>>1830231>>ITT we larp as 2007 hipstersFixies were a thing when there was a glut of bike boom french bikes being hauled out to goodwill. Since they were good quality frames with retarded French proportions, they couldn't be rebuilt with modern parts. Therefore, it was easier to strip out the gears, redish the wheel, thread on a track sprocket with locktite, perhaps thread on a spare bb lockring and call it done.
Right around this time, people started to venture into Brooklyn/Portland, and the existing bike messenger lore started to percolate, and fixies became a clout thing. Clout chasers started to go for purity, and chased down track bikes and Keirin spec parts. This shit went on until about 2013, when the fad faded out, when the supply of bike boom frames petered out, and everyone riding fixies either got into cars or discovered how nice it is to have gears, plus the cringe factor of Walmart and the other chinkshit bso vendors selling flip flop singlespeeds.
>>1830231Real advice, if you already have a (steel) bike with semihorizontal ends, buy/build a wheel with a flip flop hub, gear it around 60 gear inches and ride around like that for a while, leave the brakes and everything else stock. If you like the fixed gear experience, congratulations, if you like the fixed gear experience, but wanted some spare (lower) gears, get a Sturmey Archer S3X hub, if you liked the singlespeed experience but didn't like the fixed gear part, replace the track sprocket with a freewheel. And in the end, if you didnt like any of it, just put your original wheel and derailer back in, and chalk it up as a folly of youth.
