Tokyo's Trixx Fix

By Eli Chessen & X-ray Sexysushi
Photographs by X-ray Sexysushi

20 years ago people kept talking about how skateboarding had become too trendy and how it was going to die. But, it didn’t. The kids who skated because it was cool, slowly stopped riding. But, the skaters who truly loved it, the diehards, kept at it. And, there are still tons of skaters around. Young and old.

Track bikes used to be only for the lightning of the velodrome.
Then, messengers brought them into the thunder of the city streets. But, now, it seems the newest progression is bringing your track bike into the tornado of your local park and doing tricks. It’s a natural progression. It happened with skateboards and it happened with BMX. Things that were designed to transport people quickly often turn into tools for doing tricks. Maybe it’s human nature to want to conquer every mechanical device completely. To make it go fast, to make it work in places it’s not designed to work in, to pull every trick you can muster out of its mechanics, and to intertwine our moving limbs with its moving parts.

Old school, new school, mess-engers, hipsters, and tricksters, whatever. Fuck it, it’s not about labels, it’s not about anything except riding and having fun on bikes. Not all fixed-gear riders like doing tricks. Some just want to ride fast. Some just want to ride. But, these days, it seems like almost everyone on a track bike is at least dabbling in tricks. It starts with track-stands and skids and grows from there.

Many Japanese tricksters feel that American riders had a head start in regards to trick progression and mastery. But, they are closing the gap fast. There are various groups of riders all over Japan who get together and push themselves and each other to do the next impossible trick. Some Tokyo riders scour the internet looking for new tricks from around the globe. When they find a new trick they want to learn, they’ll watch the video over and over in slow motion in order to figure out exactly how the trick is done–like where their feet should be positioned.
Soon the Japanese riders won’t just be learning new tricks from American videos like Bootleg Sessions, Fast Friday (and the Cadence Youtube clips), Macaframa and MASH. Americans will also be learning from the many Japanese videos that are in the works.

Tricks people used to do on skateboards and BMX (like “bar-spin to fakies,” “backside disasters,” “rolls,” “pedal grinds” and “chain grinds”) have made their way into the fixed-gear world. When Japanese riders see a new trick from the States, they often don’t know what to call it. Sometimes the trick winds up being named after the rider who they first saw do it. For example, “Backside twirls” are called Keo Spins. But, Japanese riders have invented new tricks of their own. Putting your foot on the rear tire is called a Manju (a kind of chewy Japanese sweet). Japanese riders hope that soon, in America, people will being saying things like, “Hey, did you see me do that no-hand wheelie to Manju?”

Instead of sitting around the house, flipping channels all day or playing Nintendo, dudes go out and session on their bikes all night in parks. They meet up with other riders, swap trick tips and gradually form loose-knit teams or posses or crews or whatever you wanna call them.
There are crews of kids in cities all over the world, but Tokyo’s trying to bring the pain.
Often the NJS Keirin frames that riders so covet all over the world are not tough enough for many of these tricks. Even in Japan, trick riders are moving away from NJS frames and buying up tougher and cheaper foreign frames. Who wants to bunny hop that traffic cone only to realize you’ve cracked your precious Nagasawa’s down tube?

Everyone needs to practice in order to get good. Everyday, trick riders are out trying tricks over and over on their bikes. All tricks are impossible until someone pulls one off. Then, when someone finally does it, their friend videotapes it and throws it on the internet. The progression of skateboard and BMX tricks took many years. Now, in the internet age, fixed-gear tricksters spread their new tricks around the globe within a couple of weeks. There’s something about seeing tricks done, knowing that they are in fact possible, that makes doing them so much easier. Just as me and my old skateboard friends tried to ollie over that bench on our skateboards every afternoon for three years until one of us finally landed it. Once we saw one guy do it, within a few days, we could all do it. But, unlike with my little skateboard crew of old, the global fixed-gear phenomenon spreads tricks a hell of a lot faster. When someone in Philly or Spain, or wherever pulls off a new trick, hundreds or thousands of riders all over the world see it, and soon they can do it too.