In Pursuit of the Biking Fringe
What I love most about single speeders (and there are many things) is that they
have no official governing body. Mountain bikers have NORBA, roadies have the
USCF and they all have the USCO looking after them, making sure all the rules
are followed and nobody on two wheels gets out of hand. Single speeders, a distinct
subgroup of mountain bikers who choose to ride the trail burdened by only one
gear, have nobody telling them what they can and can’t do. Their races
are completely unsanctioned. Their champions unsponsored and unfettered. I like
to think of them as a bunch of tattooed guys and girls riding naked through the
woods drinking cans of PBR and setting bags of poop on fire—which is pretty
accurate, considering single speeders have positioned themselves as a two-wheeled
counter culture movement. Take the Single Speed World Championships, a completely
unofficial race organized every year to determine the best single speeder in
the world…except, that’s not what it’s about at all.
“The race at the World Championships is an afterthought,” says Scott Hodge, long-time single speeder and owner of Addictive Cycles, a hub of single speed activity in Athens, Ga. “It’s about having fun, not racing.”
For example, the Single Speed World Championships usually has a Lemans start, where hundreds of riders run a circle through the woods and back to their bikes at the starting line. Standard stuff really, but when the riders get back to their bikes, their front wheels are mysteriously detached from their forks and hidden in the woods. Find your wheel, put it on your bike, then ride. And then there’s the official timing system of the World Championships, which doesn’t exist. No time chips, no clock. Instead, organizers put the first 20 racers across the finish line into go carts and make them race around the track to see who’s the official unofficial Single Speed World Champion.
What’s the prize purse for this coveted title? A tattoo. Seriously. If you win the race, they permanently mark your body with ink. The tattoo design changes slightly every year, but it always includes flames of some sort, as all cool tattoos should. And the tattoo is the most consistent element of the World Championships. You could show up next year expecting a go-cart race and be subjected to bike jousting instead. There’s no telling. The website for the 2007 SSWC in Edinburgh, Scotland reads like a flyer for “Fight Club.” Conspiratorial secrets and a conspicuous lack of rules. “The only rule of fight club is you do not talk about Fight Club.” When the World Championships were held in Pennsylvania in 2005 (the last time it was held on American soil) the cops were called. A couple of times. So naturally, I have a love for single speeders and their PBR lovin,’ tattoo wearing, counter culture, stick it to the man ways.
If only single speeders were still counter culture. The Pennsylvania race sold out its 400 spots in less than three hours. Not exactly Rolling Stones numbers, but remember we’re talking about a single speed race here. This is supposed to be a fringe activity enjoyed by only a handful of masochistic cyclists. It’s not supposed to sell out like a pop concert. Hodge was so frustrated with the growing popularity and complete lack of access to the SSWC that he started his own race in Georgia, the Georgia State Single Speed Championships.
“Nobody could get into the Single Speed World Championships unless you knew the organizers, so we said screw it. We’re gonna have our own freaking championship.”
A championship that is turning out to be almost as popular as the Single Speed World Championships. The inaugural 2006 Georgia State Single Speed Championships drew a crowd of 200+ riders (one coming all the way from London), doubling the numbers most inaugural mountain bike races receive. For 07, organizers are expecting more than 300 riders. If single speeding is so fringe, so counter culture, how come everyone is doing it? I mean, is it really “alternative music” if everyone is listening to it? Isn’t it just “music” then?
A few years ago, there were no single speed categories in mountain bike races. Solo-geared nuts had to jump in with the normal bikers. Now every race has a single speed category that’s usually brimming with activity. There was even a time when riding a single speed made an “anti-establishment” statement. Pedaling a homemade uni-gear gave the proverbial finger to the racers who took themselves too seriously and the bike companies that charged thousands of dollars for a collection of aluminum and rubber. Now, every bike company has a line of single speeds, each complete with their own marketing campaign distilling the fringe aspect of SS to a catchy slogan. Cannondale, large supplier of mainstream bikes to mainstream riders, has two single speeds that cost—get this—$1,400. A grand and a half! What’s counter culture about that bike unless you steal it?
