Fixie kids take note...

Fixie kids take note...

You sound a lot like this when you try to explain the reason you ride fixed.

[and yes, I know this because I have caught myself explaining it that way too... we're all guilty]

finding the hidden

on wednesday i went for a ride on the trails in the cedar valley. i packed my bag with the usual stuff; my sketchbook, pens and markers, camera, a book, and a journal. i had the intention of riding for a while and then stopping off at a coffee shop to read and sketch. a short ride followed by a long chill time. i started my ride and, eventually, ended up under a highway bridge looking at the pillars that held it up. it was there that i saw some of the best art i have seen in a while. there was graffiti on each pillar. some it was thin and novice, but there were a few that inspired me, since i am an artist myself. i parked my bike [lucy] and pulled out my camera. i spent a good 45 minutes exploring this make-shift gallery, taking photos and admiring this unnoticed art. in the end, i pulled out a marker and added a statement to sum it all up. i wrote "this is real art." nothing profound, just simple.

now, i have driven on that bridge at least 100 times and never have i known about the incredible work that was displayed below. i only noticed this art because i was riding a bike. it reminded me of an email i received from my dad, who is also a cyclist, last fall. he sent it to me and all of his friends who had hung up there bikes and bought motorcycles. it talks about noticing the little things, the things unseen when driving a car, the things revealed when you are "one with the road."

here is the email from my dad:

Today I saw the blackbirds pestering a hawk as he flew from perch to perch, a deer, horses playing in the barn lot because they didn’t even know I was there, a new hole in the abandoned barn roof that wasn’t there in the spring, a tall pine tree standing like a sentinel in the middle of a country cemetery as if it was standing guard over the loved ones who had been buried there, roadkill, the shadows on the crops as the sun rose higher in the sky, a new strip of gravel that had just been place the day before along side the road, a patch of yellow wild flowers dancing in the gentle breeze. Today I heard crickets and other insects looking for one more mate before the seasons changed and the cool weather drives them into hibernation, the pop of an American flag and the clink of the chain as it slapped against the flag pole, the sound of a distant bird singing as it sat on the telephone wire and the sound of small kids playing in the yard. Today I could smell the fragrance of purple cone flowers as they fought out the remnants of an old barnyard and the sweet scent of the corn and beans as they begin to dry down and drop their leaves as they prepare to be harvested.

Why did I see, hear and smell these things? Because I was cruising by under my own power and not that of 1200 cc engine.

Peddle on.

I ride a fixie, but I'm not hipster

As of a year ago, I only knew one person that rode a fixie; Alo.

Now, I attend an art school in the *newly appointed* number one bicycling city in the America, MPLS, and it would be easier for me to name people who did not ride a fixie. The bike racks are daily littered with fixed-gear after fixed-gear, with colourful rims and bar tape, playing cards in the spokes and perfectly mismatched everything else.

Yes, I am talking about hipster fixie riders.

Now, I will admit it: I ride a fixie. I have every intention of swapping out parts to make her, Lucy, match and I sometimes wear tight jeans so as to not get my pant leg stuck in the crank. To anyone, I look like another hipster riding a fixie because it is hip, but deep down, I am not a hipster. If anything, I am an accidental hipster.

I know how it goes, "If you are denying being ____, you are totally ___." I agree with this, and I am not denying having hipster fixie riding qualities, but there are two things that set me apart from the actual dirty hipster trendy fixie riders.

PBR and handle-bars.

1. I do not drink PBR and everyone, who is anyone, knows that hipsters live on that stuff. I have a higher standard for my taste buds. Yes, bicycling and beer really do go hand in hand, but not can in hand. I do not drink PBR [or smoke American Spirits] so there for there is no way that I can be a hipster fixie rider.

2. The proper way to get on a bike is debated by scholars on nearly a daily basis. Hop on like horse, lean the bike over, there are plenty of options. The one option that every hipster has adopted is swinging the leg over the handle bars. You look like a pretentious idiot [I know I sound like one, but I will openly admit it]. The proper way to get on a bike is not to swing your leg over the front of the bike. One of my best friends mounts her bike this way ... I yell "hipster" at her every time. I know that it is an adaptation from serious cyclists ... but hipsters dirtied it up.

I'm not trying to hate, but sometimes it is good to get it out there.

So in the end, I might look like a hipster, though my pants are a little looser and my hair has been freshly washed, but I watch me get on Lucy and you will see that I am hipster hater just like everyone else. Yes, i just started riding fixie, but not to join the hipster trends. I started riding to join a brotherhood and connect with a 319 brother in another state. Yes, ultimately it doesn't really matter who is a hipster and who is not. Who works on their own bike and who needs help. Bicycling is all about connections, both intimately and communally.

The labels and the looks don't matter. Hipster or not, all that does matter is the fact that we just ride. Isn't that what the bicycling community is all about? Isn't that what we, NDJR, is all about?

Just ride.

...but don't call me a f*cking hipster.