Quiet, fun, low maintenance and cheap: fixed gear bikes have it all.
The Second International Fixed Gear Symposium drew proponents of the low-tech sport from around the country to the Grand Traverse Commons to ride, share and swap. Gathering in the shadow of Building 50, these fixed gear bikers and their grunge concoctions provided a counter to the gadget-laden, metallurgical wonders of the modern bike world.
"It's a whole different kind of biking, there's something about fixed gear," said Steve Lambert of Des Moines, Iowa, who attended the symposium with his two sons. "Most of us have traveled the whole gamut from kids bikes to road bikes to mountain bikes and back to fixed gear bikes. You go from all the expensive bikes to where most of these bikes are old bikes that were going into the Dumpster."
The three-day symposium also included long rides around Old Mission and Leelanau Peninsulas, a combined scavenger hunt/poker run around town, mechanic's race, demos, camping and conversions.
Not to mention the chance to trade — stories, tips and parts — with fellow enthusiasts who were more than eager to talk bike.
"It's a very friendly community," said Keith Warner of Charlevoix, who works at Revolution Bike and helped with the mechanic's race to assemble a fixed gear bike from a road bike frame up.
Dennis Bean-Larsen founded the event in 2005, inspired the previous fall by his wife, Katy. That first symposium drew 90 bikes who raved about the concept, area, rides and various events, spurring organizers to tackle another one this year.
Attendees to the second annual event came from as far away as Brooklyn, Oklahoma City and Denver. They spanned the socio-economic gamut from bike messengers to bike mechanics, college students to a college Dean. Besides a shared love of the sport, creativity was a uniting force: making something out of parts and pieces given up as useless by others.
"This type of bicycle, there's a lot of creativity involved in this because very, very few — maybe even none — of the ones that were here, are off the shelf," said Bean-Larsen, a local realtor who has been biking since 1989 and a fixed gear guy since 1990.
Tracy Halasinski of Denver spend Saturday afternoon watching intently as Bob Schutter of Grand Rapids converted a road bike to a fixed gear one. Lauding the fixed gear bike's control, quietness, lightweight, simplicity and stability, Halasinski owns two fixed gear bikes as well as four more bikes.
"I ride the other bikes once in a while because I feel sorry for them," she said of her languishing mountain and road bikes.
"That's what's kind of fun about these old bikes," Halasinski added of her fixed gear equipment. "They take these old frames, pick them up at yard sales and redo them. And people buy parts on eBay, if they're looking for something obscure."
Halasinski, who is determined to become her own mechanic, also attended last year's symposium. Coming back was an easy decision given the positive vibes from last year and the beautiful rides she took with other attendees.
"I can't think of a prettier place to ride a bike than Leelanau County," she added, noting she has family in the area to visit.
One picture posted on Bean-Larsen's fixedgeargallery.com six years ago spawned a flourishing site that today has more than 19,000 pictures and thousands of daily readers from countries around the world. Reviews, tips, tricks and other information about all aspects of fixed gear biking are also included on the site, which Bean-Larsen had no idea would become a beacon for fixed gear enthusiasts worldwide — and start a growing annual symposium.
"My wife and I laugh because there was a time when I had about five pictures up and I told her, 'You know, I might actually get 25 here,'" he recalled.