I'm Not A Purist, But...

I've seen trust-fund kids wearing Mao and Che T-shirts--which, when you think about them, are a bit oxymoronic.  Perhaps that's not as much a contradiction as having or pursuing tenure while professing Marxism.  (I guess my ex's family, who escaped from Castro, still influences me after all!)  And some genius thought that a song about the apocalypse was just the thing to sell cars.  I love the song (and most others by the artist who wrote and sang it); I just thought it was odd to hear in a VW commercial.


So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see a porteur-style rack on the front of a "hipster fixie."  I wish I could've taken a photo of it.  But almost as soon as I saw it, the bike's owner unlocked it and bolted down Broadway.  Even if I'd had enough time to take a photo, I wouldn't have been able to take a very good photo, as I didn't have my camera with me.  


But it was quite the sight:  all neon colors, except for the flat black rack on the front.


I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.  Some "hipster fixies" are actually used for transportation, and even to haul stuff, although they're not the best bikes for the purpose.  And, within a certain segment of the population, it's hip to have a porteur rack.  Still, the combination doesn't seem right.


Mind you, I am  not a purist, at least not about most things.  When I realized how silly and futile it is to preserve racial purity, which is a fiction anyway, I lost whatever desire I had to uphold homogeneity.  


All right, I'll admit to being a purist about a few things.  I still don't think that pineapple belongs on pizza or chocolate chips in bagels.  (Actually, that's the New Yorker in me.)  And, all other things being equal, I'd rather mount merrie olde English Brooks saddles and hang equally merrie-olde Carradice bags on my even-more-merrie-olde-English Mercian frames.  But if you looked at my bikes, you'd see that, even though they have lugged steel frames, they're not entirely "retro," which is something I've never tried to make my bikes.


Still, I'm trying to wrap my mind around the idea of a hipster fixie with a porteur rack.