Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Fixies fitter than roadies??

Do you feel that you have to be about 10% fitter on a fix to keep with the roadies?? I've been riding my fixed for a little while now and I'll soon be taking it out on group rides...

I suppose this is obvious as some people train on fixies to improve their road riding...

I do know that road riders give me a strange look when the see the bull-horned beast on the streets here in Tasmania (australia).

I don't know about that.....most of the roadies I ride with are fitter and stronger than I.

I imagine that to keep up with them while you're riding fixed, you need to exert more effort that they do. However, that doesn't mean that overall someone riding a fixed gear is in more shape.

hey fixer.. whats a good fireroad ss gear for around here?

around here the roadies are all sorts of speeds

p.s...on my road bike i pass fixed gears like cars pass me

I'd say 5% more fit works

hey fixer.. whats a good fireroad ss gear for around here?

around here the roadies are all sorts of speeds

p.s...on my road bike i pass fixed gears like cars pass me

I've been passed by white haired old guys on road bikes...

I'd say 5% more fit works

No! Its 6%! And generalizations are always wrong!

From my experience, roadies definitely tend to be in better shape than guys that mostly ride on a fixed. Except for Keevohn.

Depends, if you have a lot of hills, it's more work on a fixie. If you have less hills, it's more work on a road bike. Fixies give you a little momentum push on your pedals plus on flat ground, the lack of a complicated drive chain gives you a lot more efficiency.

So on flat ground, at the same cadence, the guy on the roadie is actually working harder than the guy on the fixie.

Well, if a fixer could keep with a top pro tour team on a fixie, then i'd agree he is in better shape then the race pack/peleton

Otherwise it's hard to say in other cases.

For instance during an alleycat/track/road race last weekend, where a group of road cyclists were keeping a 28mph(estimated average) pace line, and some fixer was holding with us, i beleive he even pulled at one point, he may not have neccessarily been stronger, but he was quite skilled to keep up such a high cadence for such a long period of time while matching our pace. Another scenario, a fixer pulls from a dead stop faster than a roadie, while he is able to produce more off the line torque/power, its hard to confirm that he is indeed stronger then the roadie who could not ake off as fast as the fixer.

That said, i'd say there really is not actuall answer, but some fixie riders can be stronger then road riders, and vice versa.

Me personally, I use my track bike as a commuter more than trainning. I probably only get in 100 miles a week on my bike unless i'm trying to do more. However, I know some roadies that get 300-350 miles a week or more. I mean, I used to ride with a 65 yeard old guy down here that had an average of 300 miles a week.

He was real ****ing awesome.

I want to live in bigger city so I can go more places and get more miles in. I love just riding into nothing, but I get bored with it everyday. Living in a place with NOTHING to do sucks.

I don't know about that.....most of the roadies I ride with are fitter and stronger than I.

Yes. I don't know where the myth of the super-fixed rider dropping roadies like flies comes from.

Probably dudes who happen to breeze past a guy on a roadbike doing 15-18mph. Real serious roadies can maintain 18-25 mph for long stretches of time with minimum effort compared to a cyclist who rides fixed gear for commutes and recreation. Don't get me wrong -fixed gears are awesome for a lot of reasons.

But trying to group ride in a fast peloton is not the fixed gear bicycle's strong suit.

um... what you ride has no bearing on your fitness... it all comes down to who rides more, or trains more, or yeah.

hey! you! roadie!, yeah you, I'll bet I can beat you by 10% if I rode the same bike as you!

On certain hills that suit my cadence, I blast past roadies.
The rest of the time they have their way with me.
Of course, we have a lot of Olympic and professional bicyclists in this town, and we sponsor a number of races that have a national and international draw.
Some of the more dedicated male and female roadies have so much power and technique it defies comprehension.
I get wonderfully humiliated by smooth, fast women all the time. :)
Still, I love my fixed gear bike and I have no intention of ever riding geared bikes again, except in the really nasty weather when I need gears to get through rutted snow.
One of these years I'll build a dedicated ice fixie, and I'll ride fixed year 'round.

a 6 mile fixed gear ride is equivalent to a 10 mile roadie ride. do the math.
when you're brakeless its more like 4:10

I'd have to call bs on that one

This is not directed at the OP but is in reference to the lame attitude surrounding fixed vs. geared.

Alot of fixed riders think that because they can manage to get over a hill with a big gear or spin really fast that they are superior to roadies, but what does this really mean? Where is the translation?

For cycling there are different types of strengths that suit different types of riding. An olympic sprinter can turn over a massive gear from a standing start and crank it up to fourty miles an hour for a little over ten seconds... A tiny 130 lb climber can spin up mountains for hours...Is one type really stronger?

