mihlbach

Criswell predicts a bunch of teenage lime-green-deep-v brakeless fixie riding hipsters will crash the party.

Scrodzilla

Looks like I'll be busy deleting a lot of posts.

Squirrelli

stevel610 

umm..ok. How about now🤣😝😂😎....

(Though realistically I think the "over 40" fills the need)👍

Kiwisaver

Yeah. I'm in. There are plenty of other threads on various subjects related to ss/fg, but one can read 40 posts and pick up tips and approaches. Though I do ride on/off road with corresponding bikes ss/fg is a never ending source of fascination for me. So, yeah afa I'm concerned there can never be enough perspectives and info. I specialize in 70s-80s steel frame 'bike boom' conversions. There are dozens of YT related videos.

Mikefule

I think dividing people by age group would be unnecessarily divisive. Nevertheless, it is true that different age groups will tend to have different areas of interest and different attitudes. It is not universal. Not all young riders are hipsters; not all old riders are road-hardened veterans.

I'm 61. I've been a cyclist since childhood, and was riding regularly with the Cyclists Touring Club and Tandem Club in the 1980s, doing cycle camping and hostelling trips with my then wife, and commuting. I still ride regularly, and of my three bikes, the one I ride most often is my fixed wheel.

Yes, fixed wheel, because no bike has a "free gear" so why should it be a "fixed gear"? In the 1980s, it was well established in the UK at least that the term was fixed wheel.

Also, pedantically, a gear is a cogwheel that engages directly with another cogwheel. A cogwheel that engages with a chain is a sprocket, so in fact fixed gear bikes have no gears at all, fixed or otherwise!

Be that as it may, I was never aware of any particular "culture". The idea of being unable to freewheel fascinated me, but not enough for me to buy one. Instead, I got into road and cross country unicycling, a sport which I took very seriously for 30 years, and still do occasionally. Most unicycles, but not all, are fixed wheel. All of mine are.

I bought my first fixed wheel bicycle in 2007, completely unaware that there was a "fixie culture". I had not even heard the word "fixie" which I now associate with a particular attitude to fixed wheel riding: no brakes, bright colours, urban riding, fashion, rebellion, etc.

My fixed wheel bike is a Pearson Touche, a fairly conventional-looking road bike, with brakes fore and aft. I ride on a lowish gear of about 68 inches on 25 mm tyres, and a typical ride is 30 to 50 miles, solo. I mainly ride on the road but occasionally foray onto farm tracks and have been known to ride deeply rutted tracks through mud and water up and over the pedals.

For many years I rode without any foot retention at all. I never liked "cages" and and was not convinced by those broad padded straps. However, I eventually went to the dark side and invested in some decent shoes and SPDs and have never looked back.

When I ride, the game I play is that I don't use the brakes except in emergencies or on ridiculous descents. I would never ride without brakes because I spent many years of my career investigating road traffic accidents, reading medical reports, and negotiating compensation claims. However, I see the brakes as "available when needed" rather than my first resort. Yes, I sometimes skid to slow down or stop, because it is fun, but I am aware that it may alarm other road users, so I use the brakes when appropriate.

I visit local cyclists' cafes and similar places and cannot remember the last time I saw a fixed wheel or even a single speed "out and about". I often see them in town (usually SS rather than fixed) but not being ridden on the open road.

If we set aside all ideas of "culture" and "fashion" and "cool", the important thing is to enjoy the ride, not get cyclists a bad name, and be safe.

79pmooney

I qualify now as an adult. 21 years into the 50+ crowd. Fix gears. Like half my bikes are fix gears. (But still working on that culture. I've tries spreading fix gears spores but no luck so far.)

Fix gear bikes:

workhorse Trek 4something circa 1983. Fenders, U-lock, excellent all-weather centerpulls.

Jessica J, custom TiCycles. Extra long road-style dropout so any cog made can be run without altering chain length. Dual pivots, 175 track crankset. Ti with steel fork, 1" steerer and quill stem. Tektro V-brakelevers on pista bars. Flip flop hub.

Pete, my namesake bike. Canti'd road bike with generous tire clearances. Runs a triple, same flip flop hub spaced to 126 and a little dish put in. I run 46, 42, 36 in front with either 21-17 on one side and small, like 13 on the other, Each cog has its own chainring. Or I run say a 17 and 18 in bvck and just use the 42.

All run Isumi 1/8" Eco chains and Eurasian Imports cogs, (Bigger cogs are Surly or from England.)

Now, if I could only get that fix gear culture going, I could start tweaking genes and having real fun!

Trakhak

Don't know how I missed this thread when it started. I've ridden fixed for 60 years, since 1964. Helyett Speciale track bike, which I rode that year in the National Championships on the velodrome in Flushing Meadows, Queens, NY. (My first ABLA race - I had no business being there, but I was apparently the only 13-year-old registered racer boy in Connecticut, and so the owner of the local bike shop in New Haven got me in.)

I have three fixed-gear bikes in the house these days, including one aluminum road-racing-geometry bike with brakes front and rear (2005 Specialized Langster) and two true track bikes: a 10-year-old aluminum Felt TK-2 and a mid-or-late-'60's Peugeot.

Haven't ridden the latter for years, because I need a larger rear sprocket (at least 19 teeth, to go with the 51-tooth Campy Record chainring and crankset), and French-threaded track sprockets that size are difficult to find. (Does anyone know of a source for a 19-tooth or 20-tooth French-threaded track sprocket?)

veganbikes

I would ask Larry Black of Mt Airy Bicycles (which is in MD which might be close to you) Wayne Bingham of Velo Classique or Andrew Muzzi at Yellow Jersey, they are likely to have that stuff or maybe know someone who has them.

