When a young man hung his bicycle from a tree branch near the intersection of Fairview and Dunlavy, the crowd cheered. Upwards of 200 youths had come Friday January 28---on foot, on two wheels, but very few by car---for the opening of Houston Fixed Gear's new location. What was it that made the one guy hoist his bike up and hang it as if it were a flag? On a night that the world will remember for the thousands of people who risked their lives for freedom in Cairo's Liberation Square, did his act and the ensuing cheers celebrate anything beyond fashion and fun? Is it the appropriation of gritty bike messenger culture? Is it just hipsters marking their territory?
Scott Cartwright and Jenny Lynn with a Chronicle photographer.
I walked to the party with Scott Cartwright and Jenny Lynn Weitz-Amaré Cartwright of wacdesignstudio. Borrowing elements and ideas from previous projects like Furniture Sale on North Freeway, they designed and fabricated the store's new transaction desk, display units, and seating using molded plywood. In the forthcoming issue of Cite, Jose Solis profiles wacdesignstudio and gives a behind-the-scenes look at their process. (Read an advanced pdf of the excerpt here.) The display table wacdesign fabricated curves at one edge and is hung from the ceiling by four wires. The design recalls the extreme simplicity of the fixed-gear bike frame free of cassettes, break cables, and shocks. The table swayed with the hubbub of the crowd and the DJ's throbbing mix, much in the way a fixed gear rider can rock forwards and backwards. (A fixed gear bicycle has no freewheel, the sprocket is screwed directly into the hub, and pedaling backwards move the wheel backwards.) The transaction desk looked very impressive but I could only get glimpses through the crowd of bodies.
Outside, Fusion Taco and Melange Creperie sold gourmet street food in what could be a parking lot but felt more like a chok in Ahmedebad or a plaza in Lima. The conviviality of the scene and the migas crepe in my hand put me in a great mood. That said, I will not be buying a fixed gear. I like to coast too much. I like to use breaks. I like ample handlebars. I like how the shocks on my fork absorb the impact from the craters in Houston's roads. I also don't expect to hang a table from my own ceiling. But I still felt exhilarated. Many of the people there had arrived by way of a Critical Mass ride. When I joined those rides years ago, which are typically on the last Fridays of every month, there would be about a dozen of us, half of whom were visitors from Portland and Seattle telling the others how much bigger the phenomenon was everywhere else. It had been a decidedly politicized group of cyclists back then, whereas the big group at Houston Fixed Gear were not passing around fliers against the war. Rather, models were showcasing bikewear. Everyone was "grooving" to DJs Dayta, Elroy Boogie, and Squincy Jones.
Melange Creperie
Rosi Ruiz
Della Afidick and Wolfgang Indra model bikewear, and my baby boy.
So why did that guy hang the bike from the tree? Should I have cheered with the hipsters or jeered? Is the whole phenomenon more about lifestyle and coolness than it is a movement? John Nova Lomax posted some withering attacks from bike messengers against "fixies" on the Houston Press blog. Yet, the lifestyle involves more than color-matching bicycle parts. It is about place, and a different pattern of consumption that supports the local, the beautifully designed, and the urban. Rosi Ruiz, proprietor and store manager of Houston Fixed Gear, deserves praise for creating a node where that lifestyle can finally find a foothold and perhaps flourish in Houston. I choose to believe that hoisting the bike like a flag is more than a territorial marking of coolness: it is a rallying call for normative change.