I think that riding fixed can give inexperienced riders a feeling of supremacy because they are able to match a road bike doing x,y or z. Fine, you just matched Mr. Spandex for five minutes before pulling off, but that same guy might be coming off of a three hour ride or maybe is going to do three hours more.

If you ride fixed and can suffer through terrain that is mostly inefficent for the gear, then great, pat yourself on the back. But being able to tough out the burn is not necessarily a sign of fitness. Basically, someone fitter-and this could be someone who rides a fixed or geared bike- might only feel that sensation at an intensity twice yours.

If we take skills such as skidding, trackstanding, urban riding and posing hard as a messenger, the average roadie on a fix would destroy your average deep v hipster. Sorry...

In the end, we are really comparing the fitness levels of commuters versus dedicated cyclists (this can go towards either type of bike. My generalization is that most fixed riders would fall under the commuter label. In the end, if you ride fixed and have something to prove, don't compare yourself to outsiders. Bring it to you local track and see how much stronger you are...

I think I didn't ask the question very well...

A fix rider and a road rider rode from A to B in exactly the same time... I'm thinking a fix gear rider would have to be fitter to manage the same feat.

I feel that when I ride my regular distance on my fix, It's about 10% more difficult than the roadie. Therefore if I trained to get the time on the fix to be that of the road bike, would I then be 10% fitter than I was... Clear as mud?? ;)

This is all my opinion and conjecture anyway but I feel that because the fixie is harder I'm getting a better training ride... And when I eventually hop on the roadie I'm gonna be even faster....

I think I didn't ask the question very well...

A fix rider and a road rider rode from A to B in exactly the same time... I'm thinking a fix gear rider would have to be fitter to manage the same feat.

I feel that when I ride my regular distance on my fix, It's about 10% more difficult than the roadie. Therefore if I trained to get the time on the fix to be that of the road bike, would I then be 10% fitter than I was... Clear as mud?? ;)

This is all my opinion and conjecture anyway but I feel that because the fixie is harder I'm getting a better training ride... And when I eventually hop on the roadie I'm gonna be even faster....

Your example does not work on many levels. Type of terrain, fitness of riders etc... But I think what you are getting at is that riding fixed wastes more energy on average for a set distance. Of course, I would agree with this. But from experience, past a certain level of base fitness the cross over benefits of riding fixed are small. Riding fixed gets you in shape for riding fixed-that simple.

Cycling training gets very specific once you enter competition level. You have to start training with intervals, hill repeats etc... Then within more elite ranks some guys focus on sprinting, or climbing or tt'ing. Within velodrome racing, there are endurace riders, sprinters, tt'ers etc. They don't train alike. The types of training that they do are meant to address the needs of these specific types categories.

Again, past a certain point just getting on the bike is not enough. If we are talking racing, road or track or mtn you have to tailor your training accordingly. To simply hop on a fix and expect to see results past a certain point if wishful.

I wish that I could give you a solid answer but I can't. When I was riding eight hours a day as a messenger and racing, aside from lack of recovery time, I couldn't understand why I wasn't placing based on the amount of riding I was doing. But though I was in really good shape, it was a different kind of shape than what was demanded. Does this make sense?

I drink way too much for this to even apply to me

I ride both, it's different bags.

For fixies it's more about muscular strength, and different muscles too as you're working against the motion as much as for it a lot of the time.

For roadies it's far more cardio condition. We spin fast but have low exertion on our muscles... this makes it very easy to do centuries and why we slow going up hills (faster spinning at lower speeds).

So it's different things, for city riding a fixie will usually beat a roadie as a fixie's skills are orientated around smooth cycling, and few stops. A roadie is less used to frequent stops and starts, and will have trouble maintaining a nice constant cadence and speed.

If you want really fit, then ride with a time triallist or triathlete. Now those guys will leave fixies whimpering, and road guys will cry when they're being dropped (and permanently left behind) on hills.

In order of precedence I think general fitness goes like this:

Triathletes
Time Triallists
Roadies
Fixies


But for average speed in reasonably flat cities:

Fixies
Roadies
Triathletes
Time Triallists


Fixies rule the cities, traffic is the place in which expensive road bikes and high fitness are not the deciding factor in higher average speed. Smoothness, elegance, high road sense and reading the road count a lot more here.

All just my opinion, but flame away if it gets you off.

this thread is useless without lurid pictures of shaved legs

Do you feel that you have to be about 10% fitter on a fix to keep with the roadies?? I've been riding my fixed for a little while now and I'll soon be taking it out on group rides...


