local bike culture. This owes much to technical acumen and general credibility, as it might at any other worthy shop, but Piens also hosts an outdoor minidrome, the first of its kind in Latvia. The track rises in an old industrial side yard adjacent to the shop, and it is open to all those curious enough to try it.

The Piens team regularly hosts cycling events at their track, with competitions operating under the rules used with the broadly similar Red Bull minidrome events. Riding the Piens track is a singular experience—it may be the ultimate use for a fixed gear. Experienced local riders further identify one outstanding quality in particular about it: where other minidromes are typically disassembled and reassembled at their destinations, the Piens track simply stays put. This fact allows for more solid construction techniques, which in turn favor greater speeds.

Local rider Toms Alsbergs, who bested 31 other riders in Edinburgh last year to take his fourth gold at the Red Bull Mini Drome, holds the record in Riga as well. Alsbergs himself has now competed on similar tracks in several cities, picking up various wins along the way, a vantage which has allowed him to appreciate subtle differences across the narrow field of minidromes currently in use. The one he rode in New York, Toms says, was “a little bit smaller, but steeper.” The Piens minidrome, he says, is “the best I have ever ridden.” Riders from the neighboring Baltic countries of Lithuania and Estonia have made occasional visits, but to date this has been the depth of its international exposure.

Alsbergs rides a track bike on his own time as well, working with his friends in Riga’s TRU FIX KRU to coordinate events around town. Fixed gear bikes make a natural fit for Latvia’s capitol city, given its lack of hills and the powerful local winters, and Alsbergs maintains that he sees more in use around Riga than in other European cities he has visited.

Bike culture in Latvia already embraces a broad range of pursuits—mountain bikers, road racers, and everyday cyclists find no end of diversions, in the warmer months at least—and within the context of bicycle-friendly Western Europe, the level of cycling advocacy has been picking up as well.

Among its other results, the economic crisis which gripped Latvia a few years ago also served to generate greater interest in cycling as a less expensive transportation option, an opening which likely can only continue to grow. And it is here that Open Bikes, the Baltics’ first community bike shop, ably picks up the thread.

The shop, centrally located in Riga’s quiet district, began regular hours in April. Open Bikes is striving to adapt the increasingly ubiquitous community bike shop model to the needs of Latvian cyclists, and their efforts have already garnered much community involvement, as well as the support of local businesses and the U.S. Embassy.

The project’s principal organizers—Auzins, students Emilija Mikalauska and Hristina Satalova, and bike courier Janis Belecks—continue to meet regularly to shape and refine Open Bikes’ mission. One early priority for them has simply been the creation of a space where bikes can be fixed, free of charge. It is not common for Latvians to carry individual tool sets while riding, Satalova explains. “Bike messengers do,” she says, “but not people who commute.” More, many shops charge in Riga to use an air pump, and the air compressors found at gas stations are not always compatible with bicycle valves. Open Bikes’ initial focus thus responds directly to this situation. Ultimately the group hopes to establish open-air bike stations, at strategic locations across town, utilities where riders might stop to fill their tires and accomplish basic repairs.

Satalova and Mikalauska also ride with SHE FIX, collectively among the regulars at the Piens velodrome. The two won first and third place, respectively, in the ladies’ event at Red Bull Tru Fix 2013 race, staged in June on a creative course set up at the Latvian Railway History Museum.

Latvia is not a big country, and there is considerable overlap across the various cycling subcultures newly native to Riga. Taken together, it makes for a notably open and comfortable environment, where the enthusiasm and excitement are both refreshingly sincere. In practice, this dynamic combination proves more than enough to make it a wonderful place to ride a bike.

 

Sam Tracy is author, most recently, of the second edition of Bicycle! A Repair & Maintenance Manifesto, available through PM Press. He lives and travels with his wife Kerri Spindler-Ranta, a U.S. diplomat.