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Gtane

Here's a short broadcast about the fixie revolution from the BBC's World Service within the programme Culture Shock.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/culture_shock.shtml

verktyg

I live in the SF Bay Area and have to drive hundreds of miles every week for my job. Last Friday I watched a complete idiot on a fixed gear bike with no brakes riding in and out of heavy urban street traffic during the evening rush hour.

This clown was a future candidate for the Darwin Awards. Not only was he oblivious to the flow of traffic, but he didn't ride very well. It was as if he'd never ridden more than a few miles on a bike.

But he was COOL... He had a matching red and black messenger bag to match his bike, clothing and hair. In Portland they're called "fakenger bags".

Wannabe proletariats! Rolling Eyes

The real and valid complaint that I have against ^#%(*&^ idiots recklessly riding fixed gear bikes in traffic is the negative attitudes that they engender in many motorists towards cyclists. I've been riding bikes on public streets and roads for over 55 years (I'm 64). I and many other cyclists have worked hard to get and protect the right to ride these thoroughfares.

I could care less if the fool gets himself run over but I ride those same streets and I don't like to have to deal with aggressive drivers with bad attitudes towards cyclists.

I don’t suffer fools gladly. I've never been into fads. Most of todays fixie riders have just recently graduated up from sidewalk shredding on their skateboards. When the fixie fad is over many of their expensive fixie bikes will end up in dumpsters.

It's late, enough ranting for one night. Evil or Very Mad

Chas the Terrible Mad

lofter

lmao .....deep breathe chas ............better.

vanhelmont

I tried the broadcast, but what I got was about storing seeds in the permafrost in Norway. Maybe I'll send some derailleurs. Then after the next ice age whoever finds a fixie in a newly-thawed dumpster can restore it to its proper condition.

The best bike anybody I knew back in the day had was a Raleigh Professional. I bid on one on ebay that some doofus had filed the brake cable guides off of, and generally trashed the top tube. Then he didn't want it because it wouldn't take a big enough tire. It went cheap for a Professional, and you could always use the srew-on clamps, but I didn't trust the top tube after it had been filed on. .5 mm isn't much already.

Well, if I had got it I couldn't have bought the Super Corsa.

verktyg · Last edited by verktyg on Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:41 pm; edited 2 times in total

verktyg

sandranian · Site Admin

I am not sure what to make of that joke...being married, I would take the bike...but they were college students, so that is a bit odd. I guess they were engineers....

lofter

verktyg