pretty. It’s not uncommon to see BMX and mountain bike components on these bikes and very little track-specific components. Rigid mountain bike forks, BMX platforms, riser bars, chainring guards and even 29er rims are just a few of the obvious changes. All of these components are creating the future of the fixed gear.

I began to ride a track bike because I needed an efficient way to get around New York City. I had ridden mountain and road bikes in the past and out of my own curiosity, I tried a track bike. The gearing I chose was adequate for my environment, as were my early set ups. Now, because my fixed gear (it’s not a track bike anymore) is my primary form of transportation, it has to be comfortable and efficient. For me, these two factors set fixed gear bikes apart from a traditional bike used for tricks. Trials bikes and BMX have a higher potential for being trick bikes, but they’re not ideal for spending long amounts of time and moving through a dense city on. I couldn’t imagine riding a downhill bike in the city, or a trials bike through traffic. Transportation is still a vital part of the bike.

I commute every morning from Brooklyn across the Williamsburg Bridge and into Manhattan. If I see something along the way to ride, I’ll take a detour and mess around for a few minutes. There’s no going home to get my “trick bike.” To me, that’s a very valid point and the main reason why I enjoy riding my bike in the city. An all-day excursion throughout the Boroughs will yield multiple opportunities to ride different terrain. As I mentioned before, people have begun to ride BMX and mountain bike components. The wheels are getting wider, tires are getting bigger. After breaking other frames, people are switching to beefier set ups. To the people who are going big in the fixed gear trick world, a bike that is built to take abuse is more appealing than a bike that resembles a traditional track bike.

It’s not that the track bike was cast aside; it’s that the most central element to the track bike was selected and applied in a new form. Riding a fixed gear is fun, which is why it’s so popular, and most people who are riding a fixed gear and doing tricks on them know traditional track frames are not meant for such riding. Whether people are bombing hills or bombing traffic, these bikes will need to handle high speeds and perform in the more aggressive riding taking place today.

Companies have begun to add gussets to their frames and are designing unicrown forks with boasts of lifetime warranties. In time we’ll see what designs are most durable. A process of elimination, or in some senses, natural selection is taking place. Once again, the BMX and mountain bikes are influencing bicycle design and in the end, we’ll see this influence in fixed gear freestyle frames. I’m fairly confident that the new face of fixed gear freestyle will be a familiar one. 700c BMXs? Fixed mountain bikes? Something in-between? Something.

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John Watson. Photo by Ed Glazar, flickr.com/photos/edglazar