My wife used to apologize to me because she didn't ride as much then try and ride too fast. When I got her to ride at a conversational pace they became our favorite rides. Also when I was 7 my bike took me away from an alcoholic household, not realizing at that age the first benefit of cycling was my sanity. Thank you for the video.

I just got my fixed gear bike last week and it came with a flip flop hub wheel and it was set on the single speed side. The initial time I rode the was when it was a single speed then I flipped the wheel to fixed side, but I found it very jarring and immediately changed it back. However that evening when I was going to bed I could still feel the feeling of the resistance from the pedals every time I tried coast. As I've learnt from your videos in the past year, when you first try fixed you either like or you don't like, and I can't express how relieved I was to find out in that moment in bed that I actually love the feeling of riding a fixed gear bike.

Zach, I really enjoy your videos mainly because I once rode as you do, fifty years ago, and now I can't do that exactly. What you said today is exactly right, it's a way of life, a pleasure you get going fast, going smooth, or rough and certainly with friends. I'm now a great grandpa, and don't mind a bit, riding with comfort and style. I wear jeans and t-shirt mostly just wish I had neighbors that also ride.

I love that you did this video. I agree with all your points. I took a 80s MTB and turned it into a single speed.....I prefer a 26'' wheel set because it allows for a fatter tire (and more tire options). the 80s MTB frameset has longer chain stays (less wheelies and more rocking thru dips)

Amen brother. You are not the only person who feels this way. I love doing things my way. "You do you"

Fun video but literally every cyclist I know has every cyclist personality contained within them depending on which of their bikes they use that day. You don't need to pick a "culture". A bike is a tool. When I wanna get to the bar I grab the appropriate tool. When I want to cruise at 35kph for a prolonged time, different tool!

Stopped wearing cycling shorts last year and I will never go back. Golf shorts and t-shirts for me. An unusual bonus of wearing daily clothing while riding, I don't get as much abuse from drivers. Stopped at lights sometimes I get a "nice day for a ride" from motorists. I guess removing the lycra gets rid of the a-hole effect.

I've got a BMX handlebar on my fix and it's been THE best sensation in comfort and control ever!

I was saving up money to buy myself the very first fixie and you have convinced me to buy one after watching your videos😎🤝

Dude your my spirit animal for fixed gear riding. I love bikes and just bought a Rocky mount Boroughs fixed gear after riding bmx for years. Thanks for your words of wisdom Fam. I love riding dressed to impress, and casual as well, any of my bikes. I also have a single track that I found and built up to work my way to the fixed gear life. Peace brothers and lady riders.

This is great list! When I restarted my cycling habit I quickly realized I don't want to be a MAMIL racer, so my FG has moustache bars, half clips and front brake for very rare moments I really need it. When going through traffic I pull up trousers so leg hair creates extra drag so drivers don't feel I pass them too fast)

This echoes alot of my same thoughts on cycling. The part about the handlebars and the clothes were fantastic because i ride my fixed gear with pursuit bars (bullhorns) and in regular clothes and i love it. im never in a hurry to go anywhere and its usually a ride just to clear my head, not to set lap times. I max out at 21 mph anyways with a bad knee haha. comfort over form and function all day

I rode from los Angeles to San Diego in 9 hours once running 48x14 down the coast. I never took cycling "seriously" it's all about how much fun you wanna have on a bike and I think everyone should live that however that want to

As a bike mechanic I hate seeing rich guys with carbon fiber di2 Fred sleds gatekeep cycling. Working class cyclists are the industry's bread and butter and I love getting them what they need

Right on! Taking cycling too seriously will eventually take the fun out of it. I have a number of fancy (old) road bikes, but usually prefer to ride old cruisers. Simplicity, dependability, and comfort are better than riding a "fast" bike 98% of the time. I liked the reference to when we were 7 years old, also. Why do people give up riding as they get older? Maybe overly complicated bikes take the fun out of it? (Yes, people learn to drive, too. What a shame!) I sold my truck and now do everything with a '79 Schwinn cruiser. I'm 64 and retired, and have chronic lymphocytic leukemia. I did 1000 steps on a stair machine in 13:11 about 4 days ago. People would be healthier and have a healthier planet if they would get back on simple bicycles.

