Fixie Inc.

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I’d heard about Fixie Inc. in 2011, as they had just released their striking acid yellow version of the Pure Blood CX bike, which due to its colour had caught my attention, along with a number of other quirky and innovative steel road bike frames and their fixed wheel staples.

Somewhere between then and now the Fixie Inc. Co. disappeared, a victim of the European economic downturn perhaps, or sucked into the vacuum of their own fashionable niche? Who knows, but I am relieved to report that after a recent message on their Facebook page and website, it looks like they are set for a return in 2013. I’m a bit of a fashionable niche type, so what I saw in the PURE BLOOD for sale appealed to me.

Discs and cyclo-cross, made for each other?

The Fixie Inc. PURE BLOOD was a disc brake only Cyclocross frame long before the UCI sanctioned it as legal and most interesting to me is that it is built from superlight custom drawn steel 4130 tubing – all TIG welds and fillet brazed joinery. Perfect for me to bash about on the Downs or in the woods with friends and maybe take up the challenge of an hour of hell at one of the London Cyclocross league events next season.

Built up the bike isn’t the lightest, but tipping the scales just above the 9.5kg mark it is respectable and belies the robust look of the frame and fork over all – you would expect heavier. The shiny 10-speed Shimano 105 parts pinched off the road bike are reliable and just shiny enough to be good looking on the frame. The CX70 chain-set is a great ratio for sprinting around the Sussex Whapple-Ways (Sussex dialect for Bridle ways). The Bontrager Select Disc Wheels have been looked after well and have plenty of life in them yet and the Avid BB7 mechanical disc brakes are a revelation.

Shimano CX70 ‘cross chainset

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