The American Dream Lives On...

The Red Hook series is the most competitive and prestigious in the world of fixies, and in 2016 one man dominated. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the man who trumped them all – Mr Colin Strickland…

- James Witts

I love the simplicity of both the bike and racing; everything about fixed-gear fascinates me.” Meet Colin Strickland, the Texan rider whose love of the single is transmitted to each and every pedal stroke; the man who’d never raced the revered Red Hook series until 2011. Fast-forward to October 2016 and the 30-year-old stood smiling in Milan after winning the men’s Red Hook series. There was Strickland, victorious, in his vivid-red Specialized skinsuit, his eighth position in Italy a mere sideshow to a season that’d seen him win the previous three Red Hook races in Brooklyn, London and Barcelona. Such dominance requires dedication, of course, but travelling the world in pursuit of peak performance aboard two-wheeled works of art all points toward an athlete afforded the luxury of professionalism. Not a bit of it. As it transpires, Strickland’s like the rest of us, balancing work, racing and “kegs of beer”…

Lead and maintain

The sight of Strickland powering to the front, stretching the sinews of those drifting away from his awesome shadow, has already become Red Hook legend. There’s no chess match here; no eyeing the opposition in a tactical battle. Strickland is all about revelling in the threshold. “The way I see it, the technicality of Red Hook courses lends itself to hard racing,” Strickland tells us from his Austin home. “It’s the nature of fixed-gear that everyone’s pedalling a similar revolution through the entire race. Throw in that drafting’s not really an advantage because of the many ‘twisties’ and, to me, it all makes sense to hit the lead early.”