Baker is the master of fixed-gear bike riding

Travis Baker has gotten pretty good at bailing off his bicycle just before it crashes.

The 22-year-old from Sedalia has taken up riding and doing tricks on a fixed-gear bicycle.

“I’ve gotten really used to it,” he said of crashing his bike. “I can tell when something is going wrong and I can jump off of it and land on my feet most of the time.”

Riders on a fixed-gear bike have to constantly pedal to keep the bicycle moving.

“A typical road bike you would have multiple gears and the ability to coast, and with this bike you have a single-gear and the drive train is fixed so you don’t coast,” Baker said.

But, the fixed-gear system also allows riders to move the bicycle backward by pedaling.

“If I start going backward I can pedal and accelerate going backward,” Baker said.

Baker started riding a fixed-gear bicycle about a year ago when he was looking for a commuter bicycle. He built his own.

“I bought a frame online and shopped around for parts and put it together,” he said.

Baker began performing tricks on the bicycle sort of by accident. He started “goofing around” then found via the Internet others who performed tricks on fixed-gear bicycles. Baker got ideas from watching other tricks and began teaching himself in parking lots.

The tricks Baker does are a mix between stunts performed by smaller, BMX bicycles and artistic cycling. Most of his tricks involve “riding fakie,” or going backward. He also does a lot of handlebar spins.

He’s only been hurt badly once while trying to perform a trick for the first time going about 20 mph.

“The bike slipped out from under me sideways and I was still clipped into pedals,” Baker said. “I fell fast and couldn’t jump off.”

Baker is on his third bicycle frame in a year. Luckily, he receives free frames from Leader Bike, a California-based company, in exchange for posting videos on the Internet of him doing tricks on the bicycles. Baker built his first bicycle using a Leader frame and made videos doing tricks on the bicycle. The company received calls and orders of the frames from people watching Baker’s videos.

“They sold a lot of that model of frame because of me,” he said. “I was just happy to get a free bike.”

A company representative contacted Baker and asked if he would continue promoting the company if they sent him new frames.

The bicycles and tricks are more popular on the West Coast. Cycle couriers often use fixed-gear bicycles because they are “easy to get around on, but easy to work on because there are no gears to change,” Baker said.

“I don’t know if you can call it a sport because it’s so new,” he said.

Baker is working on linking a series of tricks together smoothly, something he hasn’t seen performed yet.

“That’s my thing right now,” he said.