On the way down there we drove High Street south through the Short North. What continues to surprised me is the increasing number of "fixi" bikes appearing in the Columbus area. These bikes are truly fun to ride, but with the price of them rising, they're now so much more of a fashion statement than they were where I got my first one in the Netherlands.
It's probably inconceivable to me to buy a new "fixi" just because of how I got started riding my own in the NL. Jess, one of my flatmates, was a biker from UC Davis and thoroughly excited about bikes in general. After hitting it off well with our bike shop friend, Ivo, she decided to build a single-gear bike. Now, the difference between these and the previous single-gear bikes that I have experience with is that these are locked single-gears instead of a free wheel. This means that you virtually don't need brakes (assuming you locked the gear down well) to stop, because you can just back pedal hard and skid your tire to stop the bike.
For those of you who didn't have the same childhood, let me just say that skid-stopping was one of the reasons I never wanted to switch to a big kid's bike, and so I was pretty excited about the riding opportunity that this type of bike presented. Plus, with the minimal number of parts, this is also easier to keep up and in operating condition. It's simple.
Are there drawbacks to a fixed gear? Oh, yeah. I've been riding down a street before and back-pedaled only to find my gear not tightened down and suddenly I'm out of control with no hands on the brakes and no immediate way to stop. The look on my face was definitely similar to a deer when I slid out in front of the car in the street.
And then there was the day that I was beat after a long day at Borney's and couldn't get my feet out of the pedals in time to bail after a failed attempt to navigate the people gates on my way to Alex's trailer. I ran straight into the people gate, smashing my finger under it, and thus holding myself upright. The only way to dismount the bike was by virtually breaking my finger through wrenching it out, but the pain of sitting there seemed to justify this extreme action. To this day I still have a bump on my right ring finger from where the bone recalcified. No big deal.
Or there was the day that we took a countryside ride and ended up headed downhill. To capitalize on the momentum we were gaining, I put my feet out of the pedals (my only brake system) and let the pedals spin increasingly fast around as I went down hill. (Because the gear is locked, you can't coast with your feet in the pedals. On a hill this steep you would just be slowing yourself down.) Bracing for disaster, I pulled a ballcap over my face and just steered conservatively, hoping to make it down the hill since I now had pulled my feet out of my only braking system.
End story goes like this. I came home to a less bike-friendly America, and Dad insisted I replace with a free-wheel that he offered to buy. I now have both options on my back hub, along with a set of functional brakes. (The reason I didn't have any emergency brakes overseas was due to the fact that I traded parts just for the back wheel, including collectible components. I didn't want to pay for emergency brakes.) I still love my bike, and am glad to see people that get so into this fun type of bike-riding, but you'll never experience it in my way, where the scarred bike is symbolic of the money you didn't have rather than the trendy frame you ordered.
Next bike for me... either one to ride in the Pelotonia next year, or a Bamboo. :)
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