what is a fixie?

A fixie is when you purposefully ride out of the bike lane whilst holding up a massive line of traffic at a super slow speed.  The more traffic and the slower the speed you go the bigger the fixie. Cyclists once we get to the coffee shop we then do a sub par fixie by blocking half the footpath from pedestrians with parked bicyles.  We then chat about who did the biggest fixie on the way to the shop and how we will time our riding home in with peak hour traffic so we can complain to our wives/husbands about how much abuse we got by stink wheel drivers.

It should be pointed out, the bike Viola Brand uses isn't a typical fixie.  Look at the gears either in a still photo or even a video.  That bike has a very low, exact 1 to 1 gear ratio plus other features just for her.  

In stark contrast, a Fuji Feather uses a 46 tooth crank and a 16 tooth fixed cog on the rear.  That's damn near a 1 to 3 gear ratio.  For every single turn on the crank, the rear wheel will turn 2.875 times. https://www.fujibikes.com/usa/bikes/pavement/urban...       

You can also learn to do artistic riding on them like Viola Brand.

https://youtu.be/2a8yDTx6pAI

Though Viola uses a belt drive some artistic cyclist still use chain drives. Now, weather it's a 1:1 ratio or 2:1 or higher, a fixed gear is still a fixed gear regardless of ratio.

Making statements like typical fixed gear is as bad as askers who say normal bicycle.

Fixed geared bikes tend to be used in 3 events.

1) Track events

2) Artistic events

3) Tight Wire events.

Out of these basic events even they can have variations. 

There's 2 general trains of thought when designing a bike. You can build specialized bikes that are great for only a few things. Or you can design general use bikes that aren't great at doing anything but are fair to moderately good at doing a lot of things.

Though a fixed geared bike isn't good for street use. There are other areas they can be used other than a track.

"Fixie" is short for Fixed Gear Bicycle.  It has only a single gear up front & a single (fixed gear) on the rear.  There's no freewheeling or coasting.  If the pedals move, so does the bicycle - forward or backwards.  Not a very efficient way to get around town.  Think about this for oh...maybe 30 seconds.  At an optimal cadence (pedal rpm) of around 90 - the bike will be going roughly 15 to 20 mph, depending on how it's geared.  Now imagine trying to start from a dead stop or climb a big hill or even ride into a stiff headwind on a bike with only one high gear (or speed).  

The fixie craze started when people started riding "Track Bikes" on the streets.  Track bikes are great - on a Velodrome Track!  Usually indoors on a smooth wooden surface.  There are a few Velodrome Tracks outside.  St. Louis has one of the oldest.  https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-t...

By law, if a fixie is ridden on the streets, it must have at least one brake - front or rear wheel.  Pure Track Bikes have no brakes.  The rider controls the speed with pure leg strength.