that there are worse things in life than the spectacle of the whole fixie/SS scene becoming the trend du jour; for my money (and this is coming from a Right Coast perspective – straight outta Brooklyn, to be exact), if this phenomenon got just one would-be urbhip type to give up his/her überpimped Jimmy Denial or shiny turnkey "AMEX outlaw" Harley, I'm rooting for more. Of course, on the streets of NYC, a fixie poseur's life-expectancy is brutally brief; as a result, you don't see too many of them around. And, as a bunch, the serious fixie/singlespeed crowd here, IMO, is a good deal friendlier than the wannabe-racerboy crowd staring you down from behind their (fill in current cool sport-shades brand here) because you obviously don't ride as hard (or as flash) as they do.

I don't ride fixed, and have no desire to; I'm putting together a two-speed coaster-hub setup that'll look fixed from a slightly-inebriated distance (I suppose), but that's because I love the minimalist form, but have my own ideas regarding simplicity.

In the end, I just love seeing more people getting around on bikes. The fact that the bikes are something other than musclebound MTBs doesn't hurt, either.

BWB

Josh, darling, it's not fixies, per say, but the really annoying elitist holier than thou attitude that really harshes on my hippy mellow.

So, do tell me:
1) Where were these free piles that you salvaged your bike from? That is, what part of town were they located in and what sorts of people donated things to the free pile?
2) Dear young thing, how did you, at your young age, learn how to overhaul hubs?
3) How many hours would you estimate you have spent working on your bike?

Please understand, I am all about people getting their roll on all by the'selves. However, the assumption that everyone with thumbs can and should build up their bike from a hunk of metal ore and some kindling and firewood is, well, not at all square with a realistic view of the world.

That being said, everybody stfu and go ride your bike.

who dude, you went balls deep with that one... but i really think your missing the point of riding a fixed gear. it is the simplest form of cycling. i converted from a single speed to a fixed gear 5 years ago, i am 19 years old now and i love it, but there is plenty of stigma and a bounty of haters here in portland, oregon. i ride a sticker covered mid 80s nishiki racing frame that i salvaged from a dumpster, with a 70s era campy front wheels and a
drua-ace rear cog both of which i found in free piles and overhauled to working condition, collectively i have put less than $70 into it, i conciously tried to make it look undesirable. any way within the past 2 years i have seen an incredible amount of fixies appear, about a year ago a "hip" bike shop specializing in track bikes opened so i went to go price out how much a new fixie would cost and upon entering i felt uncomfortable so i inquired about th cost of building a fixie only to find out that the minimum i could spend would be 1000. this was outrageous although there was obviously a high demand for them because every other bike i saw was a bianchi or something similar with colored Velo rims and no brakes. and now my fair city is littered with yuppie-1300-dollar-fixie-riding-assholes who call me a fixie n00b even though they dont even know how to stop. it is ridiculous and a cruel generalization and i am tired of being alienated because i am thrifty, no, not even thrifty, because i am responsible, and not a consumer whore

Oh Marion,
You had me until you mentioned the hybred. Sigh...

Ugh. I'm getting worn out with all the 'Fixie' stuff. i liked it better when riding your bike was just riding your bike. i kinda don't like that generations of tradition, and what has essentially been a way of life for me and for many others is now some kind of checkered van wearing, Tim Burton-extra looking hipster thing to do. Please latch on to your next fashion trend. Talk about commodifying something....Good Lord, go away.

fine rant. and an even finer and well balanced explaination afterwards.

but excuse my limey lack of understanding of u.s. colloquialisms - what's a 'straightedge'?

HHmmmmm.... can you expand on this thought a bit?

“Ten days?! But I’m angry now!”
Homer Simpson

Ah, yes, I am a bitch. I have no qualms admitting that I do sometimes, rarely, when provoked, see red. The e-mail that I fired off to you (at least a month ago!) wherein I ranted about veganstraightedgefixie pukes was not without some provocation. Perhaps I can describe the interaction(s) that lead me to produce that foaming, seething rant.

So, I ride bikes. Not very well, but you know, I generally spend more time upright than on the ground. I ride bikes that freewheel because, well, I’m lazy (and poor). Additionally, I’m a vegetarian. I’ve been a vegetarian for well over half my life now (13 years and counting) and have in the past walked the straight and narrow vegan path for at least 1.5 years. Furthermore, I come from a family wherein alcoholism/addiction problems stretch as far back as our collective memory reaches. Pops, several uncles, grandfather, grandmother, great aunts, great uncles, etc. have all struggled with/against demon alcohol. Consequently, as a wee little lass, knee high to a grasshopper, I had it beaten into my head to approach the bottle (and company) with a healthy dose of caution.

Blah, blah, blah. Why does this matter and what does this have to do with self-righteous veganstraightedge fixie hipsters? Given my history and personal convictions, I was seething after a particularly idiotic discussion (and unprovoked, I might add!) with a veganstraightedge fixie hipster kid.

So, I have a Bianchi SanHoe. Working in a shop, I put some green down to get a bike I could ride around town, play polo on, and perhaps even race on. I ride the SanHoe ‘round BerkeleyOaklandElCerrito and many people comment on it, including one veganstraightedge fixie hipster, who I will call, for the sake of convenience, xChodex.