I'd say that is about right. When I used to ride both fixed and geared I had a sixty mile route. I would always do it faster on my geared bike. You can't beat yourself (at least not on a bike ;) ). This tells me that I have to exert more energy on my fixed bike to acheive the same amount of work on my geared bike.

Well, if a fixer could keep with a top pro tour team on a fixie, then i'd agree he is in better shape then the race pack/peleton
I think this is the answer. Or close to it. Depends on terrain, windspeed, length of toenails, blah blah blah... One of the reasons I ride a fix is to get away from the competition BS that plagues normal road riding.

Is the bull-horned beast still legal in Tassie? :p

I think I didn't ask the question very well...

A fix rider and a road rider rode from A to B in exactly the same time... I'm thinking a fix gear rider would have to be fitter to manage the same feat.

Hmmm....this got me thinking.... What if you take the same rider and same distance from A to B and put said rider on a fixie and then a roadie, what would the comparison be like then? If it were me, it wouldn't matter what bike I was on...I'd still be slow as poop. As long as I make it from A to B without getting honked at, yelled at, cut off, run over or killed, it's all good!

no.

heres my 2 cents.....
On average, are fixed cyclists in better shape than roadies? Who the hell knows. Depends on how you measure it.
Not all roadies are the baddass muthas we asume them to be. I pass roadies all the time on my SS MTB. It really has less to do with the bike/drivetrain and how hard you ride/train.
As for me....I ride on rolling hills. I ride hard with a fixie and a gearie with distances varying from 10-180 miles. I'm probably as fit as I can get without doing some sort of special training. On a fixie, I have to spin like hell to keep up with roadies when going down...its tiring and if hills are involved, I can't keep up with a fast group for very long. If I geared up, I could probably keep up on the descents, but that would make the climbs that much harder. On the other hand, I can hang forever with a fast group on my gearie.
Given these conditions, I would say that if you want to hang with a group of fast roadies on a fixie, you better be able to maintain a pretty fast cadence to keep up on the descents, and still reserve enough strength to mash your way back up to the top. If the group is going at full throttle, that probably means you need to be fitter than the average roadie in the group. Results will vary depending on the severity of hills.

I think fixie riders enjoy riding more, but die hard roadies are in better shape.

I don't ride with roadies.

on my two main commutes, i feel like i work less on the fixie. i would think because they pedal themselves. when you're tired, you can be lazy and let the bike pull you along. you have to supply all the work all the time on a road bike. when i go out to kill myself on a bike, i don't even consider a fixie. i would think roadies that use fixies for "training" are doing so for the spin, not for the fitness difference.

would think because they pedal themselves. when you're tired, you can be lazy and let the bike pull you along. you have to supply all the work all the time on a road bike.

Or you can just coast.

Or you can just coast.
oh yeah, duh. hehehe i guess what i mean is that when you "coast" on the fixie, you loose less momentum than on a freewheel. the more you coast on the road bike, the more you have to work to get back up to speed. also, when i'm trying to get to a destination on time, i don't allow myself to coast much. just mash!

oh yeah, duh. hehehe i guess what i mean is that when you "coast" on the fixie, you loose less momentum than on a freewheel. the more you coast on the road bike, the more you have to work to get back up to speed. also, when i'm trying to get to a destination on time, i don't allow myself to coast much. just mash!

leg momentum? please. If anything the fixie is worse since you waste all sorts of energy letting it pull your feet around. If you mash the whole way why does it matter anyway.

ninja please. i mean momentum as in your ground speed... ah whatever. who gives a **** anyways? i certainly don't; i'm just making an a correlation between when EYE! am riding to work on my geared road or 'cross bike versus my track bike. i feel like i exert less energy on the fixie.

I don't ride with roadies, I ride with myself. I love that I have complete control over my bike and find when I'm on the fixed I ride slower and at a steadier pace than when I ride geared. In fact, I enjoy riding slowly on the fixed. Like some people say, it really is kind of zen. The last thing I'd want to do is compete!

I ride both, it's different bags.

For fixies it's more about muscular strength, and different muscles too as you're working against the motion as much as for it a lot of the time.

For roadies it's far more cardio condition. We spin fast but have low exertion on our muscles... this makes it very easy to do centuries and why we slow going up hills (faster spinning at lower speeds).

So it's different things, for city riding a fixie will usually beat a roadie as a fixie's skills are orientated around smooth cycling, and few stops. A roadie is less used to frequent stops and starts, and will have trouble maintaining a nice constant cadence and speed.

If you want really fit, then ride with a time triallist or triathlete. Now those guys will leave fixies whimpering, and road guys will cry when they're being dropped (and permanently left behind) on hills.

