Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Loosing the urge to shift

When did you finally loose that urge to reach for the shifters and find an easier/harder gear? I was riding in the head winds yesterday and dropped my hand almost by rote to shift, and I thought, "there's no shifter, WTF are you doing?" Then I came to a down hill, and reached to shift up, and again caught myself.

I've been riding fixed for three seasons, and while I do jump on the roadie once and a while, or the MTB a couple of times, my main ride is fixed (I have 4 to choose from). I am just wondering when this habit goes away.

As for me, I'm completely aware of the fact that I'm riding fixed so I never had that problem. My (problem?) is the other way around, when I'm on my road bike I don't shift as frequently as I should and I sometimes have a hard time forcing myself to stop pedalling to coast.

George!

I found that I really never did shift my bike until I was so incredibly in the wrong gear that I would have been better off not shifting at all. So.... now I have a single speed. More bikes on the way, no shifters.

yeah, i almost never shifted gears on my road bike, so going fixed was a welcome and comfortable switch. i never found myself wanting to switch gears.

i did find myself reaching for the brake where there was none.

I'll have to agree with George. Riding fixie I never think of shifting. Then again, like others, I never shifted that much on my geared bike.

Matt

i lost the urge to shift about 5 minutes after i bought my fixie.

the hard part for me nowdays is getting in my rest days. i know i should take at least one day off a week, according to every training and exercise book and article i've ever read. but i've been on my rush every day for the past three weeks.:D

What is really wierd is that after one crit I started to try to coast around corners. Stupid stupid stupid, it only took an hour or two of riding to get back into the fixie groove, but yeah, I've had the same sort of wierd conditioning interruptions. I'd think after three years you'd be used to it though. I mean, christ. He he.

I very seldom shifted on my bike before I converted it (but it had crappy downtube shifters mounted on the stem), but whenever I get on a bike that isn't fixed and coast for even an inch I get a really jarring feeling, like I'm suddenly falling, or my chain is broken.