Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - do any of you fixie riders

have a nice geared road bike you use on the weekends for club rides, or do you just commit to one speed and be happy with it?Just wondering because my brother has been pressuring me to upgrade my letour and join them on their weekend rides.

No gears for me. I do not own enough lycra to go on a club ride.

As much as I enjoy my 22 mile rt daily commutes on my fixed gear and single speed I have to admit to owning 3 other bikes that all have 9 sp STI setups. One heavy tourer/commuter and two light road bikes that I enjoy riding on weekends with buddies. I am an equal opportunity cyclist.

Hey, 165, I have plenty of lycra if you need some. :D

have a nice geared road bike you use on the weekends for club rides, or do you just commit to one speed and be happy with it?Just wondering because my brother has been pressuring me to upgrade my letour and join them on their weekend rides.
Real men only need one gear. :)

Fixedgearhead

I switch bikes a lot. I just went from exclusively riding my fixed to mostly riding my geared bike about two weeks ago. I use my fixed in the spring for training but have started riding my geared bike to get used to it.

This time of the year, I will ride my fixed at least one day a week on training rides plus I use it to run errands and other stuff. I mostly ride my geared bike now.

Last year I had a sixty mile route that I would do on both my fixed and geared bike. I always did it faster on my geared bike. I think I always had more fun on my fixed gear.

I really like using my fixed gear bike riding in groups of not so fast people. When some of my slower friends want to do an organized ride as a group I will take my fixed because it makes it a lot more interesting for me.

It is also more fun to ride my fixed drunk than my geared.

For racing in a group, you have to go geared unless it is a special event or track stuff.

One speed is all I need, all my bikes rock one gear only.

Surly Crosscheck: fixed/fixed - road and trail
Surly 1x1: free/fixed - trail
Ibis Mojo: free/fixed - trail
Old Specialized, model unknown: free - townie/grocery getter

One bike is all I need; all my rides rock one bike only,

27x1 1/8 fixed - road
700x32 fixed/fixed - trail
either way - townie/grocery getter.

I have a geared bike and two fixies, I take either on club rides though, if it's a fast training ride or a long ride with many hills I'll take the geared one. It's good to mix it up, but I feel bad for holding up a group ride on the hills when I'm riding my fix. I took out my fixie for the first time in a while today.

I've got a late 70's Eddie Merckx with full campagnolo record. but I've only ridden it twice.

tim

have a nice geared road bike you use on the weekends for club rides, or do you just commit to one speed and be happy with it?Just wondering because my brother has been pressuring me to upgrade my letour and join them on their weekend rides.

i have an 80s Casati (that used to be fixed) for just that purpose...although i tend to ride alone more than go with the club.

of the other five bikes in full working order, 2 fixed, one fixed/free and a 4spd internal on the cruiser (although that's going fixed/free as soon as I get around to building up the wheel).

then, of course, there are the bikes that are not in full working order...

I've got a Cannondale R600. Good bike, durable, nice to ride.

Club? Why would I ride with a Club?

Gears? Why would I ride with gears?

I don't dig riding with other people. Just not my thing. I also don't own any shifting bikes. I do wear lycra and shave my legs though and I do look quite sexy in my bike getup. I don't really care what people think about that though since I ride alone.
Shifting makes you weak.
Coasting makes you weak.

I used to just use fixed/free, but have now built up a Sachs 3spd to fit the bike and will be using that mostly to help alleviate knee problems.

have a nice geared road bike you use on the weekends for club rides, or do you just commit to one speed and be happy with it?Just wondering because my brother has been pressuring me to upgrade my letour and join them on their weekend rides.

No, I just use the fixed gear for everything. I have found that in club rides you may have to switch up you preferred gearing to keep up. Same thing with brakes, for club rides I switch to a taller gear, clipless pedals and a front brake.

My fixie gets me to work and back on time and ocasional rides for fun. My commute has some hills but once I drop off of the high plane I live on it's all hills. I'd rather not walk a bike up a hill. Pluss I enjoy road riding geared bikes...

I just sold my geared road bike, cause i didnt use it anymore. Actually, i sold all the other bikes exept my fixie - bmx, xc, dual, road, ss...

One speed, and happy with it.

I don't dig riding with other people. Just not my thing. I also don't own any shifting bikes. I do wear lycra and shave my legs though and I do look quite sexy in my bike getup. I don't really care what people think about that though since I ride alone.
Shifting makes you weak.
Coasting makes you weak.

Someone told me once they don't feel comfortable riding next to me because I ride fixed.

I rode a group ride once a while back. I counted 6 collisions. All the multi geared crowd. Perpahs the three fixed people were more carefull. Don't know.

In my admittedly limited experience, fixed riders tend to pay more attention.

