UCCA “CHINA STORY ” 6: UNSTOPPABLE: The Birth of Fixed Gear Culture in Beijing

Ines Brunn, a German artistic cycling champion and world famous fixed gear rider has launched the first urban fixed gear bike races in China, performances and store for fixed gear bicycles in Beijing. She gave a talk and performance at UCCA Museum in Beijing. Recently she has been featured in TED conferences in Beijing.

Track bikes are single speed bikes without the ability to coast. Therefore they are called fixed-gear bikes. This type of bike is quite unusual: You can ride it backwards, it often has no brakes and the simplicity makes it attractive. Fixed-gear zealots are a growing presence on the streets of Beijing and are defining a new urban lifestyle trend to the city. World famous fixed gear bike rider, Ines Brunn will lead you into the fixed-gear bike culture.

Ines's talk started with a brief bicycle history explaining that the first bicycles were fixed gear. Then showing the bicycle messenger scene around the world and how that created a sub-culture with many people doing urban cycling and wearing messenger bags. Then I showed how the first people started riding fixed gear in China and how big the Beijing fixed gear group now is with over 80 cyclists.