Happy New Year to all of our readers, friends, foes and haters!!
A new year is here, along with new plans and new ideas.
Rotterdam Fixed Gear has been online for nearly 3 years now and we have been providing you with all the going on's in the fixed gear world as well as in other area's of cycling both locally as well internationally with loads of fun!
We do however now think that in these days, the fixed gear information stream is getting a bit over saturated. At least the Dutch/European blogosphere that is. Everybody is re-posting the same stuff from the big American blogs (where indeed the fixed gear movements are much bigger and there's more to write about, true...)
We have always said we wanted our website to be filled with most of our own content instead of re-posting what everybody has seen on a variety of websites already. For me personally a good website is not a website with shit-loads of posts on a daily base, but a website with quality posts. Even better if the website has quality posts on a daily base of course. But i'm pretty sure we can count those websites on one hand or one and a half hand. (if you got some fingers blown off due to fireworks yesterday.)
Since Rotterdam, (or The Netherlands in general) is not much of a city or country where fixed gear is as big as in for example the States or even more nearby, London, so we don't have much to write about. Especially since people have grown on their bikes. Rotterdam Fixed Gear used to be about everybody that rode a fixed gear bike. We all shared the same passion, the bike.... This is still the same, except for the fact that people have grown into their bikes, which sounds strange. But 3 years ago we all "just rode fixed gear bikes". Over the years the riders have developed their own way of riding a fixed gear bike. We still have the hipsters, we still have the racers and we still have the tricksters, the only difference is that everybody went their own way. And that's a good thing!
Our interests shifted and the most of us have focused towards the thing we really like doing on bikes. The racers have teamed and even have proper team-wear and are training on the tracks on a regular base, the polo-players (which we don't even have in R'dam), would be playing polo if there was anything going on and the people who like to ride tricks have found each other and teamed up as well.
There's no hate within the local scene and the different fields of riding people do nowadays. It's just a natural progress. People have developed their own style of riding the bike. It's a good thing. And I'm glad we managed to get the whole bunch together 3 years ago to share a common passion and got to hang out at the plaza, go for drinks, see exhibitions, do rides, organize alleycats and other events and all the good that came from it.
The community is still growing and it will continue to grow. But it will grow in different segments now. The individual groups will grow bigger. The "hipsters" will sell their bikes anytime soon on the known second hand websites, the messengers will continue their work after the biggest "hype" is over, the tricksters will continue to try to push boundaries of both their bikes as well as their own, will do so too, the racers will continue riding and so will the people that just want to ride their bikes for the fun of it ...
This said, I think it's time to reconsider the whole idea and philosophy of the Rotterdam Fixed Gear website and in what we way we can still provide you with quality content. I for one like to stay true to my roots and my beliefs and write stuff about things I know something about and I have fun writing about. We never wrote things just because people or brands asked us to do so, just because we have a platform for their products. No, we never sold out and we will not do so in 2011 neither.
We are going to continue with Rotterdam Fixed Gear, though it might be in a different format + a new jacket. Until that time, we would like to thank all of our readers for the support over the past 3 years and keep your eyes peeled for RFG 2011 style.
See y'all again soon(-ish) ! -Stay Gold-