Fixed gear / Fixie riding: Safety warnings

Summer is here, the best weather for riding your fixie! But...

Before start riding think in your safety...your life is the most important, we love riding, yes, but, from The Fixed Gear World we want to share with you important warnings to enjoy your fixed gear bike better.

First of all, we can talk about your equipment to keep you safe, and here we have a graphic we have found in Dropcam site:

Equipment:

• Helmet: Yes...I know, we are fixed gear riders, we are hard guys...but....our head is not strong enough to withstand a slog to the ground, or a car ... we recommend to use a helmet to avoid it. There are a lot of countries where it's not mandatory, but, think in your head before start riding.
• Lights: Really important in dark areas or at night, if you circulate on the road cars have to be able to see you to avoid accidents, yes, I know, sometimes no lights can not save us from crazy drivers ...
• Water: Always carry water to hydrate. Heat can cause drop in blood pressure you need to constantly hydrated to prevent any accident due to fainting. Remember fainting riding is inevitably an accident!
• Sunglasses: Use sunglasses to avoid win or sun problems, your vision is basic to ride safety, if you don't see the road clearly you could have a problem....
• Brakes: As all of us know, we don't use to ride equipped with brakes, but we recommend one important thing: please, if you are a new fixie rider, and you don't have experience riding with a fixed gear, use, at least, front brake... it's really important to learn riding fixed gear skidding to retire your brakes from your fixie...don't worry, you will be a great fixed gear riders using one brake! Most important now is your health and safety,
  
  not how cool you look like, ok?

 Safety warning riding:

• Foresee what might happen: We must anticipate what may happen in the next 15-20 meters (cars, kids, dogs ...). Especially if we don't use brakes!
• Straps and clipless shoes: This recommendation may seem stupid, but please, if you foresee stop, prepare your feet: if you use straps then removed one foot, if you are using cycling shoes, release one of the feet on which you'll support when you stop.
• Tell a friend/family your route: If you go out to train riding, tell to a friend or family the route you're going to do. Try to always carry a mobile phone with GPS enabled. This can help you in an accident or to be reached in missing case.

Do you know more safety warnings if your ride a fixie?  

If you know more warnings, please write your comment in this post, we only want to see health and safety riders in our streets, and remember: first your health, second enjoy your fixie (people who love you will thank you...)