(Un)fix your bike

Bicycles are all the rage for getting around Portland. There are many different types of bicycles that could be used: road bikes, mountain bikes, BMX bikes, 10-speed bikes, 24-speed bikes, one-speed bikes or fixed-speed bikes. However, this article only focuses on one of them: fixed-speed bicycles.

A fixed-speed bicycle is a bike that has the pedals and the wheels connected in such a manner that the wheel and the bicycle cannot turn on their own accord. When one turns, the other turns. There are no gears and usually no hand brakes. In order to stop, you have to stop the pedals from turning. Fixed-speed bikes were designed to be used on a velodrome.

A velodrome is essentially a racetrack. Recently, however, bikes designed for this have made their way onto the roads. Usually fixed-speed bikes don’t have brakes, although some owners do opt to install them.

Stephen Regenold, writer of The Gear Junkie syndicated column, notes that when riding a fixed gear he gets a strange feeling of being more connected to the bike.

I don’t buy it. It’s a fashion statement and it’s a dumb one. Who cares if people should be allowed to make fashion statements no matter how dumb, right? This leads to an interesting question: Are these bikes, which typically have no brakes, safe?

Did I mention that it’s a dumb fad? For one, speeders, you either can’t go that fast, have a hard time going up hills or both. Safety is a huge concern.

A few years ago I asked a PSU student who had a fixed gear about the safety of not having brakes and his reply was something to the effect of fixed-speed bikes are safer because the rider has more control of the bike.

Vincette Betette, a bike messenger in Washington, D.C., says that he doesn’t think some people should ride these bikes. He believes a lot of people who switch over to this style of bike just go headlong into the backs of cars.

I can admit with my one experience in riding a fixed speed, I had a very difficult time stopping. Some proponents of no-brakes fixies believe that having a brake on a fixed-speed bike is like broadcasting the fact that you don’t know how to ride a fixed speed and are a poseur.

Most will (or should) admit that having hand breaks make it easier to stop if a car cuts in front of you.

Sheldon Brown, bike expert and author of Adventure Cyclist, lists several hazards of riding a fixed-speed bike, include hitting your pedal on a turn an issue because you have to pedal through a turn, catching a finger or shoelace in the sprocket or chain, and catching a finger in the sprocket when trying to fix the bike.

The threat of these hazards may rise exponentially on a fixed speed if a person is not used to riding one. Betette also poses the question that if you ride your bike three blocks to get a case of beer and head back home, why do you need a fixed speed? According to The Washington Post, most people who started the fixed-speed trend were bike messengers that got tired of their bikes breaking all the time, so they removed all the unnecessary parts.

In other words, they did it for a practical purpose. That purpose is not applicable to the average rider; they use their bikes as a part of their job. Their bike is to them what a taxi is to cab driver. The average person riding a fixed speed is like driving a taxicab when you are not a cab driver. It’s fine as long as it is your cab but you still look like an idiot.