are you sure about bikes being fixed geared? They may just be single speeds.

By 1899 there was widespread adoption in UK bicycle manufacture of the freewheel, usually combined with the back-pedal brake, and conversions were offered to existing bicycles.

At the turn of the century, bicycle manufacturers within Europe and America included the freewheel mechanism in a majority of their bicycles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freewheel