I rode a fixed-gear bike for the first time the other day (after Matt’s photo shoot). I went about 50 yards and it did not weird me out as expected.
And there you have my review of fixies. From now on, I can talk about them from experience; with expertise, no less.
Yesterday I saw that Swiss bike maker, bedovelo, has introduced (what they claim to be) the world’s first two-speed fixie.
A two-speed fixie! What is the world coming to?
Actually, I know what the world is coming to. The fixie world anyway.
I’ve seen this play out before. Fixed-gear cyclists are to cycling what vegetarians are to eating.
I was a very strict vegetarian for 12 years, beginning when I was still in high-school. Back then, it was pretty self-evident what a vegetarian was. Maybe not to my mom, but to me.
But then I learned about vegans, who made me feel less ideologically pure. They regarded me as an ovo-lacto vegetarian.
Then I learned about vegetarians who were okay with eating fish: pesce-vegetarians. And chicken-eating vegetarians: pollo-vegetarians
Vegetarianism became a victim of it’s cultural appeal. The terminology and multiple hyphenations made things so muddled that eventually some wiseguy facetiously coined the term omni-vegetarian to ridicule people who want to wear the vegetarian label while still eating the diet of a hyena.
But enough about that. (If you want to read vegetarians whining about how the omnivorous world just doesn’t understand, search for it. Or… You can go to any fixed-gear forum and substitute “fixed gear rider” with “vegetarian” and substitute any other type of rider with “clueless omnivorous idiot.” It’ll be pretty much the same thing.)
Fixie riders, welcome to the slippery slope. I hope you have brakes.
Already people get confused between a single-speed freewheel bike and a fixed gear bike. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
If this trend continues, it won’t stop with bedovelo’s two-speed. And you’re going to have to get used to some new terminology:
- Single-speed, no brakes, fixed-gear: fixie
- With brakes: freno-fixie
- To specify single-speed, with brakes: freno-singulus-fixie
- Two-speed: duo-fixie
- Two-speed with brakes: duo-freno-fixie
- Multi-gear (more than two): multi-fixie
- Multi-gear with brakes: multi-freno-fixie
- Freewheel: volubilis-fixie
- Freewheel with brakes: volubilis-freno-fixie
- Freewheel with brakes and gears: multi-volubilis-freno-fixie
- Electric assist: Noooooooooooooooooo!
Get used to it, or welcome to your worst nightmare:
