The Five Elements of Fixed Gear

Scott: well I ended up editing my own comment about the edit out!

the only problem I have with any of your post is that you're presuming I have a certain take on it and that that take is somehow superficial or "scene"-based. I'm not interested in riding fixed gear because there's a scene, though you have to admit looking round London (probably a distorted view of the wider picture) that some kind of scene has now emerged. But the thread wasn't called five elements of the scene. I didn't start buying parts in reponse to a scene, I started getting interested in it from reading Sheldon Brown (I was living and riding in Scotland at the time) and then when I got back to London specifically seeing PeterD's bike when it was first built. I felt a rush off the aesthetic that I hadn't felt since I was a kid looking at road bikes and getting fanatical over the first years of BMX. Since early last summer that old, good, pure feeling of enthusiasm has just got better and better - I've revisited all the old components I used to fanaticise when I was a kid, I found a frame that meant something to me as a kid.

I joined the forum at a time when I needed to as I wasn't able to enthuse and talk bikes with anyone around me. From that point I've seen five things being done in London specifically on bikes with a fixed gear and I've got enthusiastic about them all, most recently with Rollapaluza (which incidentally is a blisteringly good night out). In the meantime I've met some great people who are all capable of talking of little else but bikes when it suits them. And if I had just kept riding my Giant hybrid I would basically have stuck to riding roads and hills with my ipod on.

I have only been riding fixed a few months, though it's the culmination of fifteen months' enthusiasm and effort, in a year when a bike build should have been way down on my list of financial prioirities. And I can't explain the lure of it but it really isn't about living in Shoreditch and seeing a few art students riding around and thinking it's some ticket to cool - I'm a bit old for that and I've seen hip shit come and go as we all have. I've been riding a lot again over the last 18 months - now riding fixed has kicked in in the way people like Sheldon Brown were talking about, it feels great and it does feel better than geared, and I was getting a lot of enjoyment out of that.

I'm with you, I think first and foremost bikes are great, but fixed gear is what we're here to discuss and when it comes down to it I've been nuts about this shit in the last year, not recumbents or carbon road bikes.

If I post too much (and I post way too much) it's not about being over-opinionated or talkin' loud, it's about being enthusiastic, happy to be here and wanting to chat and goof around with people I've got to know in London and others I haven't met yet - the forum I found last year was sharp, witty, generous-spirited and knowledgeable and you were among those people I creased at a lot (especially names and faces..). Your interpretation of my posting maybe is a bit grumpy, cos right now I'm in the first year of a whole new world of cycling enjoyment and perhaps it's all old hat to you and you wonder what the fuss is about, but anyone who I roll back with from the pub nights will tell you I fuckin love riding.

So the thread was trying to be tongue in cheek about the five elements too - cos the main element I get from fixed gear is an incredible enjoyment out of being on my bike.

Still, "wall of words" is yet again what I seem to be posting. Sorry to bore / cause mass skim reading.