I meet xChodex one day as I was heading to or from somewhere. I don’t remember exactly. xChodex asks me where I got the bike, etc. I tell him I work in a shop, how much I like the bike, etc. Then, xChodex tells me that I sold out to the man by buying a SanHoe, and that I should have built up some dirty-wop, 70s era steel frame that he insisted were a dime a dozen on Craigslist. He continued by telling me that the cobbled together fixies that are all so common now were really more the people’s bike than my SanHoe ever could be.

I practice my counting skills as he disses my ride, my lack of originality, and my contribution, via the SanHoe, to the oppression of the people.

Then, how the subject got changed and how he didn’t pick up on the clues to stop fucking talking to me I don’t know, he starts talking about how everybody should be vegan and how people who were vegetarians are just posers. “Oh. I’ve been a vegetarian for over half my life. 13 years and counting. xChodex, how long have you been vegan?” he sheepishly replied something about “almost 6 months, but I was on and off for about a year…” There was even more discussion re. Alchohol and substances, but it was more of the same so I won’t bore you.

So, why did my interaction with xChodex irritate my delicate sensibilities to the point where I called not just one, but three of my friends, to bitch and moan, and when still not satisfied e-mailed off you folks a lil rant?

First, xChodex’s insistence that “The People’s Bike” is more janky fixie conversion that is cobbled together with chicken wire and duct tape than my lovely SanHoe is fallacious. Lemme break it down for you. Any schmuck with the $ can go and buy a SanHoe. Can any schmuck cobble together some dirty-wop 70s era steel frame? No.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Cycling, building bikes, etc. requires one to draw on a very particular, nitpicky body of knowledge and not every sector of society has equal access to this esoterica.

If you want to pretend that everyone does have the same access to this body of knowledge, tell me how many bike shops there are in Richmond? Alright, what about the interweb, supposedly the information equalizer? Study after study shows that interweb access is not fair and equal throughout the entirety of American society, so that’s out too. Internet access at libraries, what about that? Well, which libraries have the longest open hours and the most computers? If you guessed Compton, Richmond, Bayview Hunter’s Point, etc., I’m sorry, but you are wrong. And, even if you can find a library with computers in “economically depressed” areas, chances are you will be limited to only a half hour’s worth of surfing. So, no, not everyone has equal access to knowledge in this country and fixed gear conversions don’t build themselves, now do they?

Alright, say some young puke in an “economically depressed” area does have interweb access. How is ze going to know what size frame to buy, how to make sure that the frame is straight and hasn’t been crashed to the point where it’s unusable etc.? This is all specific knowledge, that by and large, this young punk kid will have a hard time accessing.

Furthermore, once ze has a frame, ze still has to worry about headset handlbars, stem, wheels, seatpost, saddle, bottom bracket, cranks, chain, pedals, cog. There is the potential for at least 3 different, unique fuck ups for every one of these parts to put on ze’s new frame, and again, even with access to that specific body of cycling knowledge, fuck ups will happen.

So, by now, this young punk kid has spend $100-200 on some old, almost broken steel frame (because it’s the “people’s bike”), at least $200 on all the rest of the stuff, and countless hours putting it all together. Perhaps ze has even had to go into a shop in the next nearest middle class ‘burb because ze needs help putting it all together. So, ze shells out more money for labor and on top of that, is most likely condescended to by the (admittedly overworked and underpaid) bike shop staff, leaving ze with a bitter taste in ze’s mouth about this whole thing.

Finally, bliss. Ze gets to ride the bike, and all is good. Happy times for all.

Then, shit breaks down, and ze has to shell out even more money to fix ze’s ride. So, the fixie conversion tab grows.

Or, ze could have just bought a SanHoe (or similar) from the shop that is the least pedantic and condescending to ze. On the surface it would appear that the fixie conversion is indeed the “People’s Bike” however given the limited access to the body of knowledge that is required to build up the “People’s Bike” and the time and money spent scrubbing for parts to make it all work, the “People’s Bike” is not so much the “People’s Bike” but rather the bike that gets built by middle class hipsters who are trying to be cool by slumming it.

So, xChodex’s insistence that anyone and everyone could and should build their own fixed gears was built on all sorts of assumptions that don’t actually hold for the whole breadth of American society. Furthermore, his disdain for those who “sell out” and buy production bikes is nothing less than elitism and snobbery. (xChodex had a similar sensibility as is seen in Born Agains...ugh!)

(When I was talking with some friends of mine who ride about a boy I had a crush on, they were shocked to find out that he, gasp, rode a hybrid! “How can you have a crush on someone who rides a $300 hybrid?!?” they asked. If you substitute “$300 hybrid” for “1987 HondaNissanHyundia” the elitism and snobbery of that question is much more apparent. Ugh. WTF? How is that an ok question to ask?)

Sweet. Bikes used as tools of exclusion rather than inclusion. Fuckin’ idiots.

And I know, it is very white, middle-class, granola eating, Berkeley hippy of me to spend so much time and emotional energy on this, but I really resented the fact that xChodex implied that I was somehow oppressing “the people” by riding a SanHoe.