Even on my mountain bikes, BMX's, cruier, chopper and now my Fixed Gear flip flop single speed, I do swap it around for fun, my riding gear is always my work boots or normal shoes, I always wear jeans and a T-shirt and on cold days a hoodie. It's comfortable and easy. I am not fast or the best at jumps and stuff but it's just fun to ride all my different bikes. Great video Zach.

Your videos always put a smile on my face ☺️ much love 🚲

I ride fixed because I like riding fast, and that's the best way to do it.

So funny cuz I may not have fixed for now but my entire bike line being steel the “pavement princesses” just cannot handle someone on steel/vintage parts keeping up. I always see the surprised pikachu face on them haha 😂

I love casual riding with friends or enjoying scenery! Casual riding with some random sprints is usually how I have my most fun riding.

Because of your channel I ordered my first fixed gear it is coming like Sunday next week I ordered a kilo tt pro

I like the butterfly handlebar on one of my bikes for the multiple hand positions....

Zach, breath of fresh air, thanks. So many laugh along moments, and yes, "life is short so ride your bike daily to be reasonably dangerous". But I have been looking for cage basket toe clips for over 18 months, can't find them anywhere?

I just made plain grey quick-dry shirt part of my casual entire!

dude, make a video of you trying on a full aero cycling kit and riding on a modern top end road bike. would love to see it.

Cyclists = racers Most people aren't, we just use our bikes for commuting/getting around. I used to use a cheap bike to get around and it was fine too. People would not advocate for more bike infrastructure if it was for cyclists.

consumerism is behind a lot of the extras and overspecialization in cycling equipment (and the culture around that). ofc that too can be a hobby but there's something to be said about keeping things simple and enjoying a ride without a focus on speed and efficiency (perhaps those parameters reflect the corporate optimize-by-the-numbers work life a lot of cyclists come from?)

The women's side riding penny farthing you showed a picture of looks very interesting and a bit scary. I've only seen women's bikes from that time that are trikes, as god forbid they do something as unseemly as throwing a leg over a bike. 😁 Oh, and I love my bullhorn bars, great for climbing.

Idk, when I’m going out for long rides, the comfort of a padded short goes a long way, and it’s dumb but I just love the look of drops. Although I got my first bullhorns and they’re pretty sick too. Toe clips are the bomb though.

I love all three of my fixed gear bikes. I love all for different reasons. Cruising along with my wife (less so now she has an ebike, though she didn't ride for 35years until we got together!), riding a bit of off road, and commuting. Three different bikes for different jobs. Not the be all and end all. I love my touring bikes, recumbent, mtb's, etc, etc. Anything can be a way of life but life is too rich a tapestry to limit yourself to one small niche. Or maybe I'm just upset that I'd miss out on the valuable 'fixie points' as I'm just not fixie enough. Yes I run a brake, but that doesn't stop me loving riding.

I'm no fixed gear rider since I've been riding 27" wheels since forever, which don't come with fixed-gear components. however, out of the three steel bikes I have I converted one to single-speed and the one I put the most mileage in was dug out from under a tree in June, cost me next to nothing and I still put 300 to 400k a week in average. Oh, and it's a mixte frame.

I don’t ride a fixed gear and I want to get into it but me personally when I ride I love riding with a shirt pants and a shirt it’s just so comfortable and so practical I can just hop off my bike and go do something in the city man I love riding my bike

I miss using my Ritchey WCS logic 2 in my 725 before I had a great fall. I used to take turns easily, now I have leader downtown drop bars, and I feel more limited when it comes to skid stopping or taking turns. The handlebars are still legit but limited. You have to be more precise with downtown leader drop bars, and with the Logic II drop bars from Ritchey you can drift the whole corner. I have 48/18 as my set up, I’m not sure if that has anything to do with it.

I agree one thousand p. That's why I use my jamis hybrid around town & my Caad 10 when I go on my road runs

I have to agree with your points and I ride a single speed & a road bike !!