“I hate to say it, but riding a single speed is no longer on the fringe of cycling,” Hodge says.
Just take a look at Hodge’s own single speed race. He had good intentions when he organized the event, but much to his chagrin, people actually showed up to race.
“The Georgia State Championships is a little more serious despite my attempt to get everyone drunk before the race,” Hodge says. “We had a group of guys that were super serious and actually wanted to win.”
While the original Single Speed World Championships was just an excuse to get drunk and ride (probably naked) through the woods, these newfangled races are drawing respectable bikers who actually want to ride sober and cross the finish line first. The growing popularity of one-geared bikes is bringing legitimacy to this once-unruly subclass of bikers. Maybe I’m speaking out of turn here, but fuck legitimacy. Single speeding isn’t about running a respectable race, it’s about having fun—a simple fact that many new converts aren’t grasping. I bet next year, some jackasses even show up to the Georgia State Single Speed Championships in jerseys with Camelbaks full of water, not beer. It’s a disgrace.
I feel sorry for the long time uni-gear riders like Hodge. People who were single speeding before single speeding was cool and are now forced to watch as their fringe sport is co-opted by mainstream riders in Lycra. It has to be disheartening, sort of like being the original fan of Nirvana and then watching them play MTV Unplugged.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m usually glad when alternative trends become mainstream. I’ve never been on the cutting edge of anything in my entire life, so I usually appreciate it when underground trends get adopted by Target and Old Navy. But what’s a die-hard single speeder to do when the rest of the world jumps on the one gear bandwagon?
“Start riding fixed gear,” Hodge says, referring to the single speed torture device that doesn’t allow you to coast. If you want to move forward, you have to pedal, and keep pedaling—no relaxing allowed. “Fixed gear guys have taken the fringe spot. They’re where single speed guys were five years ago.”
Of course, riding fixed gear is significantly harder than riding a single speed. Without the ability to coast, you have to time exactly when you’re going to take turns and hills and downhills. A fixed gear is a greater level of commitment that requires very good health insurance.
“Just getting through a ride on a fixed gear is an accomplishment,” Hodge says. “It takes a lot of concentration and timing and grace. You’re gonna bounce off of trees.”
But maybe that’s a small price to pay to remain on the biking fringe.•
“The race at the World Championships is an afterthought,” says Scott Hodge, long-time single speeder and owner of Addictive Cycles, a hub of single speed activity in Athens, Ga. “It’s about having fun, not racing.”
For example, the Single Speed World Championships usually has a Lemans start, where hundreds of riders run a circle through the woods and back to their bikes at the starting line. Standard stuff really, but when the riders get back to their bikes, their front wheels are mysteriously detached from their forks and hidden in the woods. Find your wheel, put it on your bike, then ride. And then there’s the official timing system of the World Championships, which doesn’t exist. No time chips, no clock. Instead, organizers put the first 20 racers across the finish line into go carts and make them race around the track to see who’s the official unofficial Single Speed World Champion.
What’s the prize purse for this coveted title? A tattoo. Seriously. If you win the race, they permanently mark your body with ink. The tattoo design changes slightly every year, but it always includes flames of some sort, as all cool tattoos should. And the tattoo is the most consistent element of the World Championships. You could show up next year expecting a go-cart race and be subjected to bike jousting instead. There’s no telling. The website for the 2007 SSWC in Edinburgh, Scotland reads like a flyer for “Fight Club.” Conspiratorial secrets and a conspicuous lack of rules. “The only rule of fight club is you do not talk about Fight Club.” When the World Championships were held in Pennsylvania in 2005 (the last time it was held on American soil) the cops were called. A couple of times. So naturally, I have a love for single speeders and their PBR lovin,’ tattoo wearing, counter culture, stick it to the man ways.
