No Brakes, No Masters: The Global Rise of the Fixed Gear Phenomenon

“You can always add something to your bike, but you’ll get to a point where you can’t subtract anything else, and that’s a fixed gear.” – Graeme Obree aka ‘The Flying Scottman’

The traditional track or ‘fixed gear’ bike is an elegant machine notable for its stark simplicity – direct drivetrain, one gear, no brakes. With fewer things to break, this stripped-down design is both rugged and easy to repair. Its velodrome race-bred geometry offers lightning-quick handling, aggressive positioning, and lightweight materials that eschew comfort and predictability in favor of a raw, exhilarating riding experience.

The Birth of the Fixed Gear

Before the freewheel became widely available at the end of the 19th century, all bikes were effectively fixed gear. The first Tour de France (1903) and hallowed six-day races were thus raced on fixed gear bikes, often with flip-flop hubs requiring riders to choose a ratio (or two) and stick to it. By the time derailleurs were finally allowed in the Tour in 1937, founder Henri Desgrange, who had long opposed multi-speed technology, is said to have lamented,  “We are becoming weak. Please, my friends, let’s admit that this attempt was an interesting one for our grandparents! As for me, give me a fixed gear!”

Once geared bicycles became the new professional standard, fixed gears were relegated to the banked oval tracks of the velodrome (the Track). In growing cities, fixed gear bicycles were seen as increasingly impractical for use on streets filled with cars, pedestrians, lights, and any number of random obstacles. That is, according to legend, until Jamaican bike messengers started to ride them on the streets of New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

NYC Messengers Bring Fixed Gear Back to the Streets

In the years before the fax machine (and, obviously, the internet), bike couriers were the quickest way to transport documents in highly congested cities like New York and San Francisco. Estimates suggest that by the 1980s, there were over 7,000 bike messengers in NYC, one of whom was Nelson Vails. Nicknamed “The Cheetah”, Nelson could deliver between 35 and 60 parcels a day. At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Vails became the first African American and the first person of African descent to win an Olympic medal in cycling – silver in the individual 1000-meter Match Sprints. Vails’ ascent to the Olympic podium brought new attention to urban messenger culture at a time when more and more messengers were switching out their cruisers, mountain bikes, and road bikes for fixed gear track bikes.

On a messenger’s salary, few riders are sporting brand new bikes; most things come second-hand, often passed on from a retiring racer or bought used at a local bike shop. The first track bikes ridden on the streets were made of lightweight steel tubing and usually hand-built by European craftsmen. Names like Colnago and Campagnolo dominated the dialect as Italy had long been a bastion of cycling culture. Every year the number of track bikes ridden by couriers increased and more couriers showed up to championship events riding fixed. 

The Rise of Underground Racing

In 1992, the inaugural Cycle Messenger World Championships (CMWC) took place in Berlin, gathering bike messengers from all over the globe to compete for the title of “Fastest Messenger in the World.” Held in a different city every year, CMWC has become a week-long affair full of drinking, debauchery, sanctioned racing, and street racing. The street races are called Alleycats: open course, unsanctioned, and arguably illegal. These chaotic, unsanctioned races pushed couriers to their limits, challenging their routing skills, traffic-dodging capabilities, and raw nerve. In 1996, the CMWC was hosted in San Francisco, with the New York messenger contingent competing on fixed gear bikes. This event marked an inflection point. Over the next decade, the fixie scene would explode. 

In the early 2000s, as fixed gear bicycles solidified their status as a cultural phenomenon, Japanese bike culture began to influence the scene. Keirin racing, a high-stakes velodrome sport governed by the Nihon Jitensha Shinkokai (NJS), introduced style-conscious urban riders to the precision and craftsmanship of NJS frames and components, which quickly became the gold standard for fixie enthusiasts.

From Subculture to Mainstream

As the 2000s progressed, the urban fixed gear scene expanded into a broader cultural movement that influenced film, music, and fashion. Track bikes became an emblem of creative subcultures, embraced by professional skateboarders, graffiti artists, and streetwear enthusiasts. Brands like Supreme rose in tandem with the fixie scene, reflecting its raw energy and DIY ethos. Iconic track bikes like the Colnago Futura 2000 also gained prominence, becoming rare collector’s items—including one that sold for $110,000. Movies like MASH and Macaframa spread like wildfire. Structured like skateboarding videos, these feature-length films showcased riders skillfully bombing hills and darting in and around traffic.

From there, track bikes began nudging into mainstream culture and, by the late 2000s, started appearing in smaller cities and suburban towns. The rise of online shops and resellers made once-hard-to-find parts from Japan and Italy more accessible than ever. Italian legacy brands like Cinelli collaborated with groups like MASH to create aluminum and carbon track bikes tailored specifically for street riding, further broadening their appeal. Meanwhile, on the streets of larger cities, proliferating Japanese NJS frames went head-to-head with flashy Italian steeds as street racing heated up. Riders began adopting carbon aero wheels and other road-racing performance modifications, pushing the boundaries of performance and setting the stage for the next evolution of fixed gear cycling.

The Evolution of Fixed Gear Racing

In quiet Red Hook, Brooklyn, David Trimble was searching for a way to bring his bike messenger and road racer friends together. One crew prepped for races by chugging beers and puffing joints, the other shaved legs and got a good night’s sleep. For his birthday in 2008, Trimble finally got his wish when he held the first open-course, fixed gear criterium. Modeled after Kermesse racing in Belgium and refined in the United States to Criteriums, this breakneck race format features multiple laps around an urban course. The inaugural Red Hook Crit took place at midnight around an IKEA building, over cobblestones and bus routes, and the race quickly became the Super Bowl of fixed gear racing, expanding into a four-race international series across Brooklyn, Milan, London, and Barcelona by 2015. Riders from around the world, including professionals from Grand Tour teams, would show up to try their hand (and legs) at racing the fastest street cyclists to ever grace a track bike. Red Hook Criterium would go on to inspire a multitude of other fixed gear criteriums, including Zuricrit in Switzerland and our own Mission Crit in San Francisco.

In the mid 2010s, after Red Hook Crit rose to prominence, Germany’s Rad Race began to draw international attention with its high-adrenaline fixed gear races. Their ‘Last Man Standing’ series, first held on a go-kart circuit near Hamburg, helped popularize the tournament-style short-track elimination format in Europe, while their ‘Fixed42’ event in Berlin – a 42-kilometer urban race on the German Autobahn – quickly became a marquee fixed gear competition.

Here in the United States, big-brand support from Red Bull starting in the late 2010s underscored fixed gear racing’s transition from a niche subculture to a mainstream phenomenon. Along with sponsoring then-established events like Mission Crit, Red Bull launched its own branded competitions including Red Bull Bay Climb, a grueling hill-climb where fixed gear is the headline discipline, and Red Bull Short Circuit, a short-track elimination race on a go-kart circuit. Together, these ventures further broadened the sport’s appeal and showcased the adaptability of fixed gear racing on any course imaginable.

Resilience and Reinvention

Once a niche discipline and working-class tool, fixed gear has grown into a vibrant, worldwide culture and an evolving sport.  Although the 2020 pandemic delivered a devastating blow, forcing marquee events into hiatus and slowing the growth of the discipline, the community has proven resilient. In recent years, short-track tournament-style races on go-kart courses have proliferated, and traditional U.S. criteriums continue to add fixed gear categories apace. The return of Rad Race and Mission Crit, and the emergence of Formula Fixed signal that riders and fans alike remain hungry for the daring race spirit that first propelled fixed gear bikes onto the global stage.