What made you start riding fixed?

i just do whatever everyone else is doing, let me know when we are moving on to something new

sheldon brown, potetskrel, and a dislike of things that go bump on your bike...

Eh? Real curryers don't wash.. :)

maybe he was dried up then...

i just do whatever everyone else is doing, let me know when we are moving on to something new

Although I'm sure that's sarcastic I bet there' plenty of people who will do that.

Because it had to be switched over for the skid contest, and I couldn't be bothered to flip it back.

wrecked knee via chain coming off...now fixed :)

I started riding fixed about 4 months ago to free my mind of constant thoughts about which gear I should be in and because the bike's so simple, even I can maintain it.

Threats of violence. I don't even like riding bikes, the bigger boys made me do it.

Only bee riding fixed for 3 weeks. I have a 10 mile each way commute in London. I was fed up of having to replace worn parts on my mountain bikes. My commute is fairly flat, so no need for gears.

Cos I want to be cool and rad and shag lots of slutty hipster-chicks. Even though I'm nearly 45, square as fuck and just tend to wank into a sock.

cycle sock?

No - I always use the same one

BoomTish!

The only kid who could beat me on the way into work many years ago was a messenger, it killed me how i couldn't hold his wheel so one day at the lights i compared kit and checked out Sheldon.

Mashton!

Used to work with an ex-curryer/mate of superted. Ended up at the cat and mutton post-work most nights and saw the freshness. Then as this ex-curryer was also an ex-cyclesurgeon he managed to get me a tasty discount on a bowery. Quickly realised that riding a bowery ss made me look like a fool so sold for a profit and used cash to build cheaper, faster, older, lighter fixed gear bike and never looked back.
Although ss isn't really for me now it did help me make the jump from bmx to full size bikes, before the thought of a full size bike was kinda daunting, let alone fixed as well.

That and it makes you look cool, just like smoking.

Low maintainence/light bike/simplicity/beauty.

Init.

is the titel of this thread not "What made you start riding FIXED?"

fixed is single speed.

Unless you have the s3x hub.

/pedant. I know what you're saying though (SS generally implies freewheel etc....).

The London's Calling vid on Youtube. It showed me how riding fixed turns London into a playground!

Was road racing so long ago I can't remember and started riding fixed for winter training and roller racing now do it in the big shity for yucks and fun... yea baaaby! and still go on it for the winter months.

I was serving an old man at work and he told me how in his youth if you wanted to be a real man you had to ride fixed and that they called bikes with a Sturmy Archer poofs bikes.

I wanted to be a "real man."

But mainly that conversation made me remember how much I used to enjoy riding in a velodrome and made me want to start that again. Having to get a ferry everyday anything metal gets killed by the salt air so a fixed street bike was a natural progression.

I first rode on a track in 2004, loved the control of a fixed, moved to london for uni in 06, had my road bike nicked, fixed was cheaper, didn't break as much and i remembered them being good fun so bought one while i was waiting for the insurance to come through...also, they look bang tidy

getting the train from homerton made me want to get a bike in london.. i would wager that's the most overcrowded train in the city and would have the most amount of teeth-kissing when people jam themselves in..

fixed/ss appealed because i wasted a good proportion of my youth cleaning shit out of mtb derailleurs and trying to keep them working smoothly.. couldn't be bothered with any of that..

also used to live on redchurch st and would see the polo-engers on a sunday down at the court near there and then BLB would always have something flash in the window which piqued my interest

Girls

Getting pissed because of throwing away expensive cassettes which were worn out on one gear and pristine on the others. Following a guy riding a single speed racer and hearing about the messengers in London. Which led to a conversation with a roadie lbs and then running a suicide config of spun on track gear w/o lockring and only front brake.

Of course this was back in the day when you could have a conversation with Sheldon. Against his advice I rode a BMX chain tensioner, which didn't self destruct, but then I couldn't brake with the back end. Which made for nervous riding in the wet, but who cares in the dry, the back is airborne anyway under hard braking.