BikePortland.org » Blog Archive » Judge finds fault with fixies
Faithful readers know about my love for fixed-gear cycling — these are super-simple bikes that have no gears and don’t coast. When the wheel turns the pedals turn. sort of like a big Big Wheel. Well, Uncle Fester was kind enough to send in this link to a recent court decision that fixies must have brakes. I do have a front brake, but the real hardcore riders like urban messengers, use their leg muscles to slow down or lock up their rear wheels into a controlled skid. Now the judge is saying a brake is a brake and locking the rear wheel does not a brake make. This will spawn some serious protests among the fixie crowd who are among the most militant in the burgeoning urban bike kulture.
“Yesterday at the Multnomah County Courthouse the law came down against fixed gear bicycles.On June 1, 2006 Portland bike messenger Ayla Holland was given a ticket for allegedly violating Oregon Revised Statute (ORS) 815.280(2)(a) which states,
A bicycle must be equipped with a brake that enables the operator to make the braked wheels skid on dry, level, clean pavement. strong enough to skid tire.”
You mean like what we used to ride as kids…yeah a purist like myself.
Ah; just fit the brake and don’t worry about it.
And sing it “judge dick”.
It does not say you have to use it, which I don’t.
Let these legislatures get their gun off.
Most of the laws today are conjured up from kneejerk reactions to some event that crossed their silly lives.
I am from Ireland and live in London, and here
we have nonsense proposals like registration
plates and compulsory bells on all bikes,
that you have to ring. If we have to have
a bell, I am going to fit a pair of air horns.
I usally hear crack smokers talk more sense
on many issues. And I reckon they would
hammer down these issues, never to be raised again.
I mean do we not have more important at stake
in the world, that dealing with people who
have a problem about what a priority actually,
means in the real world. I mean we are dealing
here with arty farty tossers at best.
So fit the brake and forget about it.
And then hopfully the powers that be will
leave us alone for a while. There is not much
else we can fit to a bike, unless they want
us to fit a device for more dick control
in the future.
Safe journey to all who live Life on the Wheel.