livedarklions

It's a motivational factor getting you to work harder. By your logic, riding a bicycle without an engine is a design flaw as one can't bail out to assist or take over.

I've ridden single speed over long distance, there's some fun to it, but I enjoy the versatility of geared bikes more. I have no desire to try a FG at this stage of my life, but "it's harder" doesn't strike me as irrational if one is attempting to maximize their effort and/or like technical challenges. People ride for different purposes, I can't imagine wanting to talk them out of their preferences except for when those preferences are actually endangering others. Don't get me started on people who ride on roads on FG without brakes, for example. That's not justifiable.

ofajen

Always good to bear in mind! For example, among others, I try to maximize the portion of a ride that I am standing. It makes the ride more of a weight bearing activity, improves saddle comfort on my longer rides and generally breaks up the monotony of being in the saddle a long time. I’ve gone to the extent of using swept back touring bars to help create better standing positions than drop bars allow. I’m sure a great many riders don’t have that as a priority.

Also, just an observation and I don’t know that there is causation with any of this, but since I went back to riding SS this summer, I’ve substantially increased my typical and longer ride lengths while no longer having to worry about saddle discomfort. As always, YMMV.

Otto

EviLDORK

My legs freeze with the cranks perpendicular to the ground when I start freewheeling again after riding fixed gear on a regular basis. I can't tell whether ride with more souplesse once my legs get reacclimated to being the only thing spinning the cranks.

63rickert

225rpm is a lot. Possible when I was younger. Recently did 180 down a smaller hill on 48x19. One of the few problems with FG is that for those of us who are getting senior we tend to drag brake on the downhills and that is not quite the same.

Two reasons some give up on or never warm up to fixed. There is not much chance of ever doing 225rpm if your position is not already very good and your pedaling at least decent. Fixed does absolutely improve anyone’s pedaling but you won’t get started if sitting awkwardly or too high or if your pedal stroke is too rough. So those who need it most are locked out, or at least need some good coaching and to make a serious try.

The other problem is big gears. Some of the gears mentioned on this thread are just enormous. The 42x17 mentioned in your post is way more reasonable. On rolling ground that is already quite big enough, thank you.The old Cinelli manual - actually the training bible for Italian amateur racers - talks about using gears as low as 44x23 for winter training. Even big riders are admonished to use 44x20 for developing agility during base miles. The old British notion of ‘medium gear’ at 48x18 also made medium gear the biggest to ever be used fixed. Only strong and fast guys would contemplate using medium at all and then only for racing. One of the old tropes was get under the hour for 25 mile time trial in a 48x18 gear before switching to a derailleur bike.

ofajen

Coincidentally, I switched from 42/16 to 42/17 today on my vintage MTB. With colder weather arriving here and chronically wet and slippery trails, I’m now running bigger, knobby tires, the surfaces are stickier and with leaves down every ride is windy. So, it seemed a better choice to gear down slightly. Anything resembling normal cruising speeds now on this bike will still be a very reasonable cadence of 100 rpm or less. 👍

Otto

Retro bike fan

in my opinion you should try a coaster brake wheel. with a coaster brake wheel you can have the benefit of coasting and the clear look of fixed gear

Litespud

Rode fixed for many years. Now I'm happy to ride S/S for local errands and multispeed for distance. My knees agree.

wolfchild

I ride both fixed gear and singlespeed...The only place I would choose singlespeed over fixed gear is for mountain biking and riding on rough technical single track trails. For all other types of riding it makes no difference to me.

wolfchild

You just don't get it...It has nothing to do with looks....Coaster brakes are for children.

Phil_gretz

I ride 48x18 (~70 gear inches) for my every day rider. My local terrain is moderately hilly, and there are traffic lights and residential areas with cross streets. So, the riding is varied. My flipflop hub is fixed-fixed, and the other side is 17T for flatter duties. I don't consider myself particularly strong as a 62 year old. But I can sustain 85-95 rpms pretty routinely for an hour ride if unobstructed. But that sub-hour 25 mile ride would be well outside of my abilities. If I could accomplish 25 miles fixed in 75 minutes, I would be pleasantly surprised.

The point is that this thread brings out the passions and prejudices, as well as fears and convictions of its posters. It's all pretty transparent. You could pick out the fellows with whom you'd enjoy riding because they share similar attitudes and interests. And that's one of the attractions of this forum's community. We're different from one another, but we share the love of bike riding. Even in its many forms.

63rickert

Your post is so well written I should stand up and applaud.

One small addition. In days when the Brit standard was 48x18 most rode wired-on tires and they were plain bad. The Dunlop HPRR (Yes, I had two pair of them when they existed) was fast enough and rode like tubulars, they were also even more fragile than tubulars. Fragile as old tubulars, not the good ones we have now. The old tires were just slow. Once on top of the gear and doing a ride it still felt good, felt just like riding a bike. But it was slower.

