Fixed-gear bikes aren’t new, but in the past couple of months three new places have opened up in Shanghai designed for fixed-gear riders. There’s a new bike café set up by one of Shanghai’s diehard fixie enthusiasts, a new fixed gear bike shop and Factory 5, an open-door office and community hub for fixed-gear riders.

For those who haven’t been converted to the way of the fixie, fixed-gear bikes don’t have gears and the chain is fixed to the back wheel, so you can’t coast. This allows a cyclist to stop without using a brake, or even to ride backwards. In practice, riding a fixed-gear bike gives you more of a sensation of control and makes riding more intuitive and fun. Fixed-gear bikes are also fast and require very little maintenance.

Bike Porn

“People have been riding fixed-gear bikes for a long time,” says Rich Yu, who has been riding fixies in Shanghai since he arrived from Seattle a couple of years ago. “The first bikes ever made were fixed-gear. But they became popular again after bike messengers started to ride them in the ’90s. They’re fast because they’re geared very high, they’re light because they don’t have so many moving parts, and they’re easy to maintain because they don’t have a lot of components that can go wrong. Plus, they look cool, which is one of the reasons that attracted me and most other people to them.”

Many fixed-gear riders go out of their way to build the most colorful, ostentatious bikes they can. The huge popularity of fixies in the past five years is in large part because they look so good.

“I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some aesthetic angle,” admits Yu. “Part of the whole fixed-gear thing is the fetishism. It’s bike porn. People will swap pictures of the best-looking bikes they can find, as they would a pin-up girl. People customize their bike as a way of expressing their individuality.”

The Brands

For those looking for a hassle-free entry-level fixie, the Taiwanese brand Airwalk is a solid bet. They opened their first store in Shanghai in 2009 and recently opened a new location on Julu Lu called Peeping Bom, which sells clothes, skateboard parts and everything you need to build a fixed-gear bike in a rainbow of colors.

“People can come in here and tell us what they want and we’ll put the bike together for them in the store,” says Apple Gong, who’s been working for Airwalk since they came to Shanghai. “We can customise the color of every part of the bike, from the wheels to the chain to the color of the brake cables.”

The basic steel-framed Airwalk model will set you back about RMB2,700, but they have recently started making lighter frames and the customization options are almost limitless. If you buy through their Taobao page, the bike works out to be a bit cheaper, but it’s worth visiting the store, if only so you can lay out different color combinations and get a sense of how you want your bike to look.

American brand Specialized is famous for mountain and track bikes but it also sells some high-end single-speeds that can be ridden as fixies. They currently have beautiful, retro-styled single speeds starting around RMB6,500, as well as some by classic Italian brands such as Colnago, which go for over RMB15,000.

“We’ve done single speeds for a long time. They are so popular now in Shanghai that we’d be mad not to,” says Glenn Cartwright from the Puxi store. “They’re a little more expensive, but with a Specialized you’ll get a higher quality frame.”

Like most types of fixed-gear bikes, the Specialized models can be ridden fixed or easily converted to a regular freewheel bike by reversing the back wheel. “You can ride them fixed sometimes and freewheel other times,” says Cartwright. “So this would be a good bike to get if you’re interested in riding a fixed gear but you don’t want to ride fixed all the time.”

The Locals

For something with even more character, head to Factory 5, a new bike hub set up by five foreigners who were among the first people in Shanghai to ride fixed-gear bikes. It’s the same group that organizes the Alleycat, an annual bike race around the streets of Shanghai, and they have recently started making fixies out of old Fenghuang frames. Set in a lane off Donghu Lu, the spot has a small workshop where riders can stop in to tinker with their bikes or grab a drink with other cyclists.

“This is our office, but for now people are free to drop in and talk about bikes, work on their bike or just get a beer,” says Tyler Bowa, a Canadian who’s also the man behind the website Peoplesbike.com. “When we were organizing the last Alleycat we had nowhere to meet. We kept having meetings in convenience stores, so we decided to get our own space. It’s an informal place where we can work, but it’s also a space for the biking community. Plus, we organize a lot of bike rides and we wanted a meeting spot for all the riders.”

Bowa and the others involved–Mattias Erlandsson, Jeff Liu, Drew Bates and Karl Ke–say the space will develop with time. “We’re pushing to be that fixed-gear hub in Shanghai. It’s a chance for us to give back to all the people who have come down to our events. Everyone is welcome to stop by, from experts to novices who have never ridden a fixie before. We can help you put a bike together or just talk to you about bike stuff.”

At the moment their doors are always open, but Bowa says they may set up specific times when people can stop by if the place gets too busy–this is their office, after all.

“We might start stocking a few hard-to-find bike components in time, but right now we’re focussed on rebuilding old Chinese frames into fixies. The Forever frames are a little heavier than new steel frames, but their strength and durability is better. If you’re going to be riding it three or four times a week, you want something that’s going to endure long-term.” Factory 5 rebuilds sell for around RMB3,000. “You could get something a little cheaper than this,” says Bowa, “but ours will be good for three to four years before you have to replace any components.”

Biker Bars

One of the guys at Factory 5 has also just opened Shanghai’s first bike café, Bikes & Friends, in an old house on Fuxing Xi Lu. Mattias Erlandsson started the project with the help of Gerado Casamiquela, who runs Tara 57, Spanish restaurant Mistral and a bunch of other F&B projects in town.

Erlandsson makes high-end fixed-gear bikes that he sells in his native Sweden, but he says Bikes & Friends isn’t just for bike nerds. “This isn’t just for people who ride fixed-gear,” he says. “It’s not just for people riding expensive carbon fibre bikes, it’s for anyone who loves to ride. Whatever bike you ride, you’re welcome to drop in.”

Bikes & Friends sells beer, coffee, soft drinks and a selection of simple food made in the Mistral kitchen next door: fried chicken, home fries, salad, corn. It also has a space in the front where you can fix your bike and a garden in the back for hanging out, plus a comfy little dining room for sinking a beer after a long ride. Right now they’re open every evening and all day on weekends, but they have plans to open all day, every day, soon.

“We live in a great city for cycling,” says Erlandsson. “You don’t realize it when you first get here, but biking makes perfect sense in Shanghai. I can get from the French Concession to the Bund in 18 minutes. Before midnight I can beat any other form of transportation around town.”

And it beats sitting in the back of a sweltering cab, any day.

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Main photo: Stephen Yang