Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Comtemplating a fixed gear bike, but I just dont get it.....

I am due for a new bike soon, something I will be commuting on daily. I know its going to be single speed or fixed gear because every time I use a bike with gears, I just end up leaving it on the highest gear, I dont use the extra gears so theres no point in keeping them. It seems like a lot of people are riding fixed gear bikes now (at least in my generation), But I just dont see the point in a fixed gear vs single speed. Whats wrong with having a choice to coast, what is the point of having a fixed gear bike? If someone could please enlighten me as to what I seem to be missing that everyone else gets.... (I am not trying to troll, I am legitimately confused)

It's fun.

A test ride is worth a thousand words.

A test ride is worth a thousand words.
Exactly, you'll never know how fun it could be until you get on one.

Whats wrong with having a choice to coast, what is the point of having a fixed gear bike?

Street cred with the hip high school kids.

I used to be like "why one gear instead of multiple"

Until I got one.

now I ride it everyday

its just so much fun

It's feels nice, you can control your speed using your legs, you just feel more in control and more 'fixed' to the bike

Whenever friends ask why I don't just go singlespeed i say something along the lines of this:

After riding fixed for a while, then riding on a bike that coast, I feel like I have no control over the bike. Being able to put backwards pressure to control your speed and balance makes you feel so much more in control of you bike. Honestly, I rode my friends Trek road bike the other day and I hated it. Partially because I wasn't used to it, but I really didn't like the lack of control I felt, I forgot I was riding a freewheel and tried putting backwards resistance and started spinning the crank backwards and almost fell of the bike because I didn't know what was going on. I actually felt and probably looked like a complete goon.

The joy is in the sensation of your energy being used and fed back to you through the drivetrain. Dynamic 2 way feedback. It always demands your attention and rewards you for it or sometimes punishes you when you tune out. More of a relationship than a ride.

The joy is in the sensation of your energy being used and fed back to you through the drivetrain. Dynamic 2 way feedback. It always demands your attention and rewards you for it or sometimes punishes you when you tune out. More of a relationship than a ride.
You made it sound very intimate.

I don't think either has an inherent advantage or disadvantage. Pretty much an entry level fixie should come with a flip flop hub so you can always try both. I like both. Right now my work bike is a singlespeed, and thats doing just fine for me. I kind of like how a single speed makes it easy for me to put the pedals in the position I want them to be when I'm stopped at a light. Other than that I don't notice much of a difference. I do like how I can make little adjustments in speed without using a brake when I'm riding fixed. The locked in feeling is pretty cool too. Skids on a fixie are cool too. rear brake skids on a singlespeed just aren't as cool and I actually find them a bit difficult to control. Still, I don't do skids often and think they're a bit silly to be doing all the time.

Also, if you ride a singlespeed some of the fixed riders will mock you. Not cause you deserve it but because they are idiots. I think my courier uniform deflects most of this criticism because no one has said a damn thing to me, but I've seen idiots on fixies bagging on guys with singlespeeds for no reason except they feel cooler. Same thing with running brakes on a fixie. Eventually someone's gonna act like they're better than you cause they don't have brakes.

It's sort of like the difference between driving an automatic and a manual transmission car. With the manual you get to modulate speed with the gas pedal and gear choice more effectively than you can with an automatic.

it makes you a better rider!

I prefer fixed to ss if I am running a single gear... it is a little more efficient, quieter, and simpler.

One of the few mechanical failures I have had in the past couple of years was when an SS freewheel came apart during a ride... was nice to flip my wheel over and go back to running fixed and I replaced the defective freewheel with another fixed cog.

I had been running fixed / fixed for years (and all my other fixed gear bikes are set up like this) and was re-trying the ss route... now my only ss is my old path racer with it's coaster hub.

Even then... I almost never coast as it's bad form.

I tried FG a few years ago. The first downhill scared me away from the idea. Then I tried it again, went another path, pedaled uphill (no major probs) and then down... and that's what sealed it. If I lived in places that are flat as a pancake (NYC?) I'd probably have a FG bike that I'd ride from time to time. But I don't live in such a place.

Different strokes for different folks, folks!

Of course there is an "advantage" coasting down a huge hill. Of course there is an "advantage" to shifting when riding up a big hill. I ride fixed around 80% of the time (also ride road and mtn bike). It is not about being practical, other than the fact that I wouldn't lock my road bike up anywhere, and my mtn bike feels like driving a tractor. You are approaching this with the wrong brain hemisphere.

I meant that I don't see any real advantages or disadvantages when you compare singlespeed to fixed.
Anyone who's been riding fixed for a little while can spin their legs fast enough on a downhill to be as fast or maybe a little faster than someone coasting down the same hill. It really doesn't take much effort either. Having ridden both fixed and singlespeed on a variety of terrain I can say that to some extent fixed is a bit more fun and you can enjoy that locked in feeling but other than that you can do most anything you can do on a fixed gear on a singlespeed and the other way around.
Maybe If you lived in an area with big winding hills you might want to be able to coast to lean more in the turns but then you're probably gonna want something with some gears anyway.

