While John was in the Bay Area this spring, he got to shoot a one-off fixed gear that framebuilder Adam Sklar had just finished building up…
Fixed Gears
I’ve got a soft spot for fixed gears. They were the catalyst for this very website to come out of the New York City scene in 2006. Fixed gears were so quick to catch on as a cycling fad for a few reasons. First, they are minimal machines. Pedal forward and the bike propels. Pedal backward and it goes in reverse. Many were ridden brakeless, symbiotically flowing.
Which brings up the next point: they’re visually honest and streamlined in their profiles. No brakes. No cables. To this day, a brakeless track bike or fixed gear is the simplest form of bicycle.
The success of the early aughts fixed-gear craze arose from something different entirely. These bikes were very easy to build from parts. Soon, component and accessory manufacturers began making colored rims, components, and accessories. People were online, swapping parts on forums and boards. A $10 pair of Oury grips could transform a build.
What brought me into the world was the community. Especially in urban areas, unsanctioned alleycat races popped up all over the globe. Fun rides on the weekends. Or weekly freestyle meet-ups. Learning to maneuver these bikes through a network of densely populated streets became an art.
Cities like San Francisco and New York led the way with their own unique styles.
San Francisco
It felt serendipitous that during my visit to San Francisco, I shot this fixed gear. This is one of Adam Sklar’s handmade bikes. He built it after moving to the Bay Area, looking for a simple commuter to jaunt around town on. As I’d done many times before over the past two decades of documenting bikes, I shot Adam and his Sklar fixie spinning through the city.
Sklar Fixed Gear
Adam quit hand-building frames full-time to grow his business into a small-batch production model. Nowadays, he spends his time designing frames and parts, working on revisions with his factories, marketing these bikes, building customer orders, and all sorts of minutiae that only a small business owner is familiar with.
When prompted to describe his matte black fixed gear, Adam said this:
“I wanted to build a fixie ’cause they are so simple that it would really allow me to connect with the craft. While walking down that memory lane, I thought of my early inspirations. The flat black paint job and brazed headbadge came to mind from poring over framebuilding Flickrs like Jordan Hufnagel’s and Fast Boy’s back in the day.”
Those references come through loud and clear, and this bike brought a few others to mind as well. The segmented fork reminds me of my old FBM Sword, with a few special touches to make it uniquely Sklar.
Other unique moments include the custom-designed track ends and the custom fork ends. The top tube is slightly bent and flattened, a Sklar signature. The chainstays are slightly shaped to allow for a 45 mm tire. For it being such a simple machine, there sure is a lot going on with it.
For parts, Adam selected a series of silver parts from Paul Component, White Industries, mixing them in with his black PBJ bars, and a black AARN ring on Sugino VP cranks.
Sick fixie!