If only single speeders were still counter culture. The Pennsylvania race sold out its 400 spots in less than three hours. Not exactly Rolling Stones numbers, but remember we’re talking about a single speed race here. This is supposed to be a fringe activity enjoyed by only a handful of masochistic cyclists. It’s not supposed to sell out like a pop concert. Hodge was so frustrated with the growing popularity and complete lack of access to the SSWC that he started his own race in Georgia, the Georgia State Single Speed Championships.
“Nobody could get into the Single Speed World Championships unless you knew the organizers, so we said screw it. We’re gonna have our own freaking championship.”
A championship that is turning out to be almost as popular as the Single Speed World Championships. The inaugural 2006 Georgia State Single Speed Championships drew a crowd of 200+ riders (one coming all the way from London), doubling the numbers most inaugural mountain bike races receive. For 07, organizers are expecting more than 300 riders. If single speeding is so fringe, so counter culture, how come everyone is doing it? I mean, is it really “alternative music” if everyone is listening to it? Isn’t it just “music” then?
A few years ago, there were no single speed categories in mountain bike races. Solo-geared nuts had to jump in with the normal bikers. Now every race has a single speed category that’s usually brimming with activity. There was even a time when riding a single speed made an “anti-establishment” statement. Pedaling a homemade uni-gear gave the proverbial finger to the racers who took themselves too seriously and the bike companies that charged thousands of dollars for a collection of aluminum and rubber. Now, every bike company has a line of single speeds, each complete with their own marketing campaign distilling the fringe aspect of SS to a catchy slogan. Cannondale, large supplier of mainstream bikes to mainstream riders, has two single speeds that cost—get this—$1,400. A grand and a half! What’s counter culture about that bike unless you steal it?
“I hate to say it, but riding a single speed is no longer on the fringe of cycling,” Hodge says.
Just take a look at Hodge’s own single speed race. He had good intentions when he organized the event, but much to his chagrin, people actually showed up to race.
“The Georgia State Championships is a little more serious despite my attempt to get everyone drunk before the race,” Hodge says. “We had a group of guys that were super serious and actually wanted to win.”
While the original Single Speed World Championships was just an excuse to get drunk and ride (probably naked) through the woods, these newfangled races are drawing respectable bikers who actually want to ride sober and cross the finish line first. The growing popularity of one-geared bikes is bringing legitimacy to this once-unruly subclass of bikers. Maybe I’m speaking out of turn here, but fuck legitimacy. Single speeding isn’t about running a respectable race, it’s about having fun—a simple fact that many new converts aren’t grasping. I bet next year, some jackasses even show up to the Georgia State Single Speed Championships in jerseys with Camelbaks full of water, not beer. It’s a disgrace.
I feel sorry for the long time uni-gear riders like Hodge. People who were single speeding before single speeding was cool and are now forced to watch as their fringe sport is co-opted by mainstream riders in Lycra. It has to be disheartening, sort of like being the original fan of Nirvana and then watching them play MTV Unplugged.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m usually glad when alternative trends become mainstream. I’ve never been on the cutting edge of anything in my entire life, so I usually appreciate it when underground trends get adopted by Target and Old Navy. But what’s a die-hard single speeder to do when the rest of the world jumps on the one gear bandwagon?
“Start riding fixed gear,” Hodge says, referring to the single speed torture device that doesn’t allow you to coast. If you want to move forward, you have to pedal, and keep pedaling—no relaxing allowed. “Fixed gear guys have taken the fringe spot. They’re where single speed guys were five years ago.”
Of course, riding fixed gear is significantly harder than riding a single speed. Without the ability to coast, you have to time exactly when you’re going to take turns and hills and downhills. A fixed gear is a greater level of commitment that requires very good health insurance.
“Just getting through a ride on a fixed gear is an accomplishment,” Hodge says. “It takes a lot of concentration and timing and grace. You’re gonna bounce off of trees.”
But maybe that’s a small price to pay to remain on the biking fringe.•
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