Staff Infection

URBAN OUTFITTERS + FIXED GEARS = UGH

Sarah BennettFri. July 17
 

Remember back in 2007 when those Middle Eastern scarves went from political symbol to fluorescent-terrorist chic in about a month? That was Urban Outfitters. Or last year when assholes with perfect eyesight started wearing giant black-rimmed glasses without any fucking lenses? That was UO, too. And, now, everyone’s favorite corporate purveyors of ignorant hip has done it again, simplifying the urban bicycle subculture into a re-appropriated accessory and selling the watered-down image of integrity to anyone with a credit card. May they present, the Urban Outfitters Bike Shop.

In light of fixed gear bicycles’ popularity growth in the last year, Urban Outfitters has teamed up with Republic Bike (or, rather, allowed Republic to sell their only model—the Aristotle—through the UO website) to bring the joy of track bike customizability to those who need the image boost more than a worthwhile bicycle.

For only $399 you can have the bike company’s only offering (a front-and-back-braked bare minimum bike with a flippable fixed/freewheel hub and one name-brand component) custom built per your selection of their awkward color options (lime green frame, Fallujah-sunset orange rims, canary yellow chain and dirty-ocean blue handlebars?) and shipped to your door within the week along with whatever leather man-satchels and acid washed skinny jeans you threw in your online cart.

Or, you can do some research and discover that real track bikes are more expensive (and don’t weight 24 pounds) because they are meant to be ridden more than during a catalog photo shoot by a girl wearing leather ankle boots with six buckles apiece and have a cultural history behind them that stretches far beyond what Urban Outfitters could print on an informative price tag. Maybe this bike is a good place to foyer yourself into being a “fixie kid” if you don’t know any better, but ask anyone working at a bike shop about your siqq Wasabi-colored Aristotle and you’re another rolling cliché with a newfound attitude of righteousness giving the community a bad rap. Urban Outfitters can’t make you a fixed gear rider anymore than Hot Topic can make you punk—they just sell the image. Wise up.

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  • heywen
    lol i love this article,
    it's the best

    im glad someone knows how gay urban is.
    i wish to blow it up
    seriously.
  • steppe22
    Im not happy that Urban outfitters is trying to pry itself on to the fixed gear scene but to <<KEEF>> the fact that your upset about someone wanting to ride a fixed gear doesnt make any sense. Have you ever rode a fixed gear for more than half an hour? Its not just riding the bike, its finding an old frame and parts that fit and putting together something that you wanted. A fixed gear does not ride like a regular bicycle for obvious reasons but its the way it rides that appeals to so many who actually ride the fixed gears. Im not excited that you can buy a bike at urban outfitters for 400 but seriously there is nothing else like riding a fixed gear.
  • lbcsprints
    Sarah I here yah:) You could have left the scarf thing and glasses out, But being as you know I ride bikes (including fixed gears) everywhere. I understand what you are trying to say. It is a big deal to keep people on safe machines more importantly then a image. The bikes that are being sold at UO are crap, they are as bad if not worse then SE bikes attempt to go fixed.
    People do not understand quality anymore, and further more they don't care.
    Most people that ride fixed wouldn't know a nice quality bike if it ran them over. This is the sad truth. This is also why we have no jobs in the US because all this crap is Chinese and not worth a shit. To all the people that are throwing down the hate on fixed gear bikes I think are,well, retarded most of the people that are hating ride a bike maybe and this is a long shot 10 to 20 miles a week at best even with gears. so with that said shut the fuck up and ride your bike.
  • rdm24
    Somehow I doubt these come-latelies are really giving up their gas guzzlers because they just bought their fixie at Urbans.

    Power to them, and UO, if they do. But I bet that in a few years, the bikes will be tossed like last years crocs--ESPECIALLY by people who adopt trends fed to them by Urban Outfitters.
  • Name
    i don't understand how writer sarah bennett could be angry. i just lurked her facebook and it looks like she has: A) a shitty, cheap fixie and B) a wardrobe consisting of numerous hipster renditions of the keffiyeh. i love her cool glasses too! what a moron!
  • Like OMGZ. My glasses are totally kewl. I can't believe you lurked me. Get a life.
  • Name
    While I hate Urban Outfitters co-opting of fixed gear "culture" as much as anyone else, I gotta say that I've always seen you around town wearing your keffiyeh (Middle Eastern scarf you're talking shit on in this post) with your giant black rimmed glasses on your brightly colored fixed gear decked out in your finest American Apparel/Urban Outfitters gear and I guess I just don't really see the difference between what you are and what you hate?
  • This isn't about shit-talking or hating on trends (and it's definitely not about my keffiyeh-free scarf collection or my poor eyesight remedies), but it is about knowing what you're buying into and Urban Outfitters is the type of place that capitalizes on people's urge for image over knowledge.

