Follow-Up: Fixed Gear Globetrotting
Fair warning: here comes another editorial apology.
Is it obvious I’m struggling with life/writing/bike/work balance? I spent the first part of spring jet-setting from NYC to the Bay to Virginia with my track bike. The hustle and bustle between traveling, racing, and squeezing in 9-5 stuff left little bandwidth to write. Before I forget all the details, I better muscle through a blog post. It’s a big one, so skim at your leisure.
Let the blogging begin.
The trip was a whirlwind before it even began. My mom (love her) gave me pretty late notice that her entire half of the family would be convening in California for my great grandma’s 98th birthday. I already had Amtrak tickets to NYC for Monster Track, so my best bet was to nail down a loaner bike bag, fly out of JFK, and cut my visit short a couple days, but I looked forward to seeing relatives I hadn’t seen for years and riding my track bike on the west coast. This meant that in a two-week span, I’d be in NYC for Monster Track, quickly fly to California to catch some miles in the hills, then fly back home, work for three days, and road trip to Virginia for the Tour of Newport News.
I guessed that I had better get the bike dialed, so I stripped my faithful Cinelli MASH Parallax down to the frame and painstakingly cleaned everything. Since you’re reading this, you probably know my history with that bike, but I think it bears repeating. I bought the frame set with money from my first real job as a lifeguard the summer before my junior year of high school. It was the first bike I built from the ground up, and the second ‘real’ bike I ever owned. Taking care of it was important to me. After a routine dish soap scrub down, there was one little mark at the weld between the headtube and the downtube that wouldn’t seem to go away. The click I could feel with my fingernail sent me down a spiral. Please just be the paint, I prayed.
I consulted three of the mechanics in the city whose opinions I respect the most, and each of them gave me a bad prognosis, prescribing that I sand down the paint to know for sure. The iconic paint job had its fair share of imperfections from a decade plus of hard riding, but sanding it down felt sacreligious, albeit necessary. Doing so confirmed my suspicions— my life-bike was toast.
With my departure in just a day and a half, I cast a wide net online to hopefully snag a loaner or cheap temporary frame. My buddy Dan came through and lent me his State Black Label V2, so I quickly built it up to make sure everything was ridable, tore it back down, stuffed it in the borrowed bike bag, and jumped on the train to New York the next morning. The trip was off to a hectic start, but as I rounded the Horseshoe Curve, I was overcome with relief that it had begun at all.
MONSTER TRACK WEEKEND
After the Pennsylvanian’s arrival at Moynihan Train Hall, the stars aligned for me to get on the same MTA train as Xavier, one of my closest cycling friends and my host for the weekend. In college, Xavier and I raced together most weekends and trained for thousands of miles together on the D1 roads in Penn State's peripheries. When he moved to New York after school, he dove into the underground racing scene. It was his invitation that got me out to my first Monster Track in 2024, and ever since then it’s been tradition to pay him an annual visit for the race.
On my first day there I was left to my own devices while Xavier was at work, so I caught a quick workout in Prospect Park in the morning, then went back out to Prospect for the Outriders team’s weekly hot laps, which felt especially spicy with Youngin, Serguei, Serghi, and Kevin in the group. I think I put in about 60 miles of Prospect Park laps that day.
On Friday I linked up with Matheus and Serguei at Union Square to do a chill ride surfing some Manhattan traffic. Later in the day was the inaugural Monster Tracklocross hosted by Ricky all the way in the outer reaches of Queens, and I wanted to leave some meat on the bone for that while still bike-maxxing. My bike was super ill-equipped for the tracklocross race. The mad dash to get my bike together meant I neglected to bring gearing options and was stuck on my 48x15 gear, which I commonly use for fast street riding. For context, I run 42x20 or 42x19 for most single-speed cyclocross applications. To boot, I was also on 28mm GP5000s and had brand new S-Phyre road shoes to clip into some brand new Magene power pedals. I was definitely the only one in the 30+ person field with power data that day. Call it a handicap or call it roadie swag; we can all agree it was dumb.
The race’s le mans start ravaged the synthetic fabric on the bottom of my shoes. Coupled with the rest of my kit, it meant I was running for about 100 yards before I found a good enough place to mount my bike with a high gear, no tread, and single-sided pedals. I was about 10th or 12th going into the woods. The course was pretty much 100% singletrack, and way more technical than I thought possible for New York trails, but I still managed to make some aggressive passes and fight up to fourth. There I had a bit of a battle for third, but I dabbed on the steep climb and was forced to dismount and give up third position, which I was unable to recover. I ended in 4th place, with the consolation prize of 1st out-of-towner and 1st place skinny tires, a category I made up for myself. Xavier battled Josh for 1st place but came up short on his fixed Specialized Sirrus.
