Fixed Gear bikes are a style of bike that prides itself on it's "biking purity". They are not all about tricks, and they aren't for Tour de France hopefuls, they are for the street, for taking you places. The trend is large frames, thin tires, and their namesake the fixed gear. "Fixed" as in one gear that connects the pedals to the back tire. Which leaves the rider pedaling perpetually as long as he/she is moving and the back tire is turning.
Fixies have been around for years. Popular with recreation cyclists, city kids, and bike messengers, for the control they give the rider during the commute. Many riders remove all breaks from the bikes because it is possible to stop by using your feet to stop the pedals. Though that's actually illegal in many U.S. Cities.
They're expensive, and limited to fair-quality-road use, so how did they become the headliner of their own popularity show. They somehow supply an experience which is definitive of new cultural aspects in young modern america.
Fixed Gear bikes are popular everywhere with paved and relatively flat roads. They are a stylish way to get around town, either solo or in a group. And they're a great status symbol of a new majority fighting for dominance, the hipster kid.
Hipsters are thought to be trend followers. Moving from niche to niche, exploiting any kind of shiny genius they can find and wearing like it like a platinum chain. Some are, some simply look for a certain level of polished convenience, common-sense, and efficiency in life. A categorization that can be used for Mac users, or Dr. Dre Beats Users, or Tom's Sneakers Wearers, and even Vegans.
Brands like trends have the power to streamline the dialogue between human and enviroment. Some fixies are quality bikes, but they're becoming popular because we think they're efficient, smooth, without embellishment, direct, all the things we love, all the things we find sexy. Could biking being trendy ever be a bad thing anyway?
