stop the madness already

The mainstream media seems to be piling on in the wake of the death of a fixed gear rider. This article, from Seattle's Stranger, is a surprisingly in-depth analysis of the situation. A newbie FG rider, who may or may not have been hotdogging, was run over by a dump truck. Even if he were hotdogging, he still didn't deserve to die, but because the community perpetrates this meme that having a brake on a FG dilutes the purity of the experience, he was riding a bike that significantly contributed to his death.

Unfortunately, the article misses some key opportunities to set a few things straight. The author, an experienced cyclist, tries out a brakeless fixed gear and finds it to be more or less the most dangerous and terrifying experience he's known on two wheels. OK, that's fine...but there's no real attempt to clarify the skillset involved. It's either "you have quads of steel and you can track skid" or "you'll get thrown into traffic." It just ought to be pointed out that it's possible to ride fixed gear bikes in traffic, and do so extremely safely, but two things are critical: a front brake and some experience.

The lessons to be learned, before another sheep is slaughtered at the altar of hipster transportation: Put a front brake on it. Learn the principles of a nose wheelie. Even if you never pull a nose wheelie day to day, if you panic brake, you will instinctively learn to soak up the bike's inertial efforts to rotate around the front wheel. If you stiffen up your legs in that panic, the entire bike will rotate around the front wheel and all of those lovely foot*pounds (that could be used to hold your front wheel down, multiply the friction coefficient and therefore shorten stopping distance) will instead be translated into an "endo" or a "faceplant."

However, the real asshat proves to be Lloyd Tamura of Velo Bicycles, who sells a lot of fixed gear bikes but doesn't "advise one way or another" about a front brake, adding "you can't tell people 'You're not experienced enough to ride this.'"

You can't, huh? You just take their money and what they do with the product is their problem? Great idea, why don't you sell motorcycles and loaded weapons while you're at it, Lloyd? If you were clever, you'd have a FG clinic every week where skilled riders could demonstrate how stopping quickly can save your life. You could hire a hipster and I to ride down the street at the same speed, and when someone opens a door/steps into traffic/cuts us off, the flavor of the month will be looking for fragments of his teeth, and I will be 20 feet back, well out of harm's way, maybe doing a one-hander.

I keep trying to let this go, but when I read about some kid on an FG who got run over because it's not "cool" to use a front brake, I have a hard time shutting up about it.