Fixed gear bikes make life simple, right? One gear, one speed. No coasting, no brakes (you slow down by putting backward pressure on the pedals, kind of like the coaster brake you had on your bike as a kid. Except that now you're riding in traffic). Nothing to break and nothing to steal.

Back in the day, fixies were the ride of choice for bike messengers, punks, hipsters, angry young men and women with piercings aplenty. But a quick look at what's locked up outside my local Starbucks has yielded an unmistakable truth: yuppies are riding these things.

So, are fixed-gear bikes cool? Well, it depends:

• is danger cool?
• is a take-your-$3500-Lance-Armstrong-wannabe-bike-and-shove-it attitude cool?
• is bare-bones, frill-free simplicity cool? (a follow-up: how many of you are reading this via dial-up?)

Like most things, the relative coolness of fixies is complicated.

One thing's clear, however: don't stop pedaling.