Velo Orange might know someone as well as they love French stuff?

rustystrings61 

Invoking Larry Black and Yellow Jersey sounds like my cue to enter this discussion, because I got into fixed-gears through the vintage bike world c.1998, about the same time I built my first fixed-gear. I started cycling in '74, though it has sometimes been an on-again-off-again thing. Oddly enough, I DO remember looking long and hard at a vintage Rudge Sports frameset and thinking "could I build a fixed-gear out of this?" in 1984, but that process had to wait a while longer.

I was always intrigued by the old English guys, so much so that when I got around to ordering a custom road fixed-gear, my model was British club bikes. My Mercian has worn full fenders and some sort of capacious cotton duck saddlebag pretty much since it was assembled in 2003, and the most remembered rides were long rambles over mixed surfaces. My best riding buddy and I were riding fixed-gears on local fire roads years before the industry discovered gravel, and after years of threatening to do so, this fall we plan on instituting rambling rides that include a stop to brew up tea or coffee by the side of the road like the old guys did.

Single-speed mountain biking was the PREFERRED type of mountain biking around here 16-18 years ago, and may still be for all I know. I still regret selling my 1990 Trek 950 converted to single-speed, but I DID built up a conversion that can manage gentle singletrack.

There is a LONG history to fixed-gear cycling that has nothing to do with racing, training for racing, or style points. I'm always eager to learn more and share what I know. I'll try not to get all pedantic about it - we can have a lively discussion about the term "path racer" (it is actually a GENUINE track bike from the era when British cycling literature referred to racing tracks as paths, and NOT a fixed-gear bike specifically built for unpaved roads), and there is always the discussion to be had of fixed-gear for the road vs. track.

veganbikes

HAHAHA...yeah they are certainly the favorite bike stuff hoarders, I mean vintage connoisseurs.

79pmooney

My fix gear riding has always been on true road bikes. So far, none have had track ends. Started on a Peugeot UO-8, then a string of early-ish '80s Japanese sport bikes. Then I had Jessica J made. Pure road fix gear that is close to a high end late '80s race bike in a fantasy world where gears were never invented. Last, I modified my Peter Mooney to be a mountain worthy fix gear for 60 yos. And found that bike, designed as a true compromise to be ride-able wherever and at any time of year (and always feeling like a compromise that didn't do anything well) thrived! As an elegant, classic fix gear roadster.

Trakhak

Thanks for reminding me about Andrew Muzi and Larry Black, veganbikes. Much obliged! (Didn't know that about Velo Orange, so I'll keep them in mind.)

Thought I'd start by asking Mr. Muzi for help finding the French-threaded track sprocket, so I sent an email to Yellow Jersey. It occurred to me that people participating in this thread might find the details behind that quest interesting, so here's the meat of that email:

The bike is a mid-1960's 531 Peugeot track bike with French-threaded Campy Record components throughout. I bought it from the proverbial little old lady. According to her, the bike was purchased in Paris when she and her husband lived there in the '60's. He had died some years back, and she'd lowered the saddle and ridden it until recently, when she'd damaged her back picking up a heavy pot in an antique store and could no longer ride it comfortably.

She brought it into the bike shop where I worked in the early 1990's and asked if anyone would be interested in buying it. As it happened, I'd been riding track bikes since I wheedled my parents into buying me a Helyett Speciale in 1964 for my 13th birthday, so I bought it at her asking price of $100. She threw in the lady's Schwinn 3-speed that she'd ridden when her husband was still alive. She preferred riding the Peugeot track bike, she said.

Unfortunately, the sprocket has 16 teeth. With the 50-tooth chainring, that's too high a gear for a 72-year-old guy to ride in the hills of northern Baltimore County. It was lucky that I'd had that Helyett, because I'd learned the first week I owned it that it was a bad idea to replace the original 15-tooth French-threaded sprocket with a BSA-threaded 19-tooth sprocket. (Back then, the ABLA permitted the use of fixed-gear bikes equipped with at least one brake in road racing, so I needed about a 72-inch gear.)

The hub threads stripped soon after I'd started riding with the BSA-threaded sprocket. I was miserable until Bill, the old mechanic in the bike store in New Haven where they ordered the Helyett for me, wrapped the threads in aluminum foil, which fixed the problem.

I'd just as soon avoid stripping the threads on the Record hub, so I'm hoping to find an appropriate sprocket.

I'll be amazed if there are any available anywhere, but your shop seems the best bet for finding one. If you don't have one, please suggest any leads you can think of.

drlogik 

Yeah, there are differences in the eras. At 66 just about everyone riding a "Track Bike", as that's what we called them back in the 1970's, were bike mechanics or racers. Us young bike mechanics back then (I was 15) built our "track bike" from a hodge-podge of parts. These Frankenbikes functioned and most were re-purposed "10-speeds". Same for the racers but the good racers had dedicated track bikes.

I built one from an old Peugeot back in 1974-ish. I was in high school and worked after school in a local shop. Can't recall what happened to that bike but it was fun to ride. The head mech helped me put it together with parts blessed upon me by the shop owner.

Track bikes never really took off past us bike mechs and racers back then. I didn't race. I wouldn't call it a sub-culture back then. It was more like what you described, a way to keep your spin high. Me? I just thought it was a fun bike to ride.

The difference today is that there's a bit of schtick to fixed gear bikes, plus we have purpose-built fixed gear bikes which in my opinion make them more desirable. For a few years there from the late 2000's to the late 2010's that they seemed to be the cool bike to ride. Not for everyone, because they require a specific skill set to ride safely.

I think that is what kept fixed gear bikes from really taking off with the masses. I don't think a majority of riders feel safe riding them. No doubt that they will always hold a close following within a certain aspect of the bike community but they aren't for everyone.


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