Even when I could do a 59 to 61 minute 40k and do it mostly on 52x17 and 52x16 free, a fixed gear at 48x18 felt big enough. 48x17 would mean killing the pedals from the start and never letting up. Only guys I ever knew who could really ride on a fixed bigger than that were Jim Rossi and Johnny VandeVelde. In that league you make your own rules. At age 69 I am on 48x19.

ofajen

That’s well said. After fifty some years of riding a freewheel, I have concerns that I will mess up if I try to ride fixed, and the healing and repairs at my age may take a while. Plus, I’m riding on a lot of complex terrain… not single track but lots of rough places, old bridges with big metal plates, short radius trail underpasses with sharp descents and sharp turns, rough gravel and stone patches. I am familiar with managing all that while coasting and then accelerating when it seems optimal. It would be a whole new deal to negotiate all of those things while having to continually pedal.

OTOH, I’m very interested in trying it, after all our discussion of internal vs external pedaling work and how fixed gear lets you push forward, maintain exact speed or even force the bike to do work on your feet and legs and slow down. So, I may get a flip flop rear wheel that will let me try fixed on less challenging terrain. Hopefully without messing up and throwing myself off the bike. 😊

Herzlos

Weight and simplicity are the big ones, because you don't really need brakes (front one is still advised). That seems to be why they are popular for bike couriers in relatively flat cities. Without brakes there's almost nothing on one to go wrong except the chain and some bearings.

downhillmaster

This thread should be a sticky.
Perfect illustration that the only reason in the world for a recreational rider to ride fixed gear is the supposed cool or macho factor.
Key word being ‘supposed’ of course

Phil_gretz

After all of the informed discussion, this ^ is what you want to leave in a Sticky-d thread? Ugh.

canadian deacon

This.

I have been riding fixed gear for years now and prefer it. I'm approaching 60 and will stop riding fixed when they pry it out of my cold dead feet, or words to that effect.

downhillmaster

Spinning is fun, and the purpose of riding fixed is to broaden one's power band, no?

That was basically the sum total of your part of the informed discussion.

Thanks for informing us all that spinning is fun

Happy Feet

I ride all three methods described: Geared, SS, FG. Each has it's place.

FG is not for everyone but then again, neither s cycling.

One error in thinking that FG is too hard or dangerous to attempt is thinking one has to master it at once. Mountain biking is far worse for example yet people do it.

Before I started FG I had a singular experience with one prior. a friend who had a FG came over and said: "Take it for a spin". I did and found it awkward to ride. "Who would want to ride one of those?" I thought. Sometime later I bought one on a whim because... well it's a bike (N+1). I did not tackle big hills right away. This is just common sense. I began by riding relatively flat routes to learn the skills needed. As I gained ability I expanded my horizons until I could ride pretty well anything the gearing allows, which includes some decent hills. Like bike riding in general - it's a process. No one (hopefully) would hop on a mountain bike without experience and ride down a black diamond run either.

From a skills/fitness perspective, what I notice about FG is that it helps me to develop consistent cadence, works the posterior and anterior chain of leg muscles and does not allow for micro rests. For shorter/medium routes when time compressed it feels like a better all around workout for the legs, especially when one rides a lot and the legs muscles become very conditioned to geared riding and plateau (they adapt for efficiency). FG forces them to work more completely.

From a fun perspective, I loosely equate it to driving an old sports car compared to a modern automatic transmission with power steering. Some people dig that sense of being more directly a part of the car/bike and some don't. It's not good or bad. Someone buying an expensive CF road bike might express the same feeling at the other end of the spectrum (like driving an F1 car).

livedarklions

He can't not insult people or what they like.

downhillmaster

You should put me on ignore.
Oh wait, you made a grand gesture and said you did but you have continued to reply to my posts, even in other threads

thehammerdog

i got both...the flip flop hub...love both but SS bs simply less a problem for me the knees get toasted on fixed..plus it takes some time to retrain the brain.....no coasting

Lazyass

I live in the country and go on long rides, I'm not a city boy commuter. I ride the freewheel most of the time because my daily rides are 25 miles minimum and not being able to coast every so often sucks. I have a habit of staying clipped in and making tight turns when I'm at a stop sign or something waiting for a car to pass and on the fixed cog my toe will hit the front tire, almost went down a couple of times because of that. And I like bunny hopping over things and can't do that on a fixed cog.

Rolla

^^ Perfect illustration of insecurity and ignorance.

birdmove

I have a cheapo single speed road bike with a flip flop rear hub. I never road it as a fixie. Front sprocket is 48, rear is 18. As a 68 year old cancer survivor with a bad knee, I don't give a whit about being "macho". I got back into riding about 4 months ago, and ride every day. Trying to gain back some strength and stamina after 2 years of cancer treatment, and have dropped 15+ pounds (down from 205). I ride because it's fun and makes for a good workout, along with walks and barbell work. My bad knee was not caused by riding, but I hope riding may help it.

GhenghisKahn

Started riding fixed about 2007. It just sounded interesting to me. So, I converted a Fuji Del Rey to SS. Rode that for about one year. Then flipped it around one day. Been riding fixed ever since. It forces mindfulness and concentration. It's also more challenging physically. The main thing is I just like it.