Natural Selection
What is it with London’s fixie-riding cyclists? I have three theories:
- Riding a brakeless fixie in London traffic is an evolutionary cul de sac. Once you get in, extinction is the only way out.
- Riding a brakeless fixie in London traffic is only something that the deranged would seriously consider as a transport choice. We’ve seen an increase in brakeless fixie riders as part of the fall out of care in the community, untreated PTSD, and the general rolling back of mental health care in the UK.
- Riding a brakeless fixie in London traffic is the result of something similar to the toxoplasma parasite in rats. Normal cyclists get bitten by an infected motorist, and then develop crazy suicidal tendencies. The parasite’s transmission vector is via blood-splatter in the issuing carnage.
I mean, obviously, you’ll remember this one, but how about this from today, filmed by our covert operative:
Yep - biologist spend years studying moths that turn from black to white, or the curious mutations of fruit flies, only to prove that insect DNA seems rather unstable. If they really wanted to prove evolution is more than just a theory (and therefore so much more believable than those other not-referenced-in-the-bible theories like “gravity”), all they’d have to do is watch London cyclists for a few weeks.
There are many things I don’t understand…riding fixed with no brakes in any city…riding without a helmet (not a requirement where I am)…being a salmon (riding against the flow of traffic/bikes).
Whilst I don’t understand them I don’t discourage it. If people are hell bent on removing themselves from the gene pool who am I to complain??
In all seriousness though, people riding like this would leave a mental scar on the driver who hits them, whether the driver is in the wrong or not!
The trouble w/ fixies -as I see it- are that they take more skill to slow down in a controlled manner (skid, easy but expensive, graceful deceleration takes practise), and they lack acceleration as they are in too high a gear to set of in. Try singlespeeding for a week to experience this, especially somewhere hilly.
the acceleration problem discourages you from braking, the deceleration problem amplifies that. Then there’s just the fashion thing -a lot of fixie riders haven’t been on the road long enough to do adequate risk assessment.
Trouble is -these are the idiots that reinforce prejudices.
These videos should be compulsory viewing for anyone buying a bike to use in central london.
Isn’t it a legal requirement to have both front and rear brakes on a bike?
Maybe the fixed gear substitutes for the rear brake, but that doesn’t explain the front.
Doesn’t stop lots of London riders (mainly couriers as far as I can see) going without.
But then, what is a FPN compared with the buzz of annihilation?
Interesting question. Reading the excellent Bike Hub “Cycling and The Law” page, it seems not:
Use regulations you may be required to stop and satisfy the police that your brakes will stop you sufficiently. This is not defined but British Standards expect a new bicycle to stop in 5.5m from 24km/h.
Curiously enough, I’ve used the DfT’s stopping distance chart to calculate typical stopping distance for a car at this speed as 7.4m. This is made up of a thinking distance of 4.5m, and a braking distance of 2.9m.
So either the British Standards’ stopping distance is just the braking distance, or assumes cyclists have the ability to read the road better than any crystal ball-gazing fairground act.
I think there’s a driving instructor round the corner who reads your blog Karl. I was coming down a hill this morning at 25-30mph when he told his pupil to pull out in front of me. Being a learner, they stuck below the limit and I was on their tail to the bottom of the hill…where his next instruction was an emergency stop.
I couldn’t think of a rational explanation for this until I came here and realised he was an undercover BSI bike-stopping-distance detector, checking their calculations.
That must be just the braking distance, that British Standards are referring to, of course the law of physic still apply, although I understand that some members the Association of British Drivers are campaigning to have these re-pealed…