The New York Times put together a great piece on the ‘unstoppable’ trend of fixies, or fixed geared bicycles. Designed for the track, these bikes, favorited for years by messengers and hipsters, have no breaks and no gears, and are stopped by an artful combination of reversing the pedals, skidding, or skip stopping. Their purity is their appeal, as the fixed gear bike has become both a fashion statement and a demonstration of skill. With the New York Times covering it though, I think that the fixies are going to have to come out of their underground hiding and into the spotlight as more and more people jump on the single speed bandwagon.
The Hipster is a replacement for the backpack if you just can’t seem to lug around enough stuff carrying everything on your shoulders. The designer, Joel Hoag, created the Hipster in response to his father’s wish to walk across America, and he hopes that his design will lead to the growth of a sport he calls “adventure walking”. So far there are two designs, the Hipster I, which utilizes a single wheel, making it maneuverable and compact, and the Hipster II, with two wheels for greater strength and easier carrying of heavier loads. Though you are sure to garner quite a bit of attention looking like you forgot your bike on a cross country trip, it does save your back from sure destruction if you tried to load everything in a backpack, so it’s a good use of function over form. I think it’d be fun to attach a few of these together and form a new sport called “human train adventure walking”, but that’s just me.
