fixed gears

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...

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