Well, I'm gonna invent the unicycle coaster brake. No one has ever thought of this idea, I suspect. I can become famous! :rolleyes:

One benefit I got in my racing days (and still) is the ability to recover while pedaling. I found doing long rides fixed forced my body to be able to recover (from the last hill, downhill, effort or upwind) while spinning whatever RPM I happened to be at. This translated to being able to recover at peloton speeds and I could do this training without partners or motorpace. A workout I used to do - if it was long ride day and the weather was bad (Boston) ('d check the weather and pick a town 50 miles upwind. Ride there for lunch. Spin home with a hammered body at RPM far too high to be fun. Real gains from those rides! Not speed. not impressive numbers but stamina at the end of long and hard rides and races.

What if you made a coaster unicycle, but put a second wheel on the back so it would be easier for people to balance. That would catch on like wildfire!

Pros: more people would ride unicycles. They would be less skilled of course but you could probably add a brake to make it safer for them.
Cons: they might see someone riding an old school unicycle and call them reckless macho clowns.

I met a guy with gears and a brake on his unicycle. (Coming up with a first for bicycles of any number of wheels is tough. Brightest minds on this planet were focusing on the "velo" when there were no computers, flight hadn't happened yet, nor cars, nor computers.) He had a lot of other stuff too. Not a sa gimmick. He rode unicyces seriously. Gears for hills, both up and down. Brake for going down; He also had handlebars and "cockpit".

That's a good point. Some of them want to be jugglers.

Coasting is nasty and insidious? Faster and more efficient? Danger as a motivator? Good Grief, spare us slow inefficient dullards from macho, bad-ass buffoonery.

Agree with everything you say, and would add that another useful thing you get from a fixed gear is getting used to pedalling a less than optimal gear. Since you only have one gear, it's hardly every the one you'd choose if you had 12 speed brifters and a nice wide-range cluster. Nope, you're always in either too low a gear (forcing you to spin) or too high a gear (which forces you to optimize your pedalling technique and smoothness).

It's a great cross-training tool to improve your performance once you get back on your regular bike. It's not an end to itself, it's just a tool for becoming a better, more skilled, and more fit rider.

Foot retention makes riding fixed gear a lot safer, however it's not a necessity...I personally use MTB platform pedals with pins, I know it's more dangerous but it also keeps me extra alert.

Fixed is fun, but it’s a different kind of fun than ripping down a hill at 40 mph, tucked in tight. I rode exclusively fixed for six years, but I’m over it. Singlespeed lets you let loose.

Macho? You guys are ridiculous.

any one reading this should read it with a regular, earnest tone of voice: I find commuting my 15 mile, mostly flat, city route mentally easier on 52-14 fixed than on/in anything else. It is the gear I used to find myself in most often on my 10 speed bikes BITD. I spin a low cadence and can roll through or whip around our very frequent pot holes and large debris with great ease. I use SPD only and the few small hills I have to climb or lights I want to sprint from have me out of the saddle and putting in about the same effort as 75lbs 12yo me did doing the same on a 30lbs bmx. Tight turns on a converted road bike with long cranks do call for a thoughtfully erratic lean to clear the inside pedal, but it still takes less than a tenth of the strain as does a good game of chess.

My knees only hurt when I pull out the geared bike and try flittling my legs around with some lower gears for an extended period searching for this storied aerobically efficient gear. My knees hate that.

I’m of the mentality that the only macho, badass people around are the ones who have a summer Bentley, a Porsche road car, a Porsche track car, and a winter Bentley, and none of them are ever more than ten months old. The only time they are on a bicycle is at MOAB or in Southern Europe and the only destination is a story.

There never was a fixed scene here, not much of a bike scene at all here, really. I’m not impressing anyone except for the occasional triathlete.

I’m just some jagoff on a friggin bike who rides it year-round deep in the snow belt.

Part of the reason for the macho and badass association to FG riding is a carry over from the city messengers.
Now there is a culture of city FG riders that never stop and ride at full speed thru all the busy intersections.
NYC is one of the hot spots for this culture and there are many youtube vids with different sets of riders.
Here is an example, watch and you may be surprised.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOYimpAgMlM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbHTWve3Eec

I prefer a fixed gear bike. I do have a single speed with a flip-flop hub that actually has both a WI freewheel and a fixed cog (Sugino Super Gigas I believe that or Dura Ace) and I did ride that fixed for a long time but wanted to switch it up and mostly ride off road or shorter casual stuff with non-cycling pals so fixed didn't make sense but my main bike the Langster is fixed and no freewheel installed and it is a ton of fun.

I will say I do use actual brakes but I just love the ride. It trains you to be a better cyclist and has improved my pedaling a little bit. Coasting is cool but I can do that on any one of my geared bikes.

What the YouTube video and similar videos bring to mind is an association between dumasses and reckless urban riding. That some YouTube dumasses ride fixed gear bikes is irrelevant to their dumassery, and is neither a plus nor negative feature of fixed gear bikes.

If I have proved anything to myself in life it is that salmon cannot ride fixed gear because their legs are too short. What a shortsighted evolutionary design that was.

https://live.staticflickr.com/4824/4...1c5d9244_b.jpg

Im only pointing out a reason for the macho and bad@@s association to FG.
Its an extenision of the reckless riding that the message curriers used to get around city traffic and deliver packages as fast as possible. Those riders while reckless and as you label "dumasses" are actually crazy skilled in FG riding.

I like multispeed bikes wherever I am and no matter what the terrain is because having more gears is better for my body. If I want to go slow and use my granny gears with no hills I can.

There are a lot of comments that fixed gear will make you a better cyclists. I wish I had the guts to ride Fixed but at 60 I think it's too late for this old fart.
The last Fixed I rode was my Big Wheel and that was over half a century ago. Although I have a few geared bikes my SS Langster is my favourite for solo rides.

Re Fixed making "you" a better rider.....I wonder how many Pros ride them for this reason.

Flip Flop

That bike simply doesn't fit. Seat's higher that that critter is long. You wouldn't do any better on a 90" frame. Get that guy fit and get him a bike that works. (I'm predicting a small bike with very short cranks but a long top tube.)

As late as the 1980s (and possibly later for some), many, if not most, European pros rode fixed-gear bikes (usually with fenders and a fairly low gear) for much of their early season training. As I understand it, the idea was to develop strength on (moderate) climbs and smoothness on level roads and descents. Power-meter-based training has doubtless put an end to that approach.

I guess I look at it a bit differently. Both my bikes are SS because I’m really having a blast riding that way. I like not thinking at all about gears and just changing my riding position, effort and attitude to deal with the route. 😊

Otto

OK, let's have a meeting of minds. Reckless riding on fixed gear bikes by message curriers (sic) is considered "crazy skilled in FG riding" by some self described macho/badasses. YouTube is full of videos of crazy people well practiced in performing Jackass! stunts.

I ride my fixed gear for the purpose of commuting and recreational riding. I've never done any reckless stunts and posted them on social media. People who equate fixed gear riding with recklessness, badassery and macho behaviour are narrow minded.

I have a single speed in amongst my herd of bikes. It has a flip-flop hub, but I've never tried riding the fixed side. Why? When I leave my house for a ride I have hills to deal with in any direction that I don't think I could handle on a fixed gear. Just coasting down these hills not even in a tuck would mean hitting 40+mph. I'm sure I couldn't spin that fast on a fixie so I'd have to brake to get down the hill, which seems so illogical :)