One of my favorite parts of the show was spending some more time with Konstantine Drust, whose dog’s sofa I slept on during my stay. There was a framebuilders corner, which definitely took center stage as my highlight of the show, but it was also great to catch up with old pals, make new friends, ride some silly fun bikes, and document some real gems. The next morning we wandered through Kolektif, Rad Race’s accompanying bike show, saw a lot of normal stuff, “bike culture” stuff that felt nostalgic, and t-shirt sellers. It’s a place where niches find their footing, stretch out into the extremities of their own unbounded weirdness, and become perhaps the best, Berlin-ized, most extreme version of themselves. This facilitates the option of a relatively inexpensive way of life, necessary for people working independently in creative industries. It’s sprawling and industrial, with wide roads and plenty of empty or squatted buildings. Berlin is an amazing city for enthusiasts. Once I’d got back to my “klappy,” the bike stack that had engulfed it had been eroded sufficiently to facilitate my escape. I even bumped into Alec Briggs from Tekkerz, who won the men’s race for the third year in a row, milling about in the crowd. One minute I was chatting with some fixie kids that I recognized from London, the next minute to some fun Berlin goth kids, then a racing team from Poland who’d turned up in uniform. I’m not sure which I enjoyed more: the racing or the disparate gaggles of weirdos circulating in patchy pockets throughout the evening. It was organized chaos and it felt like a real party. ![]() Members of staff were on hand at all the right corners to scoop racers up when they crashed and, while the racing ended at around midnight, the party continued in a smaller (warmer) side room till 3:00am. At the same time, the race was being live streamed with cameras in all the corners as well as a huge broadcast camera strategically positioned on top of a container next to the track, and FPV drones wizzing around and following the racers. There was an air of comfortable chaos, with spectators banging on the banner boards and clambering across the track mid-race to get a better viewpoint. I feel like fixie crits in London devolved from the early days of the Smithfield Nocturne in 2007 – like a superfun melting pot for all the weird niche groups of cyclists rattling about – to something a bit too organized, and a bit dry. It felt more like the beginnings of a rave than a race, with an eclectic crowd of serious racers, fixie crews smuggling six packs of Polish beer in “secret” pockets within messenger bags, cycling fans and übercool Berliners. We walked through a yard with food and beer trucks into the go-kart track a generic industrial building that smelled like cigarettes, smoke machines and slightly sour spilled beer. ![]() I’m not sure why we did this because ample bike parking was provided, but something about it just felt right, even though I was riding my “klappy” (the generic East Berlin name given to all folding bikes, although mine bears the Brompton name) which is arguably the worst bike to lock in a pile. For some reason at that point, we locked all our bikes together in piles, like medieval haystacks before the advent of combine harvesters and bailing technology, as if it were actually 2005. After a half-hearted shakedown, and token bag search, we breached the venue’s chain link perimeter fence. We queued in the drizzle outside of a dilapidated indoor go-kart track, Mobikart, gently pulsating with techno, to show our wristbands to stereotypical-looking hairless bouncers in black bomber jackets named Ronnie. Located just a twenty-minute cycle further out of town than the accompanying bikeshow, Kolektif, the race was wilder than I imagined. In truth, the fixie scene in 2005 wishes it was Rad Race’s Last Wo/Man Standing. Nah, we’re all gravel dads with overly fancy commuter bikes pretending to do sports now. ![]() “Hello? Oh hi 2005! What’s that you’re saying? You’d like your fixie scene back? Yeah sorry, Berlin’s using it right now and it’s a lot of fun, so maybe hit up Doc Brown to drop off in his Delorean after Rad Race. Quack quack quack! Quack quack quack! Quack quack qua… I always regret my choice of ringtone when I’m near real ducks. Petor Georgallou was there for it all and shares a full report and massive image gallery below. Additionally, the bike fair featured a handful of stunning custom builds on display from an array of framebuilders including Drust, Omnium, Rossman, Morassi, Trout, ten:07, and Vetra. Back in March, as part of the Kolektif Bike Fair in Berlin, the team behind Rad Race put on the 9th annual Last Wo/Man Standing fixed gear race at the winding indoor Mobikart go-kart circuit track.
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