But everyone knows that Monster Track weekend is all about the alleycat. I always feel intense nervousness before alleycats— especially Monster Track— which is something I rarely deal with at big-time crits or ‘cross races. First of all, I barely know the city. I know that the race is gonna get clipped to all fuck with documentation of crashes and other chaos. Rumors always swirl in the days leading up to the race regarding how many manifests there will be, possible checkpoint locations, and more. A No Kings protest was scheduled for the day of the race, with a march choking a stretch of Midtown from Columbus Circle to Times Square, so that would be an added factor to contend with. That’s what you sign up for, though.
As things were about to kick off in Alphabet City, racers were commanded to park bikes across the street and sit down as manifests were passed out one by one. This should have made routing easy, but I got hung up on locating one of the early checkpoints and in my panic decided I would just head out with the giant group, fight to the front and pick someone fast to follow. When they started the race, I stuck with that plan and made about five or six blocks of progress down the avenue before I realized I had dropped my manifest. I turned around, grabbed a new one, and then I was stranded on my own.
I did my best to route, but the inconspicuousness of some of the checkpoint volunteers made me confused about whether every checkpoint was actually staffed or not. I spent 10 minutes at one of the checkpoints looking for a volunteer before I realized there was likely no one there. Ironically other racers had this issue too, but mostly at a checkpoint where I almost immediately found the volunteer. I don’t know, I kinda just checked out of the race mentally about two thirds of the way through the first manifest and headed to the finish.
By the time I rolled into the finish at Tompkins Square, the fast guys were wrapping up the third manifest. Hayato took the win back to Japan for the men, while Karen won the WTFNB race. I have to mention that the WTFNB field’s race was cut super short. The second manifest was only given to the top three. It seemed like even the race organizers were checked out. I don’t know; the vibes were just a little off, and when the after party on Sunday was dryer than fuck it just affirmed how I felt.
Your 2026 Monster Track winners, Karen and Hayato.
One rad thing did happen on Sunday, though— MONSTER CRIT. The Instagram publicity for a clandestine crit put together by Amelia and Krussia the day after Monster Track was alluring for me. I know I don’t really have a shot in the alleycat, but I have a decent engine and some deep crit experience. The course was revealed to be a twisty one at Floyd Bennett Field, but would need to be moved around a few times so we weren’t interfering with the car and RC plane enthusiasts. What at first resembled a real crit course with long straights got shorter and shorter, eventually taking the form of a roughly 6-turn short track course with three hairpins.
Last-minute course modifications.
Race director Amelia ran a super tight ship.
Like Formula Fixed, the racing was tournament-style over a short, technical course. Instead of elimination format, however, the first person across the line on the final lap wins. In other words, it was a conventional race. In the final, Serghi got away early. That dude is super fit and super gifted at bike handling. A group consisting of myself, Matt Robinson, and Kevin tried to bring it back for a few laps, but eventually I tried to go it alone. I was closing in pretty good, but I couldn’t close it down in the limited time. Serghi won, I got 2nd, Matt got 3rd.
Serghi ripping T4 in a qualifying heat, with Haru Watts in pursuit.
The women's final getting ready to start.
After the party I was super Monster Track-ed out, so I spent my last day in New York doing touristy shit with Xavier. A 5-leg MTA ride to JFK later I was on my way to the Bay Area.
CALIFORNIA TRIP
My family had already been in California for a few days once I arrived. I caught the last 48 hours in Santa Cruz before we all jetted to Marin County to see more family. I caught one little ride in Santa Cruz, but man, it kinda sucked to be honest. I made my route very hastily and my legs were pretty smoked from all the riding and travel, but staying close to the ‘city’ of Santa Cruz just meant a lot of 4-lane roads through strip malls. On the bummer of a 1.5-hour ride, the 15 minutes I spent on West Cliff Drive were the shit, though.
I had grand plans to shop for new frames in San Francisco, but it didn’t pan out. The dude from MASH SF was traveling and Patrick from Track Lab was out on paternity leave. There was surprisingly little heat on Marketplace too. I didn’t want to force the subject of buying a frame I didn’t love, then building it up and mailing Dan’s frame back to Pittsburgh, so I just decided to forget it and enjoy my time on the Black Label.
