Trash talking, crashes and broken bones: Startup looks to bring WWE flair to bike racing

James Grady wants to put cyclists on the moon, but he’ll settle for packed arenas.

The co-founder of Formula Fixed, a first-of-its-kind cycling league that intends to bring the sport into “the TikTok era,” has brought his startup racing venture to go-kart tracks and small events throughout the country, including stops in the District of Columbia, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The qualifying events are baby steps toward larger venues such as the District’s Capital One Arena.

“Every kid in America grows up riding a bike. We really think there’s an opportunity here to provide an entertaining sports product,” said Mr. Grady, who founded the venture with his wife, Clare. “We, as Americans, are hardwired to like cycling, but there’s no aspirational professional league to keep people’s interest beyond childhood.”

He decided that the American people need a cycling league that offers races that are more dynamic and relatable to fans than road events such as the Tour de France.

Beauty in simplicity

Fixed-gear racing is the right format, said Mr. Grady, who spent more than a decade setting up cycling events for Red Bull.

Unlike the high-end bikes used by road race riders on mountain courses, fixed-gear bikes offer the simplest form of cycling. They don’t have fancy chain systems to control top speed through different gears, and they don’t have brakes. Cyclists have to pedal backward or skid when they need to slow down.

The results? Highly technical races that often result in high-speed crashes, perfect for drama-hungry spectators. An elite athlete can easily hit the pavement or a barricade, boxed out by a fearless amateur.

“It’s the only version of a bike that still scares me s—-less,” said Lucas Bourgoyne, the 2025 U.S. Pro Criterium champion.

Criterium racing is the more common discipline for cyclists in the U.S. In those events, racers perform laps on closed circuits ranging in size from 400 meters to 10 kilometers, often on closed-off city streets.

Criterium racers have brakes, though.

“Fixed gears are just so simple,” said Luke Fetzer, another criterium racer who has started competing with Formula Fixed. “There’s no brakes, no gears, frames can be pretty cheap. It’s a much more welcoming aspect of the sport than, say, road cycling, where bikes cost upwards of $15,000.”

Mr. Fetzer and Mr. Bourgoyne joined Formula Fixed qualifiers last year after racking up podium finishes in criterium races nationwide. A strong performance in the first fixed-gear heat left them feeling confident, but they finished near the bottom of the pack of qualifiers.

“It’s so scary. These guys — and girls — have balls of steel,” Mr. Fetzer said of fixed-gear racing. “They’re just fearless and made me and [Mr. Bourgoyne] look like rookies.”

The fixed-gear culture is “grungier” than the typical cycling scene, Mr. Bourgoyne said. Its roots call back to bike couriers, fearless speedsters known for flying around urban settings with little regard for their safety.

“We’re really plugged into the culture. It’s a lot closer to skateboarding than it is to cycling like, old White guys on bikes, right? And that’s probably what a lot of people think of when they think of cycling in America,” Mr. Grady said.

The Tour de France, he argues, is an event best served by newspapers or traditional TV broadcasts for older viewers. Formula Fixed is designed for social media and the young generation.

“This whole thing really appeals to young people, from the fixed-gear bike itself. There’s a little bit of danger associated with it because it doesn’t have any brakes and it only has one gear,” Mr. Grady said. “So, we get that much younger audience.”

That danger also appeals to the riders. Mr. Fetzer and Mr. Bourgoyne aren’t fixed-gear experts yet, but they are self-proclaimed adrenaline junkies. Nothing strikes fear into their hearts like racing without brakes.

“I love it,” Mr. Fetzer said. “I haven’t been scared on my bike in a long time, so it’s perfect for me.”

“I love the fact that if you make a mistake, you’re going to lose all your skin,” Mr. Bourgoyne agreed.

The Gradys also play into that daredevil culture more than other cycling events typically do. The founders depicted their vision for the league as closer to the professional wrestling world than something like the buttoned-up PGA Tour.

“At the end of the day, wrestling is just two people in a ring grabbing each other’s butts,” Mr. Grady said. “But what WWE does really well is create these larger-than-life characters.”

Formula Fixed athletes receive customized introductions, giving viewers storylines to follow and racers to root for. Even at the qualifiers, a proof of concept for the league, the Gradys are shining spotlights on individual riders.

The events come with a social media blitz, often including a countdown of “riders to watch.”

The Gradys brought that flair to the District last weekend with events outside the crumbling RFK Stadium and the K1 Speed go-kart track in Jessup, Maryland.

