Omar Montana, 23, showed up at my door out of breath and covered in sweat on a day just breaching freezing. He snapped off his helmet and small talked about the mile or so bike ride from Queens College, where he worked as a Teacher’s Assistant. A job he balanced with his graduate studies at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He locked his bike, rolled up his sleeve and showed me the latest addition to his tattoo collection, a face made of bike parts on his left forearm.
I walked him into the set. As I clipped the mic to his shirt he informed me that he’d have to run soon for a scheduled ride with friends. I focused, checked the levels and pressed record.
What ensued was an hour and a half conversation with Montana about his love for his bike. His fixie, or single geared brakeless bicycle had come to define his life. He had biked hundreds of miles through rain, snow, heat and traffic. He described how it felt to speed between taxicabs and pedestrians, race over bridges and sway home after late nights out.
His bike is more than just a method of transportation; it’s a lifestyle and a political statement. It is a rebellious act against a society that basks in “car fetishism” and a way to be heard in the cacophony of city sounds. Montana is one voice in a growing movement of fixie riders.