I agree with almost everything. My disagreement is, of course, fixed gears. Partly because I have hills and partly because I love brakes and stopping in an emergency. back-pedaling works, but not as well or as sure as friction. Sometimes cars pop out from behind things and stop right in front of me. I'm also a casual rider, so I like the ease and maintenance advantages of hub gears; something that "real cyclists" don't like. Too heavy and too much power loss. I could probably make it up the hills here with a 3-speed, but a 7 would make the slopes so much nicer, in both directions. Not mentioned, but I also prefer a more upright position. Dutch upright, not American upright. My hands hurt too much if I have weight on them. A crank forward is also nice because I can have an efficient pedal distance and still reach the ground from the seat. At 62 I don't move as fast as i did, so climbing up and down at stops is getting harder, and pushing the bike backwards with the pedals whacking my ankles less appealing.

Preach Zach! This superficial snobbery is absurd! Performance and Racing were last in Bicycling trends. Cycling was a transportation necessity. Was a War necessity. Was a childhood past time necessity. These trends were first. The performance side drives the market, so they believe they trump all of Cycling Culture!

I love steel frame ❤l know its old but i own a 93 Bridgestone

Lookin good on the thumbnail 👍

Basic, Simple Beautiful and not fettered anything non essential. Brakes? The Essence!

Big mtb pedals, especially for climbing. Try it

All my bikes save for a soon-to-be-decomissioned TT bike are steel. My townie is a 1980 Trek 510 set up as a three speed with MKS platform pedals and straps. My two road bikes are also steel (vintage is you use the twenty year standard) by Peter Mooney with Campy 10 from the early 2000s, Speedplays, and alloy sew-up wheels I built myself. They may not be the stiffest or lightest on the road, but I like the ride, and I think they look a damn sight better than what is considered a high end bike these days. Also, it's sad that what I payed for a Mooney with fancy Joe Bell paint and Campy record will get you at best a middle of the road racing bike these days. When I got a mailing from my bank talking about their new bicycle loans, I realized the industry had seriously gone off the rails. When I started, a few summers of hard work could get a youngster a good race bike... no longer.

FIRST! love the videos. Bought a State 4130 because of you. I love it.

Hek yes! 🚴 I completely agree with all of this :)

what are the pedals you have on your bike at 4:34?

Bro, I don't even comsider myself a cyclist and I still find myself overtaking spandex lovers on their 8 grand carbin bikes...and I'm on a pos hardtail wearinf jeans and vans. It's mindblowing how many people get into cycling just to torture themselves for reasons I cannot even name.

I clicked this video purely because I saw "GIGACHAD HAIRY LEGS" in the thumbnail 😂 great video too!

A nice fact about riding a simple fixed gear bike in casual clothes is people underestimate you, your fitness and your capabilities which is always good.

How do u ride fixed without killing your knees? Please, I went on a 20 mile bike ride on my fixed gear bike and from all the back peddling and skidding my knees were killing me and idek if i could have gone any longer

If I wanted to be the fastest on the road and overall, I wouldn't ride a brakeless fixed gear lol. I don't think anyone first started riding fixed gear for ultra perfect performance.

My fixed gear has 80cm wide handlebars. A bit strange, but it suits me personally and I can use my whole body strength to climb a hill.

Target is my go-to for clothing. That way, I have funds for custom frame bags and components.

Zach what’s your opinion on freestyle fixed gear. I’ve always been a fan of bmx and downhill but have been building up a fixed gear freestyle bike. I’ve been super inspired by riders like deythos

I'm not a serious cyclist but I do it for commuting and for training/recreation aswell, but I mostly ride steel bikes whether it's my 1970s road bike, my fixie or my 90s mtbs but I'll tell you this even with my shorts or cargos, my hoodie or fleece and sometimes my weighted down work backpack and riding my 48/18 singlespeed converted 70s steel road bike I'm still faster uphill and downhill than the "serious" club riders near me and I go similar distances when doing it for training/recreation too so is be a chilled out non-serious cyclist that bad🤷‍♂️😂

I just noticed the cannondale track and mash ac2 came from the same cyclist, i think 😅

I love my bike more ever since I installed riser bars. Its much more comfortable for long distance riding, and it looks cooler than the stock straight bars. Roadies probably wont like it, but ehh I dont mind

I ride my ride and do what I want with my bikes. It will always be like that for me. There is a time and place for everything.

