One of my friends on the job was a man named Jay. I never once saw Jay’s eyes – his sunglasses were always on, even in the dispatch office at 7:30 in the morning. He had a scruffy bead that went all the way down his neck that framed his unique smile perfectly. He didn’t have his front teeth, so he wore the worst dentures that I have ever seen. His dentures would sort of hang in the gap in his mouth, more or less creating a coherent set of teeth, but in that not really kind of way. His frame was slight, his tone was twitchy, but he was a relatively upbeat man that seemed to enjoy riding around on his Fuji fixed gear bike.

I would ask Jay questions about his life when there was down time. Over a cigarette he would tell me about running away from home at 13, being addicted to heroin not long after and the breaks that he needed to become a bike courier.

From the bit of information that Jay gave me, I would piece together parts of his life from the snippets that I heard. I always imagined him being one of those street kids in the dirty punk rock clothing that wrote humorous and ironic signs as part of their begging shtick. “$1 short of going to college”, “Need change to buy a super hero costume”, “Money buys friendship with me”. When he wasn’t begging for change during the day, he would wash windows with an ineffective squeegee and then get obscenely angry if you didn’t tip him for his unsolicited favor. By 19 he had lived a thousand lifetimes and been self sufficient for 6 years. His first bike was given to him by a courier friend who told him about being able to make up to $750 a week riding bikes and delivering things between important people. He wasn’t concerned about the danger and he knew the city well, why pass up on this opportunity?

I knew that I was going to be a seasonal courier. I didn’t have the will to wake up that early in the morning every day and didn’t appreciate nearly getting hit by cars multiple times during a work shift. I asked Jay what did the couriers do when it snowed. “You work dumbass. Fixies are the quickest means of transportation in the snow.” I didn’t believe him.

“What about mountain bikes? Wouldn’t you want a bike with big nubby tires?” I inquired.

“No. Those types of tires just collect snow between the nubs. Before you know it you bike is weighed down with an extra 10 lbs of snow and your tires no longer have grip. Small, thin tires cut through the snow and feel the road better.” He responded.

“Bullshit! A fixie with no brakes rides well in the snow?”

“Totally. And you don’t want to be breaking in the snow anyway. You are missing the biggest point here Paul, if you work when it snows you make a shit load of money. Everyone calls in sick, and those of us brave enough to weather the storm get all the good calls.”

So that was that. No arguing with the man, especially considering that I had never biked in the snow before in my life. And his logic about making more money in bad weather was spot on. Maybe he was on to something.

Three and a half years and a thousand more lifetimes later, DC got enough snow for me to test Jays assertion of fixed gear supremacy in the snow. DC is currently getting blanketed in the white stuff. There is already about two feet on the ground, with no signs of the weather clearing. So I gleefully put on my cold weather gear and pulled out the old fixie (Cyclops) to see what I could do.

The side streets haven’t been plowed here, so the snow is over a foot high in the street. As I walked my bike out over deep snow drifts, I found a rut in the street left by a car and I figured that this would be a good place to start. At first, I couldn’t even figure out how to get my foot in the pedal it was so covered in snow. But a few swift kicks solved that problem. I mounted my bike and pressed down on the left pedal and my back wheel just spun but I went no where. I realized for this to work I would have to balance my weight over my back wheel and hope that my front maintained enough traction to steer.

Before long I was moving down the street and discovering all the texture of the snow underneath my tires. It would steer me left and right, mis-aligning my two wheels, and point me in the direction of a car or hidden curb. But I was going slow enough to compensate, and once you got moving the little wheels did actually cut through the snow. I spent the next twenty minutes biking up and down my street, stopping only to help push a handful of pitiful sedan through snow banks.

In the end, I did come to the conclusion that a fixed gear bike with no breaks could perform admirably in the snow, but it was certainly not ideal. I think that if there was just a few inches of well packed snow, the smaller tires would pierce the through the snow for excellent straight line speed, but there would be no way to effectively turn at any speed whatsoever. To concede a point to Jay, I doubt that a mountain bike would fare any better. But what do I know?

But don’t take my word for it, try it out yourself. If you live in DC, get outside on your bike right now. What else are you going to do? Watch Lord of the Rings and smoke pot?

Here are my three tips for biking with a fixie in the snow:

1. Keep your weight over your back tire for traction
2. Never stop – it is hard to get going again after stopping and the risk of falling increases
3. Run into something – falling on snow is fun, run into a snow bank at full speed and see what happens.

(Image from ernamarcus)