An accompanying livestream of the qualifying races was broadcast on YouTube, complete with trivia about the riders’ accolades and insight into their techniques.

“I was not a person in the sport last year,” said Mr. Fetzer. “They made me feel like a rock star. It gave each rider this persona, so each race is captivating.”

Mario Kart-style

The setup of the events might be the biggest shift from traditional cycling. A Formula Fixed race day begins with heats of eight riders competing in laps, inspired by the Olympic velodrome races.

The last-place rider is eliminated each lap, and this continues until only one rider from the heat remains.

Unlike the high-speed velodrome, these races are more technical, with several hairpin turns testing riders’ abilities. It’s the difference between NASCAR’s circular tracks and a Formula One road course.

“It really emphasizes skill and risk-taking,” Mr. Grady said. He called the competitions “Mario Kart-style” events. “We’re built for virality. The five-minute heats, they’re just like, bam, bam, bam. They’re very fast. It’s more of a spectacle.”

The elimination style, with short laps and a do-or-die intensity, is designed for what Mr. Bourgoyne called “the American attention span.”

“It’s not this five-hour event. You think of the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong with a five-hour jaunt through the mountains,” he said. “Formula Fixed is the Americanized version of that, where it’s a short format.”

Indoor venues are unique to the American cycling world. After years of organizing outdoor races for Red Bull, Mr. Grady saw an opportunity. He couldn’t charge tickets for those criterium races.

Spectators along closed-off roads could see only a fraction of the events. Buildings or turns would block portions of the track.

“You only see a bit of the race, a bit of the story,” Mr. Grady said. “I didn’t think anyone would pay for that.”

He quickly learned that people would pay to see Formula Fixed. One seat allows views of all the action. Tickets for multiple qualifier events have sold out, which bodes well for the large-scale launch next year.

“It’s based off the premise of every other great American sport. Under the lights, where you can get a beer and a hot dog with your dad,” Mr. Bourgoyne said. “It pulls all the best parts, I think, of sports together. And it puts them into one place.”

The indoor venues have another benefit.

Putting uber-competitive cyclists on brakeless bikes on go-kart tracks is similar to a NASCAR event. People love to see a crash.

“And, oh, hey, you know, that guy might smack into a barrier at 35 miles per hour, and he’s going to get up and have a broken bone and be cut to shreds,” Mr. Bourgoyne said. “Everyone loves some good gore at the end of the day.”

‘Neither famous nor wealthy’

Niche sporting ventures are having their day across the U.S., a point in Formula Fixed’s favor.

The Savannah Bananas are selling out NFL stadiums with their Globetrotter-esque brand of baseball. The Unrivaled three-on-three women’s basketball league smashed viewership projections ahead of the WNBA season. Professional pickleball teams are racking up multimillion-dollar valuations.

Representatives from Formula Fixed think there’s room for cycling.

“They really have a unique opportunity to blow it up, unlike anything before,” Mr. Bourgoyne said. “With James and Clare, you’ve got some damn good captains. So, if anyone’s going to champion the charge, I think they’re a pretty damn good dynamic duo at doing it.”

Go-kart tracks are just the start. The next step up would be arenas, similar to those that host monster truck events on a yearly basis.

“We’ll stair-step up to the stadiums. You know, the Savannah Bananas weren’t playing in Camden Yards for the very first season,” Mr. Grady said. “They had to really work to get there.”

The Formula Fixed co-founder isn’t a stranger to bold ideas. He brought his most out-of-this-world pitch to Red Bull about two years ago.

“The idea was to send a couple of riders to the moon to race bikes,” he said. “That’s the kind of thing that I like to think about.”

The cycling fanatic was met with a resounding “maybe one day.”

It might not be as difficult as space travel, but the Gradys say their new venture has disadvantages.

“We are neither famous nor wealthy,” Mr. Grady said. “That’s two strikes against us when we’re trying to launch a professional sports league.”

The Savannah Bananas had the benefit of being an MLB affiliate before branching out full-time into “Banana Ball.” Unrivaled had an array of WNBA stars backing it. Even Major League Pickleball boasted big-name backers such as actress Eva Longoria, Olympian Michael Phelps and NBA star Kevin Durant.

Without that support, Formula Fixed will start at go-kart tracks before moving to NBA-size arenas.

“Somebody with a lot of money could just put on bike races in stadiums, but right now, the market isn’t ready for it,” Mr. Grady said. “We’re preparing the market, because if we start small, we can get a good fan base. Then we’ll grow that fan base. The goal is to just start that flywheel.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled Mrs. Grady’s first name.