I love fixed-gear biking in the city. It’s an efficient form of exercise, a great feeling that one is part of the city, and it provides freedom from having to wait for the subway or bus. When I started working at MSKCC, it became apparent to my co-worker and me that I had an incredible opportunity to commute to work by bike. At the time, I had been living on the Upper West Side. The perfect commute would bring me into Central Park at 86th Street, down the Central Park Loop, through the 72nd Street transverse to Park Avenue, left on 68th Street, and finally, with some against-traffic maneuvers, to Rockefeller Research Labs. At about the same time, we had been talking about exploring the city by bike and discussing the phenomenon of fixed-gear biking. After some research, it became obvious to us that we needed this kind of bike.

There’s a phenomenon of fixed-gear biking in urban cities. Some people walk through New York without ever noticing the existence and beauty of fixed-gear bikes. One typically notices the fixed-gear bike by a couple of features—they are aesthetically sleek, and the biker maneuvers with speed. Fixed-gear bikes are minimal road or track bikes lacking derailleurs, extra sprockets, shift levers, and back brakes; a fact that makes these bikes very light. Handlebars can be road or track drops; sometimes bullhorns, flatbars, or risers. Fixed-gear biking often occurs with breath-taking grace and style. Good fixed-gear bikers take to streets like a slalom course, where cars are like gates to be swerved around. We would spot these bikes, as children would Volkswagen Beetles, gasping with delight. We talked about them with exaggerated enthusiasm and admiration, describing them as angelic visions in a world of regularity.

Fixed-gear bikers come in all types—from lone tattooed bike messengers, to trendy hipsters riding in packs, to unassuming bike enthusiasts. Fixed-gear biking in the city probably originated with messengers who realized the utility and simplicity of the fixed-gear bike and adapted the bikes to their world, creating a specific aesthetic and style, and then kids and bikers, who noticed the messengers and their functional aesthetic. Fixed-gear bikes can be track bikes outfitted for the streets, but also road bikes from the 70s to 80s, with horizontal dropouts, that have been easily converted to fixed-gear status. To avoid the mashing of knees, the gear-inch—the distance covered by one revolution of the pedals—is carefully chosen. The gear-inch determined by chainring and sprocket sizes, is usually high-60s to low-70s, the perfectly average gear-setting—high enough to be great for acceleration on flat terrain, low enough to be suitable for moderate inclines.

The nature of the fixed-gear bike lends itself to forward motion. Technically, the gear is fixed because the sprocket is secured to the hub by a reverse-threaded lockring, which means that the pedals are always moving directly with the wheel. Therefore, in motion, one cannot “coast”; one must continue to pedal. By virtue of this fact, one feels immediately “connected” to, or aware of, the conditions and variations of the road. In addition, this fact makes fixed-gear biking an extremely efficient form of exercise. Since the gear is fixed, braking can be achieved without hand-brakes, but instead by applying backward pressure on the pedals, or in other words, by pedalling backward. Therefore, braking is an unnatural act. Yet, speed can be decisively modulated with backward pressure. With rapid enough locking up of the back wheel, the act of skidding allows for quick stops or slowing down. The fixed gear bike is perfectly suited for the stop-go nature of the streets and evasion of red lights and vehicles.

One can, with not too much luck, catch a fixed-gear rider, who is stopped at a light, performing a “trackstand.” The biker appears to at a magical standstill, with feet on pedals at 9-3 or 10-4, but in reality, the biker rocks between tiny forward and backward motions, perfectly balanced, avoiding putting his foot on the ground. Fun to watch, this feat is challenging because the road is not flat, but at an angle, especially at intersections and different at every intersection, so the correct balance has to be quickly found by the rider and also held for several minutes.

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