Recently, my wife, Susan, and I rode downtown to the square in Wausau, Wisconsin, where we live for one of the Wednesday evening concerts. She rode her everyday Bianchi commuter bike. Like an old married couple, I figured we should match, so I grabbed my Bianchi, an early ‘80s model converted into a singlespeed. We packed a few bottles of Point beer and a blanket, and were off.

A lot more people cycle to the concerts on the square than when the music started several years ago. This makes sense, since parking is limited downtown and a cyclist can ride right up onto the grass while drivers circle for blocks looking for a parking space. Anyway, we rolled up onto the grass and leaned our bikes against a bench, spread the blanket on the grass and cracked open the beers.

“Nice ride,” a kid sitting a few feet away said after we’d settled in. I thought he was speaking to Susan, but he was looking directly at me.

“Thanks,” I said, not really knowing what else to say. At least he didn’t say, “Nice bike, Pops.” My old Italian bike really is pretty sweet – celeste (Bianchi green) paint on Columbus tubing, chrome lugs, dropouts and stays, Campy and Cinelli parts. The hub, bottom bracket and pedal bearings are still smooth as butter. It rides as good as it looks, which is why I still pedal it around town.

The kid was clearly a hipster, dressed in Capri-type jeans and soccer shoes. Rounding out his kit were cycling gloves and a Campagnolo cycling cap – the accoutrement of the urban fixie, fixed gear, cyclist. To my amusement, he was riding an old green Raleigh Grand Prix, the same bicycle down to the paint my brother rode to high school in the late ‘70s. Of course, the hipster had pimped it out: one gear, flat bars, leather saddle and no brakes. When he rode away a bit later, I realized it had a freewheel and not a fixed gear. Without the solid gear and lacking brakes, he had to stop it “Flintstone”-style, dragging his feet. Brakes really would come in handy, I thought.

A lot of fixies are rolling around town these days. Such bikes are the in thing right now with people of all sorts jumping on the wagon, even in a backwater like Wausau. Log onto www.fixedgeargallery.com if you want to see some of the swank fixie rigs on the road today. For years, fixed geared bicycles stayed mostly on velodromes, although some roadies used a fixed gear for early spring training since the solid gear helped develop a silky smooth pedal stroke. Without a freewheel, a cyclist has to pedal all of the time, the same gear both uphill and downhill. Since the gear is too big on the climbs, it develops strength. Too small on the downhills, it develops leg speed and technique.

Today, though, track bikes are all the rage. Spreading the fixie’s popularity, bicycle messengers adopted them. And the trend has brought new people to the sport; people who, a short while ago, wouldn’t have swung a leg over a saddle for a free Blackberry. It’s ironic that people who not so long ago raged at cyclists clogging the roadways might now be fashionably pedaling a bicycle.

After the hype fades away, however, many fixie riders will drift on to the next fashion craze, which probably won’t involve two wheels. But I’m betting a few keep riding. The bicycle is a seductive machine. In fact, one post on www.fixedgeargallery.com showed a sleek mount posed suggestively in bed, white sheets and all.

The fixed gear phenomenon does have its good points, which is hard for an old retro grouch like me to admit. After all, the bikes I used to race are now venerated antiques, and that makes me feel old. Still, I’m glad the new converts treat their bikes like works of art, because a bicycle can be a beautiful thing, worthy of celebration. I’ve kept a bike in the living room and hung one on the wall. (I have never let one slip between the sheets with me, however.)

At the very least, the fixie crowd treats the bicycle like we did when we got our first ones as kids – with love, respect and appreciation for craftsmanship. Lots of polish, new accessories and maybe even a baseball card or two thwacking away in the spokes. Perhaps a reaction against electronic shifting and carbon fiber – the latest bicycle technology – singlespeeds remind us of simpler times, when our only task in life was pedaling around town with the wind in our hair.

The bicycle industry has responded to this yearning, this emerging market, by turning out fixie mounts. Some companies, notably Bianchi and Surly, have been manufacturing singlespeeds for some time. It wouldn’t surprise me if Wal-Mart starts selling a knockoff fixie bike, which would make sense since many Wal-Mart bikes don’t shift properly anyway.

Part of the fixie craze, though, seems to be building up your own mount, like the kid in downtown Wausau with the old Grand Prix. All it takes is a ‘70s or ‘80s ten-speed frame with horizontal dropouts and some basic components, like wheels, a crank, bars and a saddle. A lot of the fixie bikes I’ve seen have been recycled, pulled from the garage rafters and given a new life. Many are good quality bikes – old Raleighs, Italian frames and an occasional Eddy Merckx – and make relatively inexpensive and efficient machines for getting around town. Despite the hype, the fixie makes economic and environmental sense.

I plan to keep on pedaling mine, despite my age and the words of Henri Desgrange, the father of the Tour de France, “I still feel that variable gears are only for people over 45. Isn’t it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailleur? We are getting soft. ... As for me, give me a fixed gear!”

I don’t want to get soft.

Mark Parman lives in Wausau, Wisconsin, where he teaches English and journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Marathon County.

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