Fixed Gear Globetrotting— Spring, 2026
Dang. Back in our 2026 forecast I said this would be our best year yet. Here we are in late March and I’ve barely moved an editorial muscle. That’s all about to change, starting right here, right now with our post-forecast-fixed-gear-spring-forecast.
I write to you from the Amtrak Pennsylvanian line, somewhere between Altoona and Lewistown as I embark to New York City for Monster Track XXVII. Over the next couple weeks, I’m burning up my PTO to make a couple other fixed gear pilgrimages. Following Monster Track, I’m off to the Bay Area to celebrate my great grandma’s 98th birthday (happy birthday, Shirley!), and I’ll fortunately have a track bike with me. When I touch down back in Pittsburgh, it’s basically straight to Virginia’s Tidewater for the Tour of Newport News. I plan to keep you updated through it all, so here’s what you can expect.
Monster Track XXVII
This is my third consecutive year making the journey to New York City for what is arguably alleycat racing’s blueprint. I more or less expect the same thing– fixed gear kooks from around the world descending upon the city for a weekend full of cutting up on bikes with no brakes.
My past performances are not really anything to write home about, nor to write on a blog about, but last year I performed notably better before totally fucking up and riding to Brooklyn. I also had a cameo on the Terry B livestream, and it was rad to see texts from friends back home coming across my Garmin mid-race saying they saw me. I don’t really know my way around the city too well, but I understand the basic principles of navigating uptown, downtown, east, and west. It sounds obvious, but the key will be to take a breath and methodically route myself instead of just spazzing and jumping on the bike trying to follow someone. Just follow Emma’s example from that same Terry B video, pre-cameo. She won, by the way.
There could always be some hijinx afoot with the race planning. Monster Track XXV had three manifests and ended in Brooklyn. Last year only had two relatively short manifests, but also featured a manifest pickup from a predetermined location nowhere near the start. In my opinion, those are the kinds of twists that make alleycats exciting. At some alleycats more local to me, completing a task like doing jumping jacks or dizzy-batter spins before the worker signs your manifest feels a bit contrived. In my opinion, alleycats are most fun when they reward gutsy riding and intelligent routing. I’ll never bemoan people putting on an alleycat and making the format their own— it requires a lot of energy and talent to pull off race organization— but any race hosted by CURB.WORLD is guaranteed to be 100% gimmick-free.
Last year’s Monster Track winner in the men’s race, Lalo, with the trophy.
While Saturday’s alleycat is the main event, Monster Track always has a full itinerary of sideshows throughout the weekend. This year a tracklocross race in Cunningham Park and the inaugural Monster Crit at Floyd Bennett Field bookend the alleycat; two races in which I have way better odds of a noteworthy result. I don’t really know what the tracklocross course has in store without local knowledge, but I only brought road pedals, so I’ll be minimizing my dabs as much as possible. The Monster Crit course looks super fast, but with the curveball of two hairpins and a third turn under 90 degrees in quick succession. Apparently there’s a $1000 purse on the line, so expect racers to leave it all out there.
The 2024 WTF winner, Amelia, rolling into the Tompkins Square checkpoint last year. Photo by Xavier Szigethy.
Karen in pursuit. Photo by Xavier Szigethy.
San Francisco
No real plan here. I need to build a new bike since I broke my Cinelli MASH Parallax (obituary to come), so I’m hoping the stars align for me to grab a new souvenir frame set while I’m out there. In the meantime, I’m on a loaner State Black Label V2 thanks to Dan Uhranowsky. Thanks, Dan!
Other than that, Im hoping to link up with my buddy Emmet, a certified yinzer who moved to the Bay a year or two ago, so he can show me around all the touristy bike spots. I’m just gonna be name-dropping in these shorthand blog posts so I can build out the CURB.WORLD universe a bit more. That’ll be cool, right?
Tour of Newport News— April 10th-12th
Over the past three years, Tour of Newport News has solidified itself as the premier fixed gear criterium on the eastern seaboard. I was still flirting with getting back into crit racing— my only bike options being two cyclocross bikes and a track bike— when in 2024 I heard that a stage race upstart would be introducing a fixed gear category.
As a kid I was obsessed with getting myself to the start line of Red Hook Crit. I entered the registration lottery a few times— probably even lying about my age— but never made it before the race went under. With this history in mind, a fixed crit being a big part of my reintroduction to bike racing was a huge full-circle moment.
Brittany in turn 1 during the WTF crit last year.
Since the fixed category’s first iteration, both men’s and WTF participation has steadily grown. ATW Builds jumped on last year to help land some awesome prizes from Skream, Phil Wood, Thomson, and AARN. This year, UnderCog coaching offered free coaching services to riders in the WTF field. More than anything, shoutout to the organizer, Graham Costa, for being very receptive to rider feedaback and making space for fixed racing as someone generally seen on the outside of the fixed scene. By structuring the WTF field as an “open” field, he worked around the stupid new USAC rules against trans racers to keep fixed racing true to its cause. That’s a move a lot of organizers wouldn’t even entertain.
The omnium this year kicks off on Friday, April 10th with the Todd Stadium Points Race, followed by the brand-new City Center Hill Climb that night. The Crawford Road Time Trial begins the second day of racing before the marquee Newport News Twilight Crit. The Fort Eustis Circuit Race caps the event off on Sunday, barring any security shutdown on the military base. Worst case scenario, Graham has a backup crit planned. Again, shoutout Graham.
So yeah!
Lots of fixed gear shit coming up over the next couple of weeks. Thank you for your continued readership. I promise to keep yinz updated through it all. I also have a few long-haul pieces I’ve been working on here and there, so keep camping the site. I’m begging you!
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