Fixing fixed wheel terminology

Buffalo Bill writing on Moving Target about an article in the British Guardian/Observer newspaper on the Fixie craze.

Bill was ticked at the journalist writing the piece because she referred to the bikes as “fixed gear” when the correct term for the UK should be “fixed wheel.”

I agree, this is a British journalist writing in a British newspaper for a British audience; she should have used British terminology. Anyway, fixed wheel should be the correct term anywhere; it is a “fixed” wheel as opposed to a “free” wheel.

These bikes are described as having “no gears,” then are called “fixed gear.” As I see it, fixed wheel is the more logical term.

I have been guilty in the past of using the “fixed gear” term. In my defense, I can only plead that living in America for the last 29 years, using American terminology comes as second nature to me. Often if I don’t use American English no one knows WTF I am talking about.

If Bill is offended by the term “fixed gear,” let me say it drives me nuts that the fixie crowd refer to toe clips as “cages.” The reason we have all this strange terminology is that people don’t know the correct term, so they make something up.

These are cages.


These are toe clips.

That’s why we have clipless pedals. Pedals without toe clips; like sugarless gum is gum without the sugar. Don’t ask me why you “clip in” to clipless pedals because you’ll get me even more confused.

I’m already confused because some refer to the part of the pedal where the toe clip bolts on to as the “cage.” However, whenever I have seen “cages” come up on the various forums, they are defiantly talking about the shiny bits that go around your toes.

I see subjects like: "My cages hit my front wheel." Answer: Don’t carry yer budgie on the handlebars. (US translation: A budgie is a parakeet.)

The writer of the Guardian article seemed to think the fixie craze was started by West Indian immigrants in New York City in the 1980s. That is a new one to me; I hadn’t heard that one before. If this trend did start in NYC in the 1980s, why did it take over 25 years to go mainstream?

To set the record straight, the fixed wheel craze started the moment the first bicycle was built. The first bicycles had a fixed wheel, often with no brakes or minimum braking; the freewheel and efficient braking were invented later.

Fixed wheel bikes have always been ridden and enjoyed by bike enthusiasts. Ideal for commuting and riding in heavy traffic, or riding in close quarters with other riders. The rider has more control over the bike and can speed up or slow down at will.

Now the trend or current craze is “Riding a fixed wheel bike for no reason other than it is trendy to do so.” Just because everyone else is doing it.

Going brakeless is also a trend, and not necessarily a good one. Having a front brake will not impair your cycling pleasure, or performance one iota; you don’t have to use it. However, in an emergency, you may just be glad it is there.

I think the whole brakeless thing started because bike messengers were riding track bikes that were built with no provision for brakes. Bike messengers probably felt they were experienced enough not to need a brake. They could be right; they are professionals riding a bike all day, every day for a living.

Trendy or not, riding a bike with no alternative means of stopping is not right for everyone. It doesn’t mean that anyone can jump on a brakeless fixed wheel bike with little or no experience, and ride safely in today’s traffic.

You can always spot the inexperienced rider on the track; (Although often these are experienced road riders.) in an emergency, the first they do is stop pedaling and reach for the brakes that aren’t there.

While they are getting over the surprise that the pedals keep on turning, they plow into the rider who has fallen in front of them. Whereas the experienced track rider will instinctively steer around the obstruction.

Anyway, to sum it all up as I see it; it doesn’t matter that people are getting into this trend for all the wrong reasons. For a few, cycling will get into their blood and they will continue in some form or other long after this trend has passed.

Just as many who took up mountain biking in that craze during the late 1980s, early 1990s, and later switched to road bikes. Many are the hardcore, bike enthusiasts of today.

If nothing else, they will experience first hand what it is like to ride a bicycle in traffic. Maybe as adults they will become better car drivers because of it; at least drivers who are tolerant towards other people riding bicycles.

NelsonVails

February being “Black History Month” I thought I would touch on a piece of history that is just twenty, some odd, years old.

In the 1984 Olympic Games, held in Los Angeles, a young black cyclist who grew up in the projects of Harlem, in New York City, won a Silver Medal on the track in the 1,000 meter sprint.

I get the feeling that there are many cyclists out there who have never heard of Nelson Vails, or if they have heard of him have allowed the memory to slip into the far reaches of their memory banks. As for the rest of the population, who remembers a silver medalist in an obscure sport like sprint cycling?

I remember because I met then 19 year old Nelson Vails in 1979, or early 1980 when I worked for Paris Sport in New Jersey. I worked in the frameshop at the back of Park Cycles, a bike shop owned by Vic and Mike Fraysee. Just seven miles from Manhattan, over the George Washington bridge, cyclists from New York City would ride the bike path over the bridge to visit the bike store.

It was on such a visit that Mike Fraysee brought Nelson down to the frameshop and introduced him as an up and coming young bike racer. Later on many trips I made to Lehigh County Velodrome, near Allentown in Pennsylvania, I got to see Nelson Vails race.