Crocs socks supporter jean and T-shirt ..and extra T-shirt in my backpack during ride will do

I love my 50 year old rusty bicycle, because it´s a way of transportation for me, not a sport. I bought it for €20 when my modern bike got stolen right in front of the office, in broad daylight. It still perfectly does what it´s supposed to. Single speed and coaster brake so it requires absolutely no maintenance or adjustments, fenders so i can ride it on wet roads without getting muddy. And to my surprise i can still keep up with most people on the bikepaths. I also don´t have to worry about it getting stolen anymore.

I want to try slow rides but everytime i end up mashing 🙄

i just switched to toeclips for 2 weeks and i just can put the first one on my donminant foot while struggling with the left side can anyone give the some tips that could help me to have both feet on in the middle of the ride

zacchhhh Should I buy a wabi thunder? or wabi classic.

There's something about a single speed bike, not necessarily a fixed gear that really does appeal to me. But I'm a fat 49 year-old that's out of shape and lives in a hilly neighborhood. I have a 21-speed bike right now. I started riding again for the first time in three years in May after a back injury. My question is given my age and the fact that I'm fat and out of shape, do you think that maybe after a couple of years of riding a geared bike that I might become strong enough to start riding a single speed? Even though I have a long way to go strength-wise, and endurance wise, when I'm on flat ground I can easily ride for miles and miles in Top Gear. The problem I have courses with hills. I do need to lose about 70 to 80 lb oh, and I also have to say that it's only been two and a half months since I got back on a bike and I've already seen a massive Improvement in my ability to handle Hills and also my overall stamina. But I'm not exactly Tour de France material either.

Fenders are so underrated, granted they can look out of place on some bikes, but I prefer to keep my ass and back and legs... Myself dry in the rain or after rain

2. Palacio de Bellas Artes in the house 🤩

I seriously hate how much I love this

i remember the grandpa bars!

Regular cotton clothes that have gotten sweaty are not more comfortable once you've gotten where you're going and you're just hanging out in manky cotton. You don't need a full on jersey and riding diaper all the time, but something wool or poly is going to be more comfortable all day if that day involves a decent bike ride. Something I like that serious cyclists hate is probably that if I'm only going to have one brake, it's on the rear. For wheelies.

#8 @9:52 If you can see a SPEC of light between the tire and top of the fork crown, "tis enough" 🙂 , and this also shows the 9th thing that Serious Cyclists hate, a bike with NO Brakes! You may hate it too should you ever come to really need to stop fast, as you are sometimes at the mercy of automobile drivers, and they can be really stupid at times! So if you choose to ride brakeless, the following two choices shown in the link here are options (and the entire video is fascinating to watch also!): kzfaq.info/get/bejne/r714l858mtCYqZ8.html

1:25 I see the Soumaya Museum

Things "Serious Cyclists" Hate: Rim Brakes. IDK why but it seems that someone in marketing wants them to stop existing, I love rubber on metal so much more than whatever the discs use. Had a few bikes that came with disc (big box bike from superstores) every single one of them broke and left me with no way to stop and almost got me hurt. no adjustments were made, whatever setting they had out of the box. disc sucks.

🤣🤣 you think like me, but I have gears ⚙, I like toe straps and not into wearing all out kits even though my attire is semi athletic also can keep up with some fast people....sometimes lol 😆 but for me its all about fun. In fact I'm due for another 90 mile ride😁👍

By "stiff" do u mean aluminum? I'd tried aluminum and LORD NO. Steel all the way for me. My question is, is there really a way to rust-proof a bike when it is steel frame? (in rainy condition)

Hey Zach, got any discount codes? Looking to get a Sub-15 wheelset.

You are so right ✅️

I like steel. As an option. I'd like to see more full carbon, street ridable horizontal dropout fixed gear bikes. Most are track bikes and not that strong for impacts on the road.