Lets just say that now every time i ride a freewheel bike i feel like it's broken. Single speed cruiser or something is fine, but a single speed road bike just seems pointless.

^^^To the guys above: one size doesn't fit all. We're not the same. You know what Apple says: "Think different". And I say "Be different". Some people don't like to spin 200 RPM downhill. Some people like a road geometry but don't like to think about gears. Some people like the challenge of having the same gear in order to both train their stamina and increase their strength, depending on whether they have to climb or just go on flat. Some people have that part of the brain that controls the shifters shot.

Some people like brunettes, others like blondes. Some like really thin women, others like the more voluptuous ones.

it makes you a better rider!

Going to have to disagree there. I rode my bike fixed for a long time, then I switched it over to singlespeed while I was learning to use my clipless setup and discovered a big dead spot in my pedal stroke that had been hidden by the constant forced motion of the cranks. My bike's been a singlespeed ever since.

Cornering is better on a singlespeed too, you just can't push a FG as far without some wee little cranks and/or a high BB.

I guess that I don't understand the question.

Who are you trying to make happy? Get something with a flip/flop hub. Try it fixed for awhile and freewheel for awhile. Whichever puts the bigger grin on your face, leave it there. It doesn't matter if you "get" it or not. Nobody else's opinion matters.

street cred with the hip high school kids.

tp

i sort of skimmed thru the comments but i think i read an analogy to cars which i find spot on...

one is like driving an automatic (freewheel), the other is like a manual (fixed). one is easier and requires less thinking, the other is arguably more fun and results in more control while requiring more focus.

i sort of skimmed thru the comments but i think i read an analogy to cars which i find spot on...

one is like driving an automatic (freewheel), the other is like a manual (fixed). one is easier and requires less thinking, the other is arguably more fun and results in more control while requiring more focus.

And better gas mileage.

my fixie runs on bio diesel

The joy is in the sensation of your energy being used and fed back to you through the drivetrain. Dynamic 2 way feedback. It always demands your attention and rewards you for it or sometimes punishes you when you tune out. More of a relationship than a ride.
something is happening in my pants.

something is happening in my pants.

i cant trackstand without showing my trouser shame :(

well..I dont see the sense in polarizations..I love both fixed and ss. SS is plainly (IMO) easier in crowded, congested, stop and go, auto/pedestrian environments, fixed certainly is good in these environments but I think you need to have spent enough time to become more proficient with it as riding fixed while traversing the urban landscape isnt to good at suffering fools and noobs but once "mastered" can be sublime.. distance and extreme declines are still challenges..cranking it downhill when some cager decides to come out of a side-street without properly checking is something I've seen all too often, currently I'm more comfortable being on a ss rather than a fixed for that particular scenario but admittedly I'm a work in progress and hardly a fixed expert yet.

I've sworn off gears as for me it gets in the way of me riding "brainless", tho quite obviously for most folks gears make perfect sense.

I have a singlespeed/fixed road bike. Fixed is fun for most purposes. I don't really like to try and go all out fast on the fixed (but I will if it's a fixed gear specific ride). With fixed I like a taller gear (81 gear inches) because I can power up the hills and still pedal down them without spinning out. With singlespeed I like a slightly lower gear (76 GI). I can spin it up pretty fast speed going uphill or on the flats, plus it feels much quicker in stop and go traffic. If I run it fixed at the lower gearing I always feel like I'm spinning out because of the feedback, especially going downhill. I probably loose a little on the flats with the lower gear but not enough to really be noticeable. Singlespeed is, IMO, just better for really hauling ass. I can spin a singlespeed up to a much higher cadence without feeling like the bike is trying to kick me off.
Of course if I want to go really fast I haul out the road bike. Florida doesn't have much in the way of hills for high speed descents but I've still gotten that bike up to 48 mph.

I've sworn off gears as for me it gets in the way of me riding "brainless", tho quite obviously for most folks gears make perfect sense.

I love my fixed/ss but I never understood this argument. My road bike shifter just become automatic after a while. The motions just become ingrained and it's more like muscle memory than conscious thought.
I couldn't say that with my old steel road bike with stem shifters that required a little finesse but with my 105 STI levers on my current bike shifting pretty much just happens. Same thing happens with the thumb shifters on my mountain bike, 90% of the time, I don't really think about the shifting. The other 10% are strategic shifts because of an upcoming trail feature.

Don't mean to hijack but I am looking at my first ss/fg bike due to them being cheap and me wanting a cheap bike to lock up outside! I have always wondered about going downhill on a fg and spinning too fast! Is it easy to modulate your speed downhill using the pedals or do you need to use the brakes (I will be running both a front and rear brake)?

