Warning! Long Friday night post...

@ Tommy, I think there's still the expensive bike snobbery in MTB...

I bought a mountain bike for about 350 notes back in '95, nothing fancy but with a bit of care and maintenance it's lasted over 12 years. I've thrashed it to within an inch of it's capabilities, commuted on it, ridden 60 mile road rides several times, pulled a kiddie trailer, jumped it, raced it and loved every minute of it. I know this bike so well it's like a part of me.

Earlier this year I succumbed to temptation and splashed almost 3x as much on a nearly new, top spec MTB. I've used it about 5 times :( I still wince at the thought of spending all that cash on something that'll sit unused for most of the year.

Until a couple of weeks ago I have still used my old bike (now SS 34x13) for everything - especially my 37 mile round trip commute a few times a week. This just goes to show that although my own riding habits, needs, and distances have changed over time I've been able to accommodate it all with the same frame and set of wheels I paid for all those years ago. I cringe when I look at those ad's in MTB mags that show 450 notes for suspension forks. I've ridden crazier stuff than a lot of MTB'ers on my old rigid bike and think my riding style has benefited from it - ride light, anticipate obstacles, look ahead.

This bring me to fixed. Those same skills transfer to riding fixed, which I have finally managed to start doing a few weeks ago. Absolutely loving it, anything that rekindles that magic of learning new tricks and skills on a bike is welcome in my view - I feel like I did as a kid on my BMX when I was 12. I'm not promising I'll still be riding fixed for my commute in 5 years but I know even now that I'll always have a fixed gear bike of some sort for when the mood takes me.
There's something special about a fixed gear bike that makes you feel more connected to the machine and the way it handles. I get the feeling there are a lot of you here that experience your cycling in a similar way to me, something my wife, family and friends could never understand. Something to do with the 'at-one'ness of riding that seems to be more accessible on a fixed-gear bike.

Having said that about my family I was taken aback when my Dad after having only glimpsed my bike for seconds spotted it was fixed. I was sooooo impressed - it transpires he'd fixed his old BSA when he was about 16, back in the day! How cool is that?

'strue. When I was student in the mid-80's you used to see the messengers going to sign on at the Elephant & Castle dole office. In those days it was all Italian racing bikes and Look tops.

..thats a good point, does anyone remember Age of Chance? The original fakengers shurely?

im not having a dig but that could be seen as quite patronising......im sure your aware the history of the 'fixed gear',its been about alot longer the you or i.why wouldn't your dad know what is is?
my dad used to cycle alot,he doesn't so much any more.when i went back to see my mum i was rummaging through the loft and discovered some old tubs....i was like "wow dad road tubs?!" assuming that tubs were just part of the fixed gear/track scene...my mum looked at me like i was some kind of dick...she said something like "he was riding tubs before you were born".....obviously that made me think that this is nothing new..its just a slight adjustment of what was..so i shut my mouth.

i'm definetly in on the offroad, fixed ride. I have a converted mtb (that i kept for years and years) with eccentric hub its wicked, but alas havent gone off road yet...

...that's cold.

she is mate!...and he was!

@ Aidan
What had so suprised me was he has never owned a bike in my lifetime, and never shown any desire to do so.

This goes back to the heart of the question asked here. My old man used a bike through necessity in his teens, paying for it in instalments over a year because he couldn't afford anything else. He fixed it because he could as others had before him and as we do now.
He only owned that bike for about 5-6 years and hasn't ridden a bike of his own since selling the bike for beer money in his late teens.

Cycling and fashion go through fads and phases but there will always be those who are lifetime addicts and those who do cycling in intensive bursts. Some of us already know which one of those types we are ... others have yet to find out.

ahh...:)

On the subject of old men who used to ride fixed:

http://www.movingtargetzine.com/article/today-2-quentins-and-john-humphries-on-a-fixed-wheel

..yeah I know. Quoting your own posts is a bit like referring to yourself in the 3rd person, but I found the Age of Chance;

[url=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk-1q2b_FJs]Who's afraid of the big bad noise?