In order of precedence I think general fitness goes like this:

Triathletes
Time Triallists
Roadies
Fixies


But for average speed in reasonably flat cities:

Fixies
Roadies
Triathletes
Time Triallists


Fixies rule the cities, traffic is the place in which expensive road bikes and high fitness are not the deciding factor in higher average speed. Smoothness, elegance, high road sense and reading the road count a lot more here.

All just my opinion, but flame away if it gets you off.



Cop out.
I think that the bike has absolutely nothing to do with the skill and fitness of the rider and therefore rule the previous 2 pages of this topic ludicrous and completely off point.

To address the cardio vs. muscular fitness point: Sure you may need more leg power to get your ridiculously large gear turning you may need more muscular power, but once your up to speed, or if your riding a properly chosen gear for the terrain, it really has no bearing on anything. Look at Lance vs. Jan, Lance spins up the hills, Jan mashes big gears...It boils down to riding style as opposed to which type of rider is better.

As to the city riding comment. You take your fixie, ill take my roadie and I'll still whoop you on a flat city section. The fluidity and smoothness garbage is BS, keep your wits about you and giver and you'll be fine... I can dart about in traffic on my roadie, just as well as my fix, perhaps even better than. try stopping your brakeless or front braked only fix when that van stops abruptly in front of you.

It may seem as if I'm ragging on the fixers; I'm not. I ride a fix everyday as my commuting bike and its fun, quirky, but really has no comparison to a geared bike... being able to push your steel conversion with 52/16 gearing past a roadie when they have no clue they're even racing can't be held as a testament to the superiority of the fix over the geared road bike. The only time a fixed geared bike will be more efficent and uselfull than its geared counterpart is on the track. I ride and race road, xc, and ride my fix year round so personal experience is the basis for this argument.

I was playing around with the idea yesterday, and I can stop just as fast using the front brake plus resistance on the pedals as when I use both brakes. I just prefer to have both.

Cop out.

:rolleyes:


You take your fixie, ill take my roadie and I'll still whoop you on a flat city section.

Challenge accepted.

Wow this thread is off course.

Concerning the OP, yeah you don't necessarily have to be more fit that a roadie, you'll just be putting a little more effort in.

Concerning the whole who's fittest stuff that started up. Straight up fitness goes to tri and tt peeps, speed and endurance goes to roadies and trackies, then pulling up the rear is a fixie.

Trust me no matter how much time you spend cruising around on your bike unless you are putting in 50+ mile hard rides fixie riders aren't stronger than a lot of road riders. And at the track you often see a lot of people coming to the track with their sweetass track bike that they've been riding on the street for a year and in the first race you just see this look on their face like, oh **** people actually train for this. damn.

As for the bike and city crap, a road bike with stomp a track bike anyplace, all else the same/

It's not hard to keep up for a little bit on the track or road in a paceline for a normal street rider, but to stomp ass in a road race or drop a 3k on the track is a whole 'nother story my friend.

As to the city riding comment. You take your fixie, ill take my roadie and I'll still whoop you on a flat city section. The fluidity and smoothness garbage is BS, keep your wits about you and giver and you'll be fine... I can dart about in traffic on my roadie, just as well as my fix, perhaps even better than. try stopping your brakeless or front braked only fix when that van stops abruptly in front of you.

Fredericton, NB
- Population: 47,560 (2001 est.)
- Density: 362.4/km² (938.6/sq mi)

London, England
Population: 7.5 million (2005 est.)
Density: 4,761/km²

I think you're comparing apples and oranges here invicta, Fredericton just ain't the craziest city to ride in compared to most of the people on this board. A road bike is probably fine with your traffic.

Depends, if you have a lot of hills, it's more work on a fixie. If you have less hills, it's more work on a road bike. Fixies give you a little momentum push on your pedals plus on flat ground, the lack of a complicated drive chain gives you a lot more efficiency.

So on flat ground, at the same cadence, the guy on the roadie is actually working harder than the guy on the fixie.

Great point. I can ride ALOT faster on flats with a fixie than I can on my road bike (assuming the gearing is the same).

Legs and lungs make someone fast. Most roadies spend ALOT of time making theirs stronger. So, needless to say... they are rather fast. It also helps to know the CAT ranking of the riders you will be riding with. If you show up to a CAT 2 or 3 group ride... you'll be dropped before the first mile. We had some kids on fixies, in the park, follow our cross group last month (most of us race A class (expert)). They lasted five minutes before they were ALL off the back.