Thanks

Cheaper, more reliable, and fun. Thats why I ride fixed.

Rubbish. I have never hit 50+ mph on my fixed gear descending (which isn't even "that fast" on a road bike)--- and don't know about you or your gearing, but I could never ride up a hill that big in the first place. Now, I don't have a computer on my fixed gear, but I know when my legs are slowing me down enough to know I am nowhere near 40 - 50 mph. At 79 gear inches, I would be at a cadence of over 215 to hit 50ish. I would more likely be running closer to 75 gear inches if I were riding hills that big.

So tell me again how "anyone" can do this?

Ever watch the tour de france? Ever ask yourself why the pros do not pedal through descents? A good aero tuck coasting is usually the fastest way down a mountain.



Anyone who's been riding fixed for a little while can spin their legs fast enough on a downhill to be as fast or maybe a little faster than someone coasting down the same hill.

It is pretty easy to control speed with your legs. It will feel a little awkward doing it downhill at first but it won;t take long before you've got it. When moving fast or going down steep hills coming to a complete and quick stop will take some skill or a brake. As far as spinning super fast down a hill, it will also feel awkward at first but you'll get it pretty quick.

Oh god, Im not talking about someone coasting downhill in an aero tuck after they've already gotten up to a really high speed. Obviously that's waaaaaaaaay faster.
But, I can spin my legs fast enough to go downhill as fast as my friends who are coasting. If they start pedaling they usually drop me. Also, chances are if we're talking about hills that big and steep that an aero tuck gets you more speed than pedalling than we're already well out of the realm of singlespeed or fixed gear. Hell, any mountain that steep and I bet the road is gonna be winding too, in which case you're gonna want to coast just so you can lean in to the turns. Still a fixed gear can probably still make it down the descent, just much slower. Keep in mind that I'm comparing fixed vs singlespeed assuming theyre gonna be used in an area that is conducive to riding fixed or singlespeed, namely and area that is either reasonably flat or just has some slight hills with the odd big one in between. I'm not talking about mountains here. In an area with moderate hills that is mostly flat-ish, a fixed gear is just as easy to use as a singlespeed and is just as fast downhill.

Also, I have watched the tour de france, many times, and they do pedal on the descents, a whole lot of the time too! Only when it becomes more beneficial not to do they just tuck and coast.
That said I have crossed mountains and mountain ranges, on a fixed gear while touring. It's painful but can be done.

Oh god, Im not talking about someone coasting downhill in an aero tuck after they've already gotten up to a really high speed. Obviously that's waaaaaaaaay faster.
But, I can spin my legs fast enough to go downhill as fast as my friends who are coasting. If they start pedaling they usually drop me. Also, chances are if we're talking about hills that big and steep that an aero tuck gets you more speed than pedalling than we're already well out of the realm of singlespeed or fixed gear. Hell, any mountain that steep and I bet the road is gonna be winding too, in which case you're gonna want to coast just so you can lean in to the turns. Still a fixed gear can probably still make it down the descent, just much slower. Keep in mind that I'm comparing fixed vs singlespeed assuming theyre gonna be used in an area that is conducive to riding fixed or singlespeed, namely and area that is either reasonably flat or just has some slight hills with the odd big one in between. I'm not talking about mountains here. In an area with moderate hills that is mostly flat-ish, a fixed gear is just as easy to use as a singlespeed and is just as fast downhill.

Also, I have watched the tour de france, many times, and they do pedal on the descents, a whole lot of the time too! Only when it becomes more beneficial not to do they just tuck and coast.
That said I have crossed mountains and mountain ranges, on a fixed gear while touring. It's painful but can be done.

You're right - SS bikes would never be used for mountain biking, for instance.

As for anecdotal evidence: I've seen several FG riders at my campus, which is 100% flat. I have not seen a single FG rider commute to work through the hills that surround the campus, however. Maybe our hills are too Xtreme, or the FG riders here are pansies, but whatever the case, it reinforces my belief that FG is no good for riding in the hilly places I frequent.

Well ss is used for mountain biking, but we're talking about a pretty different deal then. They run very low gears that are useless on the flat.
70-75 gear inches on a singlespeed or a fixie should get you over most moderate hills and will still be good on the flats, this is what I usually run.
I used to ride all around madrid on a fixed gear. Madrid is very hilly. I now live in sydney. I work on a singlespeed and sydney is also very hilly, the hills aren't as big as madrid's, but theres a lot of them. I'm pretty sure I could work all day on a fixie, I'm just not in the mood for it at the moment.

