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Ideas and sources to consider by Zacharie

September 28, 2009 - 1:24 pm No Comments

Ideas and sources to consider by Zacharie

This is a very interesting article on fixed gear culture written by Jocko Weyland, from the New York Times.

“These disparate riders represent a rainbow coalition, a movement that’s about bikes as part of a way of life, as an identity. Although fixed-gear bikes can be seen as a trendy accessory, they also allow a mild form of rebellion against what many of these bike riders see as a wasteful and insipid way of life”

This article really defines the fixie culture as a way of life. Fixie riders won’t go for the mainstream solution. I think that a good way of approaching this project is to design according to these riders needs. Since they go out of their way to design and customize their bikes to an extreme. Giving them such an imposing solution to safety alternatives as a specific piece of clothing or jacket is a good way to scare them of. There is also the gender issue and the weather issue. Providing these riders with a pre-made, one jacket fits all design goes against every principle of their culture or lifestyle.

Fixed gear is all about simplicity and minimalism :

“Two wheels, a chain, a cog, a seat and handlebars. But in the way that one of Marcel Breuer’s vintage Wassily chairs is just a chair that costs $10,000, the top fixed-gear bikes are just custom-made bikes that cost 10 times as much as a regular factory-made bicycle. The pinnacle of two-wheeled transport, they are beautiful objects with simple, clean, stripped-down lines that make them look fast even when they’re standing still.”

“Here, Mr. Coast builds two or three custom-framed bicycles a month, most of them fixed-gears, “tailored to suit a body’s dimensions, to an individual’s geometry and affording the maximum of comfort, design and style,”

the fixie culture appropriates certain ideas and values. It is as much what you don’t do, ( no brakes, no gears) than what you do. The riders are very selective as to what is acceptable and what isn’t.
following these lines, maybe we need to work with what this culture accepted and redefined as its own rather than imposing new and inappropriate solutions.

Riders have adopted certain accessories which we could work with without compromising the lifestyle.

Works Cited

Weyland, Jocko. “Unstoppable.” The City. The New York Times, 29 April 2007. Web. 28 September 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/nyregion/thecity/29gear.html? _r=3&pagewanted=1&ref=thecity&oref=slogin>

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