Not!

Other way round.

Muddy Fox named their bike after us after we starting using MTBs, we didn't get called 'couriers' because we rode Muddy Fox Couriers.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/movingtarget/sets/72157602885870594/

One of the guys who was big on the mid-80s UK MTB scene was Chris Shaw. Also a cycle courier. He was killed in 1990.

http://www.movingtargetzine.com/memorial

The first wave of fixie riders, Cappa, Ian Cleverly, Dick Luck, Jeff and the rest were around in late 80s and early 90s as fat tires fell from fashion, then along came the BMX posse (Tony, Steve et al) who made 26 inch wheels fashionable again then...

It could have been a lot worse..

if that had been clartson, and JH wasn't cycle-friendly
not that you wouldn't have got the facts across, only they might have been trying to turn it into a shout out.

I'm always amazed at these "cyclists" debates..
there really isn't anything to talk about, people break the law all the time, on bikes, in cars, in buses, on foot, on the internet without leaving the safety of their own home.

except for a 3 year mid life crisis fling with a yamaha fazer i've been cycling since i arrived in london back in '85
can't see me giving it up unless me legs fall off...

This is interesting, because I have been riding fixed for ~5 years now, when I was scrounging aroudn the basement of my local shop looking for some old parts, adn came across an old track wheel, and converted my zeus. So I was 19 then, and in 5 years I will be 29, I would like to think I will still be riding fixed, I race some track so it should keep me going, but who knows, it is funny to wonder.

Awww, the memories... Me and me mates went a bit Muddy Fox mental for a little while back in the day... I think we had four amoungst our little posse... My mate Dave, who was a courier and rode a Courier (nasty, heavy beasts that they were), made me promise I'd NEVER become a courier, although that's all I wanted to be at the time... I'm glad I listened to him... No offence to you messenger-types, o' course... It's a righteous vocation... Very few fixed bikes around back then, and very few track bikes to be had in the classifieds, I know cuz i was scannin' those pages and I couldn't get one... Internet makes it so easy...

In answer to the initial question: Will I still be riding in 5 years?

Yes, provided I am alive and physically able to.

I am always impressed most by people who ride with kids on the back. I have real respect for people who do the tescos run / school run with a trailer on - I hope that'll be me in the future. However, with the added years and weight (me & the kiddie trailer) I doubt I'd be doing that fixed!

As other people have also experienced, my dad is well impressed that I ride fixed and said that he used to as a teenager. I get the feeling it had cudos then, too. When I ride off after a few beers with him, I get the feeling that he respects my independence and is glad I'm not an automaton reliant on public transport to ferry me round town.

A lot of these conversations remind me of the scene in Life Of Brian: "People's front of Judea? Splitter!"

My pops had a one of thoes Muddy Fox Couriers i think its till in the back of his garden! and funnily enough there is a near mint one in our bike shed at work!

i dont know if ill be riding fixed in 5 years but im sure ill be riding a bike of some sort i just enjoy the whole building process too much maybe when im too old to cycle ill buy one of those kit cars :)

I've used a trailerbike and a bike seat attached to my fixed before (not at the same time obviously). It's not too bad when you're moving, but it is much harder to get your pedals in the right position at junctions when you've got two stone of precocious child on the back. I haven't yet attached the trailer, though I'm sure I'll attempt it at some point.

Me too - there's a lady i see around angel sometimes - one sprog on the back one on the front and two bags of shopping
sometimes. She's my hero seriously. Just imagine what London would be like if 75% of parents did this!
Instead we have this cuntish mindset:

took that pic a few weeks back - just round the corner from my house on the peckham end of old kent road
(pomeroy street) if anyone fancies some militant sign alterations...

There's no fucking way I'd put a child that close to the tarmac and trailing behind me on the road..

im down!

cheer up aidan, think of Clowns