Well ss is used for mountain biking, but we're talking about a pretty different deal then. They run very low gears that are useless on the flat.
70-75 gear inches on a singlespeed or a fixie should get you over most moderate hills and will still be good on the flats, this is what I usually run.
I used to ride all around madrid on a fixed gear. Madrid is very hilly. I now live in sydney. I work on a singlespeed and sydney is also very hilly, the hills aren't as big as madrid's, but theres a lot of them. I'm pretty sure I could work all day on a fixie, I'm just not in the mood for it at the moment.
Preach water but drink vodka. I think this beton-hardens my assumption about FG and hills.

Haha, I think I've mentioned earlier in this thread that I prefer singlespeed because I can easily swing the pedals around to the position I want them in when I'm stopped at lights. That's pretty much the only reason I'm riding singlespeed and not fixed right now. I spent most of last year riding fixed in a place with bigger hills than here.
If I look at the bikes of the guys I work with I'd say its a pretty even threeway split between geared, singlespeed, and fixed. The singlespeeders tend to run a slightly lower gear than the fixed guys. I run pretty much the same thing I'd run fixed.

So yes, while the sentence you highlighted does mention that I'm in a fairly hilly area and I prefer singlespeed at the moment, you're missing the sentence right before it that stated I ran a fixed gear when I lived in an even more hilly area.

Also, I am not exactly the greatest physical specimen. I'm pretty heavy with a bit of a gut and I don't have the strongest legs compared to a lot of cyclists. Basically, if I can do it just about any reasonably competent cyclist can too.

Haha, I think I've mentioned earlier in this thread that I prefer singlespeed because I can easily swing the pedals around to the position I want them in when I'm stopped at lights. That's pretty much the only reason I'm riding singlespeed and not fixed right now. I spent most of last year riding fixed in a place with bigger hills than here.
If I look at the bikes of the guys I work with I'd say its a pretty even threeway split between geared, singlespeed, and fixed. The singlespeeders tend to run a slightly lower gear than the fixed guys. I run pretty much the same thing I'd run fixed.

So yes, while the sentence you highlighted does mention that I'm in a fairly hilly area and I prefer singlespeed at the moment, you're missing the sentence right before it that stated I ran a fixed gear when I lived in an even more hilly area.

Also, I am not exactly the greatest physical specimen. I'm pretty heavy with a bit of a gut and I don't have the strongest legs compared to a lot of cyclists. Basically, if I can do it just about any reasonably competent cyclist can too.

That means that I am not a reasonably competent cyclist - and I'm fine with it. I will still be fine with it the day I finally see a fixie riding up the same hills as I am when I commute to work. That day has not yet come, though.

I'm sure you are a reasonably competent cyclist, But any hill I can ride up on a singlespeed I can also ride up on a fixie. This I am very certain of. At a certain point though I just need a proper geared bike with low gears. I will also add that I've been passed up hills by guys on fixies when I was on my roadbike, I've passed roadies on my fixie and the other way around.

Also, I'm beginning to think you're talking about bigger/steeper hills than I am. Still I don't see how you wouldn;t be able to ride up the same hill in the same gearing singlespeed or fixed.

I have not ridden in the places you mentioned, so I can't say for sure, but there might be an alternative logical explanation: the youngsters that fide FG on the campus are students who also live in the dorms and student apartments in and near the campus. The older guys like me, who have a job at the campus but also a family and a flat or a house of their own away from the campus, don't ride fixies (it's a "youthy" thing ATM).

Maybe I just suck - but that's OK, I'm happy :)

Well I will also vouch for the fact that there are many absolute ******* on fg.
In amsterdam I used to always see sweeeeeet fixies moving slower than mothers carrying 3 children in a cristiania bike. I imagine those guys do stay far the hell away from hills.
What gearing do you run? and have you ridden fixed much at all? I just started riding fixed again after like a year off and my legs are no longer used to it at all. I can still ride it just fine but after my legs get really sore. This didn't used to happen back when I rode fixed all the time.

Regarding my FG trials, you can see the account on the previous page. My bikes have a range of gearings: highest is 46:18 with 700C tires (28mm). The lowest is my 29er with 38:20 from which I took off the fatties and put 42mm tires on, and used it a couple of times to go to work when it rained.

46/18 feels pretty much the same to me wether its fixed or singlespeed. I used to ride 46/17 fixed. I know ride 48/18 singlespeed. The 29er gearing would be reaaaaaly annoying fixed. good for polo maybe though!

I assume your bikes have 700C wheels with skinny tires?

I'm building up a beater bike these days, and I did, for a split second, toy with the idea of making it a fixie (after all, I'd only use it to go to nearby shops and such). However, I realized that a good freewheel costs less than a good or even a mediocre track cog + lockring. Isn't that ironic?

Also, chances are if we're talking about hills that big and steep that an aero tuck gets you more speed than pedalling than we're already well out of the realm of singlespeed or fixed gear.

I live on a hill like this-- at the top, and just down the road there is a straight drop down to sea level. Just making the point that is it