BY JASON NORMAN
SAN JOSE, CA—Popular MTV show “Pimp My Ride” takes beat up cars and gives them a complete makeover to fit the personalities and interests of their owners. Now bike shops are using a similar formula to cater to more and more young customers who ask how their fixed-gear ride can be pimped out.
Willow Glen Bicycles in San Jose, California, buys no-name fixie frames from Asia and customizes them to order with parts from brands like Brooks, White Industries, Paul Components, Phil Wood & Co and Nitto.
“At times it’s been carrying the shop,” said Dick VanDerLuit, owner of Willow Glen Bicycles, of his burgeoning fixed-gear bike customization business. “It’s this early 20s group and they have a bit of money to spend.”
Putting together a complete fixed-gear bike that fits their taste and style isn’t cheap—costing upwards of $3,000 for high-quality parts and accessories. However, Willow Glen also offers brands like Soma that can keep the costs down for the thrifty consumer.
Another shop leading the custom fixie trend is L.A. Brakeless on Venice Boulevard. This shop, too, brings in no name frames, sort of.
Local framebuilder Larry Hammerness supplies hand-built frames to order to L.A. Brakeless that range from $800 to $1,000. Store manager George Gregor said there’s no shortage of young consumers—ranging from 17 to 27 years old—gobbling them up and pimping them out.
“They build them up with custom parts,” Gregor said. “They have quite a bit of extra money to spend on their hobby.”
Before, fixed-gear owners had two color choices for parts: silver and black. These days, however, manufacturers offer a wide palette of colors to suit the most unique of tastes. It’s perhaps what BMX offerings—and the culture—used to be in the 1980s.
“These kids ride and hang around our shop all the time,” said Gregor, who will see the same kids roll by the window at different times during the day. “We have couches in our shop; we have videos playing. It’s like a fashion thing. They show it off at school, work.”
And speaking of parallels between BMX and the fixie scene—a freestyle movement is brewing within the fixie crowd. All that flatland trickery that was synonymous with BMX freestyle bikes during the 1980s is now happening on fixies. “That’s where it’s headed,” Gregor said.
Specialty bike shops aren’t the only ones hitching their wagons to custom fixies. Online retailer Republic Bike is selling its frames for as little as $399, and allows consumers to “pick, choose, swap and decide and we’ll build it, box it, and ship it out. Built by us and you,” according to its Web site.
Republic also sells its bikes through clothing and accessories online retailer Urban Outfitters. Company officials declined to comment for this story.
One distributor that’s benefiting from this fixed-gear customization trend is Southern California’s Euro Asia, which offers roughly 2,000 items for fixed-gear riders (see story on facing page).
Euro Asia offers its own proprietary frame designed for track racing but used by fixie riders called Bare Knuckle, which retails for between $750 and $795.
“It’s a way for consumers to express themselves,” said Dave Lundegard, who handles marketing for Euro Asia, about the growing popularity of customized fixies.
Probably no city is more known for self-expression than San Francisco. And probably no shop does a better job at fulfilling that need than American Cyclery, which has two locations in the Upper Haight district.
Tyson Mitchell, buyer for American Cyclery, said the shop last year built up one customized fixie a day. “I think it’s peaked in San Francisco,” Mitchell said of the fixie scene. “It’s saturated in the city.”
But American Cyclery’s customized fixie business is still going strong. Young adults are buying affordable Páke frames, perhaps removing the decals and spec’ing them to their liking.
Customers come from as far as California’s Central Valley to get their custom fixie, but Mitchell sees that day coming to an end soon. “It will move to the suburban shop,” Mitchell said.
