The Track Bike Enters Its Ironic Phase.

Photo: Adam Polakoff/ Via: sfist

"Recently spotted on BART was this track bike with an ersatz disc rear wheel. Mismatched wheels have long been a staple of fixie style, particularly when one of the wheels is an expensive piece of racing hardware (extra points for juxtaposing the expensive and the cheap).

Yet this track star thumbs his nose at the prevailing convention, choosing not a $500 racing disc wheel, but electing instead to cover a regular wheel with paper -- and not stopping there, to cover the paper with graffiti-style art. And thus the fixie enters its ironic phase.

In other words, the two sides of San Francisco fixie culture -- a surly DIY aesthetic and the fetishism of conspicuous consumption -- have now bit each other in the ass: homage and mockery can no longer be distinguished."