Why do bicycle messengers ride fixies




















A lot of cyclists get too caught up in the fixie vs road bike debate. The key is to be aware of the limitations of each bicycle and to find ways to overcome them. Bike messengers usually ride to km to miles every week, rain, shine, or snow.

Sounds like a lot? Now imagine that with up to 30 kg 66 pounds on your back! That might be an extreme example, but riding that much every day with a lot of weight will take its toll.

Riding fixed-gear is harder work than regular cycling. This puts unusual forces on the knees especially when trying to start quickly or stopping at speed by locking up the rear wheel. A fixie is a single-speed bicycle with no freewheel mechanism with the drive cog bolted directly to the hub of the back wheel. Yes, this in return means that you cannot stop pedalling when riding fixed-gear. Cheaper is a relative term and depends a lot onthecomponents you use but, for the most part, fixies are cheaperthancomparable geared bikes.

In terms of efficiency, the speed bike is more efficient since it has more gears, and because of more gears, the speed ratio and comfort will be more.

The pedals in the speed bike are more smooth because of the presence of more chainsets and sprockets. Bike messengers ride fixed-gear bicycles for five main reasons — tradition, fashion, low maintenance, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.

The Messenger Series was built in collaboration with the true road warriors, the salt of the earth, bike messengers of New York City. These bikes are built to be strong and responsive with a triple butted chromoly steel frame and 32 spoke Rogue Bullet rims.

Bike messengers deliver all sorts of things — CDs, DVDs, gifts, legal documents, instruments, shoes, gifts, artwork, clothes, signed documents, or just about anything. In fact, not only are there still bicycle messengers, but the world of commercial cycling has become even more diverse and nuanced, thanks to the advent of app-based delivery services.

The popularity of fixed-gear bicycles among bike couriers is pretty high, but not all of them ride fixies.

Many bike messengers use whatever bicycle they have or a model, often electric, offered by the delivery company. The word on the street is that messengers are abandoning their traditional speed bikes in favor of faster track bikes, which have no brakes and are made for racing. This means the rider has to keep pedaling as the bicycle moves.

Bike messengers are common in most big cities. They can avoid traffic, they are fast and flexible, and anyone can do it. But making a living as a bike messenger is not an easy job! Feb 10, Bicycle couriering is difficult, dangerous work.

Bike For the last year, my primary bike has been a flat bar road bike , an All City Mr. Pink with a front rack, thumb shifters, and big tires. I still have a fixed gear, but the more recent job I was doing had a lot more distance and I wanted a bike with gears. Bag The trend has shifted to messenger backpacks in the past few years, as deliveries have transitioned to more food and cargo instead of paper documents.

So you may need to carry a pound garment bag and for that, you want the biggest bag you can have. You can sling it around your shoulder and go in and out of it. That used to be great when you were mostly working in the Financial District and bringing papers around and you needed to just flip through paper. What am I going to do? Phones are key though.

The modern messenger carries a spare battery around with him. But the ideal would be a waterproof external battery case for your phone for long days. We depend so much on our phones, compared to what we used to do.

Clothing Merino wool is obviously a go-to. One of the hardest things though, is dealing with wet, freezing rain.



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