Wading in to the track-bike-on-the-street dust up: here is an essay on the subject of fixie chicks my daughter wrote this summer. She lives in Philadelphia, and rides three thoroughly on-topic bikes. Her fixie is a late 1970s orange Lejeune track bike. With a front brake, I must add.
FIELD GUIDE
Late last winter I was riding home from my studio, tired and grimy after sculpting all day. I badly wanted a hot shower and a hot meal and a few hours of sleep. It must have been around two AM, because the bars were letting out and the sidewalks were crowded. I was stopped at a light when something hurled itself on me and nearly knocked me over. It was a woman, blonde, dressed up, made up, heavily perfumed. She had me in a death grip around the middle. She was a lot bigger than me. She was shouting, "I love fixie chicks! I gotta give you a hug!" I could feel each word wet on my face. I was aware of an unhappy looking man on the sidewalk, calling to her. The light mercifully changed, and I twisted away and rode like hell. Later, I told my friends about this incident with much moaning and grimacing and unspoken pride. A fixie chick is a pretty cool thing to be. Fixie chicks, in its broadest sense that means women who favor fixed gear bikes, are divided into four distinct strata. At the bottom are those who enjoy the company of messengers but do not ride themselves. Two of my friends are in this category. They love knowing bike people (both in the modern and biblical senses) and throw great parties for them and know all the latest cycling gossip and are fanatical about the Tour de France. However, whenever either of them ventures onto a bike there is a crash and a broken bone and a vow not to do it again. Next up are the women, usually very young, who ride fixed because it's cool. Their bikes are often brightly colored, new, and brakeless. They fall off a lot. They are the ones who bring a flat tire into the shop where I volunteer, complaining that their wheel is broken. Often they are the girlfriends of bike fanatics, and would secretly prefer to drive or at least ride a cruiser. They do have the look down, the short hair and bandanas and tattoos and clove cigarettes. In the third category, the one I fall into, are women who ride a lot, enjoy it, and know something about bikes. Like the first group we choose fixed because it is cool, but also because they are light, low maintenence, fun to ride, have a have a twitchy responsiveness that is great for cities. These are the mechanics, the hardcore commuters, the occasional racers. The bikes are still very much status symbols, but they are often vintage frames built up by the owner to her specific taste. They are more battered than those in the second category, and more loved. The look is much the same, only dirtier. The small backpack is replaced with an enormous messenger bag. The tattoos are larger. The right pantleg is always rolled up, to keep it out of the drivechain while riding and to display impressive calf muscles while not riding. I am something of an oddity in that I have no tattoos, few piercings, don't smoke, drink rarely and bathe often. In the top category are the girl bike messengers. They are hard riding and hard drinking and nothing is cooler than they are. Their wheels bristle with spoke cards and their bodies bristle with metal. They leave trails of broken collegiate male hearts wherever they go, and can be found in bars violently caressing each other. They hate inferior fixie chicks with a jealous passion and are quick with their steel-enhanced fists, but they are rarely challenged. They trackstand on the pinnacle, and they know it. In Philadelphia there are about three. I wonder what we would do without the crutch and symbol of our bikes. How would we define ourselves? Does any other accessory look so good thrown casually over our shoulders? Is there a more stylish entree into the coveted world of male enviability? As poetically as I may laud the happiness of slipping silently through traffic, keeping warm in the valleys between busses and floating past miles of cars, I know I could just as easily ride a steadier bike that would cost me half the money and a tenth of the time, and coast. I could save save myself trouble by taking public transportation once in a while, which I don't, and there is no reasonable explanation for riding in torrential downpours, snowstorms, and blistering heat, which I do. Fixie chicks are not rational people. But I salute them, us (although we resent being classified as a group). I salute our choice of elegance over common sense. I salute our intrusion on a predominantly male world. I salute the importance we attach to one small cog. I salute our ragged beauty. I will not roll my pantleg down.
Michael Shiffer
EuroMeccanica, Inc.
114 Pearl Street
Mount Vernon, NY 10550
(914) 668-1300
euromeccanicany.com