I have a fixed, a SS MTB, and geared roadie and mountain bikes. I've been on the fixed since I built it up in February and will stay on it until June. Then I'll switch back to the roadie. I might take the SS to Oklahoma with me along with the roadie when I'm back there for a while this summer, though.

i ride my fixed gear on group rides. it's the only functioning bike i have right now. that said, i'd probably ride it anyways even if i had a geared bike; it's fun. on the b rides (non racers but still serious), i'm fine. i've done the 'a' ride (racers) once, and man those guys can really move. that was the fastest i've ever ridden a 50 mile ride. i had a blast, and am looking forward to doing it again. just want to get in a little better shape for the hills. 'a' riders don't seem to slow down when they go up hill's. weirdo's. i probably come across as pretty weird to the roadies b/c i don't wear the get-up or eat the gu or ride the carbon fiber, but if you can hang w/ 'em on their training rides, they seem to respect you at the end of the ride.
dan

I have very limited pack/paceline experience, but when I have I thought it was safer with a fixie. You can modulate your speed so much smoother and better than fumbling with trying to finesse you brakes. I generally bailed off to the side before hills and would just hammer to get back into the paceline. jeff

My Litespeed Classic has been out on the road only twice so far this year.

i tend to ride my fixed bike when i'm sure i'm able to have open road. it gets pretty congested here, and i just don't feel safe on my fixie around traffic and pedestrians. i am amazed when i see messengers weaving through the streets on a fixie! it's just too nerve racking for me. so i need my geared bike for daily riding. the fixie for me is used pretty much at night or early in the morning, when i can have some road to myself.

I don't think it's wrong to ride a geared bike. I prefer to ride one gear bikes but I broke my geared MTB out last fall for a twice a week training race we have. Had a blast! My hats off to all the guys and gals that ride SS/fixie exclusively and I normally do too. But not always, variety is the spice and all. I say go for it if that's what you want to do.

i have an 80s pinarello set up with full 105 and an FSA road crank with 'cross gearing on it (48/38), set up with bullhorns and Time ALIUM pedals. **** yeah, i name drop. cause i'm ****in' proud of my ****. i built it myself and i ride it everywhere. i baby my bulletproof fixie more than my road bike. no way in hell i'd ever be caught dead with the spandex and neon crowd. not because of how they look, but because of how they ****ing act. they have bikes and ride for different reasons. i ride to go places, they ride "for fitness" and to show off to their friends how much they can spend on a bike. there's nothing particularily wrong with that, from an objective standpoint, but to me, it's abhorrent. the same people who ride expensive bikes and do these club rides are the same people who DRIVE their SUVs to where their "rides" start and then ride for an hour or two, then go back to their SUV and drive home. it's ****ing ********.

it reminds me of seinfeld. that guy had a god damn klein hanging up in his hallway for HOW many seasons? and he never once road it. dispicable.

eh, don't mind me, i'm just happy for once. and when i get happy, for some reason i get more ornery.

OneTinSloth, I agree with you. I used to race all the time and drove all over the place to do it. I almost always rode from the house to train however. But when you get to a race and see all the cars you realize the sports not so "green". Kind of a reality check.

You can have it all, you can ride your road bike like a fix gear bike where you just use one gear on a fix gear ride day and then you can ride like a roadie when you need the gears for going everywhere.

Have an MTB and it just sits down in the basement now. Only use to once in a while for the trails and the snow. Other than that: why bother? SS/fixed is it. Nothing to it. I am a convert and happier than if I had Jesus.

I've got a Litespeed road bike, an MTB and a cyclocross bike I built on a hybrid frame.

I ride my fixie and my road bike the most. I enjoy them both but for different reasons. I think it is actually easier to ride fast on the fixie, I just need some bigger gears.

I have a geared mountain bike (29er) and geared Lemond Poprad cyclocross bike. I wear spandex when doing group rides, mostly for comfort and to support the shop that supports me and keeps me moving. I can't stand driving to group rides and always ride my Lemond to the road rides or my Fisher to the mountain rides. I honestly can't stand most of the schmucks that wear spandex and ride Colnago's just to get to Starbucks. Too much one-up-manship in that group.

I admit to having geared bikes, I don't really see any need to apologize for it either. As long as someone is out riding a bike, who really cares anyway? This being said, I haven't ridden any of my geared bikes for probably 6 months anyway.

The last "Group" ride I rode in (unless you count bar runs with other cyclists) was last fall. I decided to take my at that time new 03 pista out against everyone else on thier uber-expensive road bikes. Perhaps it was my having something to prove, but I rarely got passed, and each time I did it was either going down/uphill. The majority of the time during the 31 mile ride, I was leading the peloton of riders in the little group I was with. They were all weenies at stop signs and lights though, so I ended up losing quite a few of them. I ended up with a average speed of 21mph, not too bad in my book, considering I am a total slacker and there were a few large hills.

Something about prooving the worth of a fixie rider gave me more strength.

Also, in this ride (The ST. Paul Classic) there was only one other rider on a SS and his bike wasn't even FG.... 7400+ people and there was only 2 of us (that I saw). But I did see a couple of guys on unicycles, now that it really badass....

Kinda wierd, but today I rode a geared mountain bike for the first time in a long time, and I realized that I was not shifting at all. I was using my SS techniques on a 24 speed bike!! I really saw no need for shifting capabilities when I was riding that bike. Its true, once you go SS, you never go back!!