Warning a long ode to fixed follows..
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Fixed has taught this old dog new tricks and injected new enthusiasm into a life long joy. To the untrained eye it’s just a bicycle. It looks like all the other bicycles, and yet it is an entirely different experience. A trike or recumbent looks different. They are different, and all the better for it. You expect them to be different. The difference is clear for all to see. But not fixed. It hides in plain sight.
I really love it.
The biggest difference is the lack of freewheel - a single gear isn’t a big deal, strangely. But pedalling ALL the time is entirely new to anybody that has cycled for the last 45 years. We’ve always ridden freewheel. What is this crazy business. I see in very old adverts that bicycle forks had stirrups for your feet when going downhill. Old folk were tough. They thought nothing of crashing - it was par for the course. Brakes didn't work, so they regularly head butted walls, people, horses, trees. We’ve become soft…
It reminds me of driving on the opposite side of the road for the first time - everything is familiar, and yet you can’t trust your unconscious skills: You are plunged back into the chaotic and overwhelmed world of a beginner. It’s fine when things are going well - but the instant something urgent occurs, the legs stop moving! Or if you leave a cafe after a long break, and set off pedalling, then reach back to adjust the bag - of course stopping to pedal. The tyres screech, your legs are thrown into confusion, your bum jumps off the seat, and finesse leaves on a one way trip to Timbuktu. It’s like walking awkwardly across a busy town square with a massive tray of overfilled beer, and then an air raid siren wails at full blast. Goodbye beer, hello panic.
Eventually you remember, but it takes many repeats of the refrain “Keep bloody pedalling oaf!” - the steering wobbles a bit, and self-inflicted crisis is averted. Until the next time…
Did I mention that I love it?
If you are feeling jaded, the miles feel samey, the roads overly familiar. You’ve lost the desire to do shorter rides. Why not try fixed? It’s like introducing a puppy to an older dog. There will be grumbling. There will be rolling of eyes. There will be constant complaints. And yet - the twinkle in the eye will return. The colours feel brighter. The sounds more nuanced. This new interloper is really annoying… please get rid of them… tomorrow. Or the day after… or maybe the day after that…
