Getting Fixed

Keeping up with hipster trends is a bit like predicting the rapture: It’s downright impossible. So if the trendy world of fixed gear bikes has cruised right under your radar undetected, don’t jam your gearbox.

These brakeless, single-gear cycles — dubbed “fixies” by those in the know — have become popular rides for bike messengers and hepcats for more than a decade now, particularly in such cities as New York City, Portland, and San Francisco. Whether it’s the exhilaration of terrorizing crowded streets on a bike with no brakes, or the camaraderie that’s felt by fixed gear fans, the fixie community is quite the scene.

Documentary filmmaker David Rowe attempts to explore every nuance of the vibrant street culture surrounding the bikes in his 2010 flick To Live & Ride in L.A., which captures the exploits of SoCal fixed gear fans throughout the Los Angeles area.
A screening of the flick will take place at 10 p.m. on Saturday, June 25, at Filmbar, 815 North Second Street. Afterwards, local fixie riders will take to the streets of downtown Phoenix for a celebratory ride, and perhaps a bit of mischief.