China is the world’s largest bicycle market, where 51 million bikes were sold in 2009 alone, according to the China Bicycle Association. However, the world’s largest bicycle trend, fixed-gear bikes, or “fixies,” have been lagging in popularity.
Actually, they’re basically non-existent.
“Fixes,” so-called because they rely on only one fixed gear and the cyclist slows the bike by slowing their pedaling, were born from New York bike messengers, and have become a staple of urban bicycling almost everywhere; well, except China.
They’re not nearly as functional as multi-gear bicycles (complete with brakes!), so many assume that a kind of hipster-esque irony has played a role in the fixed-gear’s widespread adoption. Juanjuan Wu, a professor at the University of Minnesota and author of Chinese Fashion From Mao to Now, offers an interesting explanation for how the irony factor could have made it less likely for the Chinese to adopt the trend:
There is a saying in Chinese: ‘Laugh at the poor, not the prostitutes.’ Hipster fashion only really works by communicating your irony—in other words, someone needs to ‘get it.’ Hipster irony in dress would most likely be misinterpreted in Chinese society as simple poverty or weirdness.
Now, fixed-gear bikes do make sense in many urban arenas, so long as the area is flat, and the biggest obstacle is, well, obstacles. But, I don’t understand the proliferation into other areas, except possibly as the most outrageous example of this—er—irony.
I’m actually a fan of the Chinese example of earnestness; I’m actually a fan of earnestness in general. I’m not a fan of this type of ironic expression: the kind that enables one to play the pauper for sport. I drink cheap beer because it’s cheap, I’m not wealthy, and I’m thirsty. Not because it’s cool to “slum it,” or whatever. (Granted, I also strongly hold that Miller Lite tastes significantly better than Pabst Blue Ribbon, so I’m not cool anyway. But, I do recommend a blind taste test.)
I enjoy occasionally hearing Journey, not out of some kind of ironic detachment, but because they really are a talented band that wrote some great songs. And, you know what, you do too. You can explain over and over again that it goes with mullet culture and have some kind of detached appreciation for ’80s hard rock, and so on, but really: If you are singing along to “Don’t Stop Believing,” you’re not being ironic. You like Journey. Probably more than you like Animal Collective.
Still don’t understand why people insist on riding a fixed-gear up the 14th st. hill, though.
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