When it comes to the clips versus straps point and the convenience of walking around during rides mountain bike clips are a lot better than road bike most of the time if not all the time the clip its self on the shoe is flush versus sticking out so you’re not walking all weird

Anyone knows what is Zach's handlebar name?

Here's a question how fast can you actually go on a fixie?

Casual clothing is nice, but Spesific pants are required for me. I ride wearing Jeans quite often and it last like a Butterfly lifespan, Hole everywhere.

One thing I like that ‘serious’ cyclists and track cyclists hate - Japanese keirin, now that you can get watch them on YT. They say it’s boring, cyclists go round in circles yet the Grand Tour races are far duller. Tried watching their beloved ‘Taking Drugs Furtively’; can you imagine sitting for hours watching random helicopter shots of countrysides, people riding bikes, so.

I like to wear whatever I want even when it’s a “fast ride”

It kind of depends on whether "serious bicyclist" means a serious person who also rides a bike - or - a person who is perhaps overly serious about riding a bike. A serious person who rides a bike looks at a "serious bicyclist" in spandex and thinks "there goes an adult pretending to be a racer, who might as well be wearing a cowboy suit with buckskin chaps and cap guns on his hips pretending to be a cowboy." There are probably more people in the city of Amsterdam on any given day riding bikes in regular clothes than people in any given US state riding in spandex. (Or riding fixies!) I think we should stop using the term "serious cyclists" to describe those who ride as fast as possible in spandex and call them "competitive cyclists." (I won't call them "silly cyclists" out loud.) A serious person riding a bike is riding for any number of legitimate reasons that do not involve competition. Don't get me wrong, competition can also be a legitimate reason to ride, and competition can mean competing with other riders or competing with yourself over time - trying to always push the envelope and improve upon your best effort. If your primary reason for riding is to go always faster, then it's entirely appropriate to wear the spandex and spend as much as you can afford on ever better equipment - and I apologize for thinking it's silly. However, it is rather silly to believe that this is everyone's primary reason for riding, or that anyone riding for other reasons doesn't have perfectly good reasons for wearing what they like and riding bikes that fit their style and their budget. So, I'll indulge in one-upsmanship for a moment and give you one more thing "serious cyclists hate" that I love: coaster brakes. I love an internally geared bike with a coaster brake.

Perhaps this is only perception on my part. Riding fixed through the city, I wave at all riders. When I wear kit, most all the roadies acknowledge. In plain clothes, many do not. When do we all become just cyclists, whether training or recreation with common goals of fitness, enjoyment, and safety:).

Flex patterns never make you go faster, and are not typically human-feelable. You can't sense when a frame flexes. Only time flex helps is on rough roads. Likely you are thinking about multiple factors you're pumping together, like tires, chains, handlebars etc.

I love to wear my sunglasses under my helmet straps. 😎

just the shorts because my ass hurts i have a e bike but i enjoy my single speed and my fixsy

I do prefer clipless pedals 🤷 And for winter I definitely turn to cycling specific clothing. It's just not practical looking like the Michelinman cycling 🤷

A lot of serious cyclist love steel because the feel good to ride.

I enjoy riding in street cloths

I would add uncomfortable saddles to the list, again something done in the interest of weight/speed. If a set of shorts that make it look like you have a load in your pants is needed for a more comfortable ride, count me out.

Anybody who thinks steel is heavy should try a 70's race bike like the PX10 etc, they are incredibly light, last forever.

in response to point 4; velo sambas

I give this bike build an outstanding 76 fixie points 😂

I think steel bike more expensive than aluminum, isn't it?🤔😅😑✌🏼

Riding slow (zone 2) is actually very popular among serious cyclists these days!

Did my tour of duty with clips, no more. Prefer flats to clips but mtb shoes with mtb pedals better. Freewheels because I am not pedaling downhill.

I love fixed and as a "serious" cyclist I often use it as a training tool. There is no "wasted" saddle time when training on a fixed because there is no coasting. I work up the hill and then down the other side. No changing gears to make it easier. I argue that if you never ride fixed then you are not a serious cyclist.

"serious" cyclists absolutely do not look down at steel, we look down at shit steel because life's to short to ride shit bikes

Not as fast as possible, as HARD as possible.