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The New York Times Catches Fixed Gear Fever

Jason of Fortynine Sixteen fame doing a one legged skid

Ya gotta hand it to the New York Times for being only a few years behind on this latest trend piece. Fixed gear bikes have been significantly sprouting up around the City and across the country for the past decade or so, but looks like the media is finally starting to pay some attention. In what must have been an effort to make up for lost time, the Times double dipped into the brakeless bike subculture and did two multimedia enhanced features this past weekend. There was this article on Bike Polo (video feature), a game played mainly on fixed gear bikes, and then this more comprehensive piece called ‘Unstoppable‘ (interactive feature) that took a look at the culture at large: the bike shops that cater to fixies, the Kissena Velodrome (an elliptical bike track with banked curves made for riding track bikes), and some of it’s stalwart devotees like bike builder Johnny Coast and velodrome director John Campo. It’s mainly a fluff piece that hits on the traditional touch points of hipster inclusion/exclusion, keepin’ it real, sellin’ out, and salty bike messengers, but is worth a read regardless.