Next were a few days in Corte Madera, just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. I was a little bummed to just have a track bike because of its limitations. As stubborn as I am, Lucas Valley and Mount Tam just didn’t sound fun on a 48x15 ratio. I did get two three-hour days in back to back though, and it felt like solid training. I actually did the same ride twice because the route was so fun. There were two notable climbs— White’s Hill and Point Reyes-Petaluma Road— neither of which were more than 400 feet, but both felt punishing enough on a track bike. The ride finished with a rip around China Camp State Park, featuring a roller coaster of a road that escorted me around a little peninsula. On the second day I swore I saw the guy from Calling in Sick Magazine and rolled up on him crazy style. It was a different guy in an aero helmet on a basket bike. You can understand my mistake, right?
Tour of Newport News
In just a few short years, Tidewater Virginia’s Tour of Newport News has become a staple in the early-season crit racing calendar. The omnium’s organizer isn’t afraid to try new things like a points race or a parking garage hill climb, and has held space for a fixed gear category for a third year now.
I credit the Tour of Newport News for getting me back into road and crit racing. The spring after I got completely cyclocross pilled, I heard there was a crit omnium a few hours away which was hosting a fixed category. I didn’t have a road bike at the time, but I did have my (sigh) Cinelli, so I signed up for my first crit weekend in more than three years.
Since then, the fixed field at the race has been scaling steadily, both in terms of quantity and quality. This year, the men’s fixed field brought out more than 40 registrants, and the WTFNB field brought out 23 thanks in no small part to a $30 omnium registration, guaranteed host housing, and Undercog Cycling’s generous coaching scholarship. ATW Builds landed some impressive prizes, sweetening the deal for both fixed categories even more. Racers came from Arizona, Seattle, Houston, New York City, Philadelphia, oh, and PITTSBURGH FUCKIN’ PENNSYLVANIA, plus a few other spots. Newport News has undoubtedly solidified its spot as the home of above-ground fixed gear racing in the US, and seems to be reliably increasing its reach.
Lily and her Lexus all loaded up for the drive.
I registered for both the fixed gear category and the elite category for the second time this year and convinced two Visit Pittsburgh teammates, Emil and Noah, to jump in on the fixed races after sizing up the competition on Race Predictor. Inerro Racing was bringing Eric Yonda and Kris Judd, omnium winners in 2024 and 2025, respectively, plus Quinn Herrera and Evan Blais. I knew for a fact Evan was on a tear after lurking on his power data throughout the winter, plus they all did a trip to Spain over the winter. A lot of fixed degenerates don’t exactly love the road-ification of fixed gear racing, but my point of view is that if you sign up to race, you shouldn’t be mad when you line up against people who work hard to be fast. For some reason there’s this notion that having fun and taking the sport of cycling seriously are mutually exclusive. That’s lame, but whatever. Inerro was marked, we had a team, and it was time to race.
Friday started with the controversial Todd Stadium Points Race. The rules are easy: race for 25 laps with points awarded every 5th lap, and double points on the last lap. The rider with the most points at the end of the race is the winner. The course is an absolute ripper with a lot of soft turns and one difficult, bumpy left out of a bottleneck going into the start/finish. I think it’s a pretty good course for a points race, but having never done one anywhere else, I’m curious how a more technical course would color the racing. I came away 2nd to Evan, not fully understanding how many points had been awarded to whom mid-race. Ambivalence is your enemy in a points race, especially if you can’t do math on the fly.
The second event, the City Center Hill Climb, was pretty unique. For all intents and purposes it was a time trial up to the top of a parking garage. The gear ratio change was a lot of messing around for such a short effort, so it would have been cool if it was a tournament-format competition. Obviously with so many racers to get through across all categories, it would take a huge logistical undertaking to do so. The timing crew badly screwed up, and no one knew the results until early the next day. The garage alternated between a steep and shallow pitch for (I think) eight levels, with tight, flat hairpins connecting it all. I ended up taking 5th after being a little bit under-geared at 41x15. The steep pitches felt fast, but on the shallower ones I felt badly spun out. I still mustered a 5th place.
Saturday’s Crawford Road Time Trial was the event I’d looked forward to the most. An all-out solo effort is right up my alley, and at the 2025 edition I had a top-20 time across all categories in my fixed gear time trial. I really wanted to crack a top-10 this year, and with revisions to the rules meaning that doubled-up riders in the fixed gear category would only have to ride one time trial with their fixed time counting for both, I was stoked to try for a result in two categories at once.
I spent a lot of time this off season working on my 10-minute power with the 10:23 course record in mind. I also decided to run some Schwalbe Pro One TT tires with Silca TPU tubes and the biggest gear of my life— 53x14— to push on the downhill, which I recalled as one of the course’s dead spots during my effort the previous year while geared at 51x14. I became a chain waxer this year, and had a pre-treated Izumi Eco to put on, accounting for the longer chain length I would need to accommodate my new big ring. The addition of the fixie-famous BikeDoc bars would likely also buy me a few seconds on top of the fitness I knew I had gained.
