Pet Peeves - Fixie Bikes Part 2

I've ranted about fixie bikes before—those no-brakes fashion accessory bicycles that Mission hipsters love to park in front of Ritual Coffee Roasters on a Saturday afternoon. I'm a self-confessed curmudgeon about them... But I'm not the only one.

A couple of days ago I was parking my double caliper braked hunk of junk down at the Best Buy on Harrison Street. Peering down at the rack I copped an eyeful of the following:

Okay, so the photos taken by my mobile phone are blurry pieces of crap—definitely not up to Brit standards—but you get the idea. What I love about it is that it combines two of my favourite things: nerdy lolspeak and a heathly disdain for riders of fixies.

In the lower right-hand corner of the sticker an email address is listed. I contacted the person on the other end of the intertubes asking for a clearer image of the text listed below the main headline. Here's what I got. Behold, in all its glory!

You can click on the image for a larger version, or you can exercise your constitutionally enshrined right to be a lazy bastard and just read my retyping of the fine print.

fixed gear bikes are for people who live in plains states. welcome to san francisco, or wherever you are. fashion and peer pressure can make you do anything, even something as misguided as eschew gears in a hilly town. "obey your thirst." different, better advice: get over your bad self. don't forget to use lube. power down. stay healthy. if you keep it up, something inside you's likely to explode. BLAM! then where will you be? huh? well, right where you are now, but with an exploded body part. and nobody wants that. get there in the end, & our cardiovascular systems can still beat marketing execs' in a fair fight. above all, ride predictably. don't run red lights. participate in 4-way stops. PLEASE. it is frustrating when car drivers ignore us, but ignoring them is not the solution. and ignoring them and the traffic laws will get us killed. get home safe. look around at us. have empathy. believe me, some-bloody-body needs to.

Yeah, fight the power! I'm with her/him all the way except for that meandering middle part about brushing your teeth and exploding body parts. That was way too cosmic for my tastes. But the rest of it? Right on the money. I'm so glad somebody is out there changing the world, one pointless sticker at a time. I'm especially glad when said sticker fuels my crankiness, and with a lolcat twist to boot!