Nelson was the youngest of 10 children and grew up in Harlem; he was a bicycle nut by the time he reached his teen years.

Entering races in Central Park and at the bumpy, aging velodrome in Queens, he raced with an assortment of miss-matched cheap equipment, and worn out clothing with holes. He wore a pair of second hand cycling shoes that were too big for him, but in spite of this would hold his own against well-trained athletes on better equipment.

By aged 19 Vails was married and had children of his own; he had to make a living. His natural choice was that of a bike messenger in Manhattan. Bike messengers carry everything from letters and jewels to wedding gowns and baseball uniforms, all over the town, at terrifying speed.

The more packages a messenger carries in a day the more money they make. They learn to ride at the speed of traffic when it is moving, riding in the slipstream of delivery vans. Squeezing through narrow gaps in traffic whenever it is stopped or moving slow.

One would think an eight or ten hour shift as a bike messenger would be training enough, but Nelson would ride 40 miles in the morning before work, and he would also ride on weekends.

All this training, plus the turn of speed he developed on the streets of Manhattan took him all the way to a place on the US National team in 1982. He won a Gold Medal in the Pan American games, held in Venezuela in 1983.

Then in 1984 came disappointment when Nelson was beaten by Mark Gorski in the Olympic trials. The structure of the 1,000 meter sprint event was that only one rider from each country could compete.

Then world politics took over and changed the fate of Nelson Vails. The Russians dropped out of the Olympics and this opened up a spot for one extra rider. The Olympic finals was a repeat of the trials earlier; Mark Gorski won the Gold, and Nelson Vails the Silver. Tsutomo Sakamoto of Japan took the Bronze.

What I remember about Nelson Vails was his personality; always smiling, always joking. His attitude on the track was the same as when he was a bike messenger in Manhattan. “Stay out of my way; I have a job to do.”

In 1986 Nelson made his acting debut in the movie “Quicksilver” starring Kevin Bacon. Appropriately, a story about bike messengers; he was cast as “Messenger in Maroon Beret.”

Nelson Vails has my utmost admiration. He came from a poor and underprivileged neighborhood in Harlem, and despite this, through hard work and determination made it to the top, in what could be seen as a middle class white man’s sport.

The last I heard Nelson was living in Boulder, Colorado; still riding his bike, cycling in recreational tours across the country. You can read more about Nelson Vails on BlackAthlete.com.


Picture source:
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Twiddling

Two important passions in my life have been music and bicycles. Coming of age as I did in the early 1950s, musically, I came in at the end of the Big Band era.

I saw the American big bands like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Stan Kenton when they toured the UK. Later I witnessed the birth of Rock n' Roll in the mid 1950s and experienced first hand the emergence of the British music scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

As for cycling I came in at the end of the fixed wheel era. In the early 1950s all the top time-trialists in the UK rode fixed gear. The picture above from 1948 shows a typical British time-trail scene.

Not a car in site; it is easy to see why this era is often referred to as “The Golden Age of Cycling.” Note the rider has a fixed gear, a single front brake, and the obligatory bell on the handlebars. (Picture from Classic Lightweights UK.)

Time Trialing in the UK during that period was predominantly a working class sport, and many working class people at that time did not own cars. Their bike was not only their recreation and sport, but also their mode of transport to get to work each day. Most had a bike with track dropouts making for easy adjustment of chain tension while switching differing size fixed rear sprockets.

The bike would have a brazed on lamp bracket boss on the front fork and have eyelets and clearance for mudguards. The mudguards would be put to good use; it rains a lot in the UK, and if your bike is your only means of transport, riding in the rain is your only option. A rider would wear a rain cape (Poncho) that was long enough at the front to reach over the handlebars thus keep their legs dry.

At the weekend, the mudguards would come off in readiness for a time trial and the cyclist would ride to the start of the event often carrying his best wheels with tubular tires on wheel carriers attached to the front of the bike.

These wheel carriers were simply two aluminum strips about 5 or 6 inches long with a hole drilled each end. The front wheel nuts were removed, the metal strips were then attached on either side of the front wheel spindle so they stood above and slightly forward of the front hub. The nuts were replaced and tightened.

The spare front and rear wheel spindle then attached to the hole in the top end of the metal strip, one on either side. Finally, the spare wheels were strapped to the handlebars using a toe-strap. Track nuts were always used, not quick-release. Everyone used a Brooks leather saddle that had bag loops on the rear; a saddle bag would be attached to carry racing clothes to change into, and food.

By today's standards riders used pretty low gears; distance events would be ridden on a 79 to 81 inch gear and the shorter events on about an 86 inch gear. The thinking of the day was that speed was achieved by pedaling fast, known as "twiddling."

I was like many of the younger riders and used gears, because I emulated the top European pro riders rather than the British time-trialists. However I did switch to fixed gear to ride through the winter months, and I would often strip my bike of its gears and convert to fixed to ride a 10 or 25 mile time-trial.

