Fixies in themselves as tools for riding on anything other than constant incline routes that they are optimally geared for are utterly and totally totally useless. For the ideal course conditions, they are the optimal concept over short distances, but as the distance increases, rider fatigue sets in, wattage drops, and the gearing becomes too high: the fixie becomes a sick joke in performance terms.
As training tools, I will take the word of people who express the opinion that they teach you how to be smoother and more efficient when you return to riding a proper bike.
There has always been and always will be a generation gap: things I did (and do) were (are) as incomprehensible to the previous generation as a lot of what the present generation does is to me. The "generation gap disparoval factor" is usually caused by differently expressed values, and expression of identity. This latter factor includes clothing, haircut, self harm in different forms, and transportation. Fixies are a form of statement of cultural identity expressed through transportation. That is a complicated way of saying they are a peer-pressure fad: "everybody I know has a fixie, I need a fixie to be part of the tribe". They are also a part of self endagerment, or potential self harm. (Somebody here stated that a lot of fixie riders could "bunny-hop" to a stop over a surprisingly short distance. You bet. If they have the bunny-hop stunt prepared. Facing the unexpected, brutal reality of a head-on collision, a fixie rider won't bunny-hop, he'll widen his eyes and squeeze his buttocks and crash at full speed). Finally, fixies are a form of art, art is just expression after all.
Some of the art is wonderful, most of it reinforces me in my belief that "artists" should have to pass a test before expressing any artistic tendancies which leave any trace to offend people with taste. This applies to would-be potters, painters, poets and others, as well as fixie "builders".
The only points worth debating are: should both front and back brakes be law (I believe they should, no bike without brakes is safe on an open road); should something be done to stop people, whether tatooed, drugged or neither, from irrevrsribly maiming bicycles in transforming them into fixies. Realistically, no law will ever be promoted to stop bike hacking and mangling, so it is down to the individual to make his choice as to whether he aims to stop the fixie thing, and determine what means he is prepared to use to attain his purpose. Griping never attains results, only action does. I can imagine many effective forms of action, but to avoid potential lawsuits, I will refrain from mentionning them onlist.
If I ever see a fixie-botch rider on the roads here, I shall daily humiliate him by freewheeling past him. My choice of action.
Any fixie enthusiast writing me on or offlist that he can take me on with a fixed gear bike over a distance with me riding a geared bike with freewheel is either a megalomaniac, or has a severe case of victim syndrome.
Peace and love or whatever to the fixie community,
Nick March, Mont de Marsan, France
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