The BikeDoc bars worked out for all three stops on the trip. I'm a bit ashamed to say I mostly like them. Review soon?
I never anticipated becoming a waxer, but here I am.
The day of the race started worse than I thought possible. I arrived early to send my partner Lily off on her first time trial ever, and planned to convert my bike from its hill climb form to TT-mode in the nearly two hours I had til my start time. After all, I just had to swap two tires, my cog, my chainring, and chain. I’m a C+ mechanic, so it felt like a layup. I did not expect my first rodeo with TPU tubes to be more of a hassle than latex. Once they were in, my tires wouldn’t seat, even after cranking them up to 120 PSI. I let the pressure out, did the water-in-the-bead trick, pumped them back up, and they eventually seated once I stopped wrestling with them.
When it came time to change my chainring, I realized I had left my slotted chainring bolt tool with Emil the night before. After walking all over the parking lot explaining to roadies which tool I needed, I eventually ran into George of Undercog who had one I could borrow. I got the bike together, threw a dirty-but-already-pinned skin suit on, and had about 15 minutes to warm up. I cracked open an energy drink that I won at the points race, did some one-handed seated efforts through the suburban sprawl of York County, VA, and made it to the start line with just a minute to spare.
Once the official counted me down from ten and sent me off, I went zen. I worked myself up to speed, managed my effort, and made it to the first downhill portion where I remembered to put down power. From there it was all about taking the race line through the twists, nailing the hairpin turn, and staying on top of the pedals. I made it through the turn cleanly, checked in with myself and kept it steady. Once I hit the uphill after the bridge, I knew I was close so I dumped it all out. One of the Texas homies was checking the live times and congratulated me on my 10:43— a 25-second improvement over my 2025 time— which gave me first place on the day and snuck me into first for the omnium. My time also earned an 8th place in the elite race, just 16 seconds down on Dan’s first place while riding his bike.
Later that day was the Twilight Crit. The course is an eight-turn ripper through a few city blocks, and I have never done very well at it in either the fixed or the elite category. Evan won in 2025, and with him second on the omnium, the objective was obvious. In fixed crits my general approach is to get away from the chaos early. We were only slotted to race for 30 minutes, and with such a technical course on such a windy day, I fancied my chance at sticking a move.
When one of the primes was called, I contested it but lost. That being said, a big gap opened up and I decided to roll it. The only problem was that I was joined by Evan. Still, I thought I would be able to compete with him if he was alone, so I decided to roll with it. My plan was to play poker, try to drop him off in the headwinds and then send a half-lap flyer into the finish. In hindsight I should have tried to repeatedly wound him, but woulda-shoulda-couldas are useless. Evan is a great rider, especially given his short time racing, so kudos on another first!
I was still barely in first for the omnium going into the Fort Eustis Circuit Race, but now with a bigger cushion. A podium position was guaranteed in the omnium, but again, I just had to beat Evan. I relayed this info to Emil and Noah, and I bet Evan did the same to Eric, Judd, and Quinn. This allowed a big breakaway of riders who had missed out on results in earlier races to go up the road, with a group behind made up mostly of Inerro and Visit Pittsburgh riders marking each other.
With about five miles to go I noticed Evan boxed in on the right side of the road and sent a trademark flyer up the left. It took some time, but eventually Judd towed Evan up to me, while Eric fell back from the early break. Suddenly it was me against three Inerro racers for about a full lap of the flat, featureless course. After all the accumulated racing up to that point between two categories I was easily out-sprinted, falling down to 2nd place on the omnium behind Evan. Well played, Champ!
My bike superimposed onto Dan's State Black Label V2.
I made a rule for myself a few years ago: if I don’t race a bike of mine at least once every year, I have to sell it. Because I am a bike hoarder, this rule ends up just being insurance that gets me to races of every discipline, fixed gear included. I think it’s important to mix things up in cycling. Roadies probably see me as a fixie burnout/cyclocrosser; fixie burnouts probably see me as a roadie/cyclocrosser; cyclocrossers probably see me as a roadie/fixie burnout. I guess I contain multitudes.
But fixed gear racing is how I got into cycling in the first place. It was my introduction to the joys of perfect pavement, the rowdy underbelly of the sport, wearing spandex, clipless pedals, and everything else. While these days I don’t fit neatly into one category or another, the fixie kid at my core informs my approach to riding, and for that matter, life— keep your speed and fuck the brakes.