A very popular early season event was the 72 inch restricted gear 25 mile event. All competitors rode a 48 x 18 fixed gear, which was checked at the start by wheeling the bike between two chalk marks on the road, to ensure the crank did one complete revolution.

My very first time-trial was such an event, in March of 1952, one month after my 16th birthday. I had put in many miles on a 65 inch fixed gear all through the winter months and I could definitely twiddle. I had been riding seriously for over a year, but had to wait until my 16th birthday to be able to race.

I had been preparing for my début through the winter, whereas the more seasoned riders had been taking it easy and had not reached their full level of fitness at the start of the season.

I surprised myself and my fellow club members when I won the event with a time of 1hour-10min.-10sec. (See the press clipping, left.)

This meant I was pedaling at an average rate of over 100 RPM for the 25 miles. Top riders of that era could turn in times under the hour for 25 miles on a 72 inch gear; which is close to 120 RPM average. Two revs per second, that’s some serious twiddling.

The RPM rate was calculated as follows: 25 miles = 132,000 feet. Divide by my time for distance, 70 minutes = 1885.714 feet covered in one minute. Divide by feet covered per pedal revolution (18.67 ft.) = 101 RPM.

Calculated at a nominal wheel size of 26.75 inch diameter. (7.003 feet circumference.) 48 T chainring, divide by 18 T sprocket = 2.666 turns of the rear wheel per 1 turn of the chainring. 7.003 x 2.666 = 18.67 feet traveled per pedal rev.

Fixed gear enthusiasts are discovering they have a hole in their rear

I came across a website for “Fast Boy Fenders,” an enterprise that makes beautifully crafted wooden fenders for that terminally hip crowd, the fixed gear enthusiast.

The main selling point for this item is stated like this:

“Been wondering what to do with that hole in your frame where your rear brake used to be?”

One would think the main selling point for fenders would be that they keep rain water from spraying up your back, but not these fenders. These are works of pure art, and at $75 for a small rear fender, the last thing you would want, would be to get them wet.

There is an extreme shortage of old steel track frames. They were only a small part of most framebuilder’s production; I only made a handful. Most fixed gear exponents are using road frames, which brings up the question, what to do with all the superfluous braze-ons?

You definitely don’t want to cut them off, because this will devalue the frame, and when this craze is over, probably around next spring, you will be selling off the frame, or converting it back to a road bike.

It occurred to me that a whole cottage industry could spring up, making all kinds of cool shit to hang on your bike.



The top tube pad (Left.) already covers up the cable eyelets on the top tube, so we don’t have to worry about them. Here are some other ideas I had:

The rear derailleur hanger:

The first thing that came to mind was a kickstand. However, I dismissed this idea immediately as not being hip enough. Then I thought, why not use it to hold a bolt-on rear sprocket guard? Why would you need a rear sprocket guard? It doesn’t matter why, it would be such a cool thing to have.

There is no apparent reason to have a top tube pad, but ask any fixie enthusiast and he will give you at least three good ones. Part of the fun would be coming up with a reason to have a rear sprocket guard.

The down tube gear lever braze-ons:

How about two cup shaped knee pads that bolt on to the lever bosses? When you are doing one of those nose on the front wheel stops, just lock your knee into one of these pads and it will stop you quicker than Brittney Spears singing career.

The water bottle braze-ons:

This one was a little tricky. Maybe a bolt-on card holder for those who have aero wheels and can’t put the cards in the spokes?

So there you have it, just a few starter ideas; I’m sure you can come up with others.

My apologies to Bike Snob NYC, who has made a blogging career out of lambasting the fixie crowd; I didn’t mean to steal your thunder. (Your concept maybe, but definitely not your thunder.) If a person is going to steal ideas, then steal from the best is my motto.

I Mistook a Silk Purse for a Pig’s Ear

When I posted my blog last Saturday about two rare track frames, one a yellow and black Fuso, the other I described as re-painted Paris Sport frame built around 1979 - 1980. The frame has turned out to be a custom ‘dave moulton’ frame built in 1991, probably one of the last track frames I built as I retired from the business in 1993.

The problem was the picture sent to me did not do the frame justice. I looked at the funky straight fork (Not the original.) and the geto bars with no tape, and immediately assumed the frame was “an old beater.”

The owner had been corresponding with me about this frame via email, but because someone else sent the picture, I didn’t realize this was the same bike. Yesterday, the owner sent more pictures, and it all became clear that not only was this the original paint but the frame is in immaculate condition.


The first clue, the frame is built in Columbus SLX tubing; SLX was not around in 1980. The decals also threw me a curve, these were newly designed around 1991 when this was built.


The road bike market had gone right down the toilet, due to the mountain bike craze, and I thought I might survive by building a few high-end custom frames. With this in mind, I redesigned the decals for the custom frames, but as it turned out only two or three frames were ever finished with these decals, making this particular frame unique.

My apologies to the current owner of this bike for my mistake, incidentally, he tells me he has the original fork, but as it is not drilled for a brake he has temporarily replaced it with the one you see here.

I’m also taking up a collection to send him money for handlebar tape.