This Week's Get Out Column for the StarNews: Skinny Bikes

For this week's Outdoors column in the StarNews, I produced a riveting expose on the invasion of skinny bikes into our lifestyles. 

Photo: StarNews/Amy Hotz

Yes. 

A riveting expose. 

Excerpt and link: 

The only things skinnier than hipster jeans are hipster bikes. Only the bikes actually make sense.

Not all hipsters ride them, and not all who ride them are hipsters, but lots of hipsters ride skinny bikes. You've probably seen them everywhere, most prevalently downtown, the beach, or, if you worship somewhere more trendy, the church parking lot.

Basically, they're road bikes, but ridden by people not wearing spandex who might wear scarves. Handlebars vary—some curve under, traditional-style, while others rebel, curving upward. Others are straight. Some are fixed-gear bikes—or, in hipster lingo, “fixies.” That is, they have no gear and no brakes. The back tire moves when you pedal and stops when you stop pedaling.

Some skinny bike riders don't like those so much. Geared bikes have brakes on the handlebars, and the back tire keeps spinning even when the pedals aren't.

Or, as the sticker on one particularly trendy-looking red bike on Front Street declared: “Forget your fixie!” (Only, the f-word used there was not “forget.”)

Read all of it here. 

Comments

[Kara]

I think I want a bike like that. Like, for real.