Fredericton, NB
- Population: 47,560 (2001 est.)
- Density: 362.4/km² (938.6/sq mi)

London, England
Population: 7.5 million (2005 est.)
Density: 4,761/km²

I think you're comparing apples and oranges here invicta, Fredericton just ain't the craziest city to ride in compared to most of the people on this board. A road bike is probably fine with your traffic.

a road bike is better in traffic, all other things being even.

At the track races in the Boston area (NH) it usually seemed to break down like this:

A Races - Cat 3, strong Cat 4 and Masters roadies.
B Races - Primarily fixed-gear riders, Cat 4/5 roadies and a few top female roadies.

Obviously there may be stronger fixed-gear riders who did not go to the track, but I think this is probabaly just about how it stacks up.

I could definitely drop myself on my road bike if I were to come across myself riding fixed.

On long distance rides I'm really hurting on a fixed when I wouldn't be on a road bike. I should get a clone of myself and race it in various different situations.

a road bike is better in traffic, all other things being even.
better for what?

comparing bikes with same brake setup;
weight - most fixies are lighter then comparably priced road bikes - less weight means better acceleration/deceleration, and this is what u need in traffic,
geometry - well its easier to manuver on track bike, u need this in traffic also,
maintanance - much less to do on fixed one, and this i find also important in daily traffic (ab)use.

all best 2 u

luke

here is the thing, there are two different questions being discussed i think only one of which was intended by your post:

1) does it require a higher fitness level to keep up with roadies when riding a fixed? (i think the original question)
2) are roadies more fit than fixers or vice-versa? (a secondary question)

well, people can't have it both ways. if someone says that she or he, while on their road bike, can beat a fixed gear bike piloted by whomever wherever because road bikes are simply faster, then it holds that if someone on a fixie could actually keep up with that roadie, wether it be in canada or london, then that fixed gear rider is more fit than the roadie! one can't say that road bikes are universally faster and then claim that fixed gear riding requires less fitness to keep up with that person. thus, it is implied by this argument (which i think is flawed anyway) that fixed gear bikes do require more effort. (note: that works also in the opposite direction for fixed gear riders, but i think there argument is one based more on handling ability and skills as opposed to outright fitness)

in order to think about the first question fairly, we need to isolate the riders from the ride, which someone said earlier. i don't care how good anyone thinks they are on a road bike, it does require more effort to do a club ride on a fixie. (that isn't a knock on fitness levels of either branch of biking, just a fact about riding a bike with no brake and one gear on a ride that has accelerations, decelerations, climbs and descents.) i wouldn't necessarily classify this as having a higher fitness level in order to keep up, but that the workout is more intense if you try to mimic a typical road bike session by mph. i think fixed gear riders will contend that riding street is faster on a fixie AND that it requires more work than a roadie. this is seemingly a contradiction, but i think that fixies can possibly make this claim. i think everyone agrees that riding fixed is more difficult, in terms of fitness, in the city. it comes down to the nature of braking and the "feel" of a fixie provide enough of a difference to make them faster than road bikes. this is debatable, but represents the premise of the argument that fixed is the best for commuting. [we would have to make a seperate post if this is to be debated]

as far as the arguement that fixed gear riders, or hipsters sporting deep v's, are less fit than roadies, or triathletes, or time trialers, or climbers, or sprinters, or pursuit riders, or the little 500 riders, or kids riding tricycles, or japanese left-handed middle relief submarine pitchers, blah, blah, blah, this is a far more difficult question to answer. what classifies a roadie? is a roadie anyone who rides a road bike? if that is the case, i am POSITIVE that everyone of the aforementioned categories (save the tricycles) is more fit than the average roadie. the average roadie in that context averages 16mph, wears khaki cargo shorts, and has a mirror on their helmet. if you want to condense the definition of roadie, then i think you need to also limit the definition of fixed riders. furthermore, i doubt that you could find many fixed riders that don't also ride at least one of the other categories mentioned. i happen to be a rare hybrid: climber/fixerr. in any case, i don't think that the question is answerable without explicitly outlining what merits a roadie, or triathlete, etc.

so my answers to your question(s):
1) yes, or at least it is a tougher workout
2) not answerable

I could definitely drop myself on my road bike if I were to come across myself riding fixed.
what?
which one is dropping who?

For instance during an alleycat/track/road race last weekend, where a group of road cyclists were keeping a 28mph(estimated average) pace line, and some fixer was holding with us, i beleive he even pulled at one point,

The scratch races at track natz a couple weeks ago averaged around 28 mph. 10 km for the heats, 15 km for the final. Everyone on a fixed gear though...

And some of the best track racers in the US race for a team that does both road and track (TIAA-CREF)