Yesterday was quite a day.
In the span of about two hours, we learned of Michael Jackson’s death, planned a ride (and had a blast), did three TV interviews, got mentioned in The Oregonian, and even got noticed by the New York Times.
And this morning, the famous bike-blogger/comedian BikeSnobNYC came across that mention of our ride in the New York Times and couldn’t take it any longer. Disgusted by Portland’s biking spirit, he wrote (emphasis mine):
In the bike world, few topics elicit as much heated conversation and interest as fixed gear bicycles (a.k.a. “fixies”).
BikeSnobNYC, one of the most well-known bike blogs in the world, has made a career out of skewering the fad, and my coverage of them — whether it’s about their legality or about their rising popularity in Portland — always garners a lot of comments.
I’ve only tried a fixie once or twice, so I’m no expert on the topic, but I still find this fascination with them rather interesting (if not strange). On that note, I came across two things recently that we can add to the fixie cultural notebook.