the new valencia st.

so i've been in san francisco this week, and i'm literally astounded as to how many fixies i've seen. starting with a packed dolores park, then rvca on haight, which i think is a store that sells clothing but has no less than five track bikes in the windows, and then down at the 16th/18th and valencia/guerrerro bar scene, i was continually shocked to see so many more brakeless fixed gears than i remember just six months ago. not monstrosities either; usually, these are somewhere in the 'very nice' range and often in the 'vanity' category, and more often than not there are about twenty of them all parked together. this tells me three things: one, there are exponentially more hipsters, and more hipsters riding fixed in sf now than there were last summer. two, they have either decided to spend more on expensive off-the-rack track bikes, or have completely exhausted the region's supply of decades-old ten speeds. three, as more hipsters bike up, sloshball has apparently lost some of its near-universal appeal, and kids can finally play soccer next to the tennis courts in dolores park again like they're supposed to.