    Maybe my message was misconstrued because of everyone's need to voice their outrage at 'hipsters' (and apparently, I fit the profile), but I want Long Beach to get out of their cars and onto bikes. My concern is that kids are going to buy one from Urban Outfitters and ride it on a pedestal, which will rain further hatred on fixed gears and widen a rift already growing in the bike community. Buy a $50 bike or a $5000 bike--who cares if it's fixed-gear, freewheel or 10-speed?--just know what you're riding and do it for the right reasons. Knowm'sayin'?
  • Dave Wielenga
    If anybody wants their comments included in the District Weekly's letters to the editor, write to letters@thedistrictweekly.com. But you have to use your real name.
  • LookAtThatFingHipster
    I'm sorry to be critical, Sarah, but I find your argument hilarious - it's a typical 'hipster defending hipster non-culture while claiming not to be a hipster' situation. You could easily be haranguing us about how UA is co-opted the Keffiyeh while YOU wear it to support Palestine and it's just coincidental that it goes well with your new blublockers - bullshit! You're a hipster - ride a real bike, get a real culture - or at least stop defending your vacuous non-culture and accept that whatever you ironically co-opt next will hit the shelves of UA soon enough.
  • jessicachole
    More Bikes-Less Cars of places in the US Southern California needs the most help with this. If Urban Outfitters can help out with this than so be it. Trends live and die this way. In ayear or two these will be sold at Wal-Mart.
  • KEEF
    Also- not to burst Joy Lodivico's bubble, but Ms Bennett doesnt claim that urban outfitters started or invented any of those trends- only that they capitolized on them. OF COURSE scarves and lenseless glasses exhisted already, moron! (and fixed gear bikes) Urban outfitters is just guilty of grabbing on to momentary fads and shoving them down our throats via large scale manufacturing / distribution.
  • KEEF
    Riding a bicycle is dangerous enough with brakes and gears- only olympic athletes / competetive cyclists have a legitimate reason to ride a fixed gear bike, -training purposes. Anyone that argues that fixed gear bikes harken back to some golden age of bicycles is a moron-the only reason to ride a bike is for the mechanical advantage over walking- remove the mechanical adavantage and what you have is a dumbshit hipster trying to forge his identity around defunct technology. There is nothing practical about fixed gears- I propose the next big fad is to tie one arm behind your back all day, not to be cool or anything- its purely a style choice and it proves that 2 arms are totally unneccesary! and remember- I started it first!
  • LB Alumn
    I agree with Joy...I personally won't buy one of these, but whatever gets more current non-bikers onto bikes is a positive in my book.
  • joylodevico
    Sorry to bust your bubble, Ms. Bennett, but the scarves and the black-rimmed sunglasses didn't just come onto the scene in 2007, nor did Urban Outfitters start either trend.

    I, personally, would much prefer to spend $399 on a piece of transportation rather than $60 on a plain white tank top at UO, but...maybe that's just me. So, your whole price theory just flew out of the window for me. Quite frankly, $399 for an entire bike there is a deal compared to the outrageous numbers they price their merchandise at!

    Maybe this whole "fixie" thing has become a trend, but seriously, I'd rather have our younger generation more caught up in this (where they actually get real exercise) than in the whole online computer gaming trend (where they just sit on their asses and stare at a screen all day). But again, maybe that's just me.

    You're right - Urban Outfitters can't make you a fixed gear rider anymore than Hot Topics can make you a punk. On the same page, having a biased opinion can't make you a journalist either, Ms. Bennett.

    P.S. I especially love how the only 2 bike shops you tagged were Republic and LBFG.
  • Fern
    I literally laughed out loud when I read this article. Brava! It's particularly funny that the bike model is also wearing the terrorist scarf.
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