Brakes are for wimps, to the ‘fixie hipster.’
with a single gear speed bike makes sense. Most of those places are in Kansas where it’s totally flat and there’s nothing worth stopping for. The Look: Tattoo? Check! Nose ring? Check! Pabst Blue Ribbon trucker cap? Not required but highly recommended. Tip: Riding without brakes is a style statement. And so is the brain surgery scar you’ll get from riding without brakes.
Often sighted on Bridgeway in Sausalito, the ‘tourist’ can carry a heavy load.
THE COMMUTER
< 11 The en-cycle-pedia Marinica
THE FRED “Fred” is a term little known outside the bike world. A “Fred” is basically a nerd on a bike. He sits too upright. He wears one of those reflective yellow triangle vest things. He has two water bottles and a Camelback as though he were riding across the Outback instead of the Tiburon loop. And do you really need two handlebar bells? The Look: It’s all about the helmet mirror. You can get everything else right but attach a mirror to your helmet and you might as well be wearing Spock ears. Tip: You can buy a new helmet. That Igloo cooler you’ve been wearing since 1983 is a tad dated.
THE FIXIE HIPSTER Fixies are fixed-gear bikes. That means you can only stop pedaling when you stop and for the hard-core and hardheaded, it means you actually use your pedals to stop. The lack of brakes is part of the aesthetic and a nod to Darwin. There are places where riding a bike
Commuting has multiple benefits: You save on gas; you help the environment; you get to work and get a workout at the same time; AND you get to feel self-righteous and lord it over your co-workers while theyy nibble carrot sticks at their desk and you’re downing Doritos. If they made a helmet that looked like a halo, the bike commuter would wear it. The Look: Wrinkled led with a side order of sweaty. Tip: Black pants nd don’t show grease and a wad of baby wipes is ng, almost like showering, ented but stick to the unscented mper or you’ll smell all Romper Room.
THE BMXER R It’s a kid thing. If you u see an adult riding one, he either stole it or there’s a fast food uniform in thatt Grow up for backpack. crissakes, ‘BMXer’! The Look: You need a haircut, son. Tip: The girls stopped being impressed when you were 10. The ‘Fred’ definitely needs to loosen up a little.
12 PACIFIC SUN JULY 6 - JULY 12, 2012
THE TOURIST A bike can be a great way to get away from it all. But bicycle tourists seem intent on bringing “it all” with them. These are the people you see with everything they own bungeed, strapped and duct-taped to their bikes. Why stop at a tent, sleeping bags and camp stove when you can bring a chaise lounge and cocktail shaker? If they were pedaling shopping carts instead of bikes, we’d call them homeless. The Look: It’d better look old, scuffed and soaking wet or you’re just a poser. Tip: Credit cards, hotels and laundromats.
THE NEWBIE These are the riders who, often at middle age, decided to “take up cycling.” And they have the credit card receipts to prove it. They have the latest, lightest, carbon-est everything and yet they The ‘hippie’ can often be seen feeding at such gathering places as the Woodacre Country Market and the Coast Café in Bolinas.
perch on the bike as though they were trying to use chopsticks to climb over a barbed wire fence. There are series of rites of passage in cycling; most of them involving hydrogen peroxide fizzing over road rash, but one of them is having a decent bike and longing for a better bike, usually for years. Walking into a shop and buying top-of-theline earns you a sneer at every bike rack. The Look: New. Tip: Cut the tag off, dammit.
THE HIPPIE There was a time when a Schwinn Varsity was almost an act of protest and you can date the hippie’s steed by the tree ring strata of protest stickers. Some number of layers under the Eat More Kale and No War for Oil stickers is a No Nukes sticker and under that a Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For Zappa. The Look: Yes, that’s a glass water bottle. Plastic shrinks your gonads, man. Tip: Helmets are not a “tool of the man.” ✹ Share your fanny pack with Rick at rpolito@gmail.com.