How we first met #4: Bibi Enriquez and Cinelli Vigorelli “shark”
Bibiana Enriquez is a fixture of the Oakland fixed gear scene.
From a background in competitive running she has slowly morphed into alley cat and crit racer as well as face of new, more diverse, wave of San Francisco riders. Here she tells us the story of how she got into track bike riding and her beloved 2020 Cinelli Vigorelli Shark.
All my childhood I was a competitive runner from age 6 onwards.
I competed at the Junior Olympics in 2018 and won the silver medal for Mexico in the 5k. I was Norcal champ in my sophomore year and had a full scholarship at USF.
In 2020 I tore my harmstring 90% and had to more or less give up running competitively. The only thing they told me I could for my rehab was bike riding. I’d be limping around when I was walking but on the bike I felt no pain…
I started riding fixed seven years ago: one weekend I was in downtown Oakland, at Lake Merritt, I was there with my regular bike that I used for riding everywhere… and I saw this guy riding backwards and I asked how is that even possible and somebody told me it was a fixed gear.
I looked around and saw tons of groups of people riding the same kinds of bikes… so that day I decided I wanted to buy a fixed gear too.
I didn’t know what kind of bike I wanted exactly, I just bought an old steel bike and put a fixed hub on the back.
Some people say I was the first Oakland girl to ride fixed.
Because of my new interest I discovered the shop King Kog and started going there all the time. Each week they’d have some new frames in and I’d go check them out and Shaun, who is my main guy at the shop, would explain them to me.
One time there was a bike I thought was so beautiful I asked what’s that? They said “Oh that’s a Cinelli”. It was beautiful but so expensive and I would have been afraid of breaking or scratching it.
In 2020 Shaun called me and said to me a Cinelli Shark is coming in today come check it out. I went down and the very same day I cashed out.
Because of the sparkles in the paint, the shape of the tubes, everything. I had to have it! I built it up as my race frame for alleycats and the Mission crit but whenever I ride it around town people stop me and comment it especially at time when the paint sparkles… I also always flip the bike to show people the “shark fin”…
These days I prefer competing on the bike to running… I ride everywhere commuting to build my condition which means training is much easier to fit in around work unlike when I was running which was almost like a full-time job… The bike community here in Oakland is great and mixed and for me riding fixed and the visibility it has given me is kind of a social platform.
Discover more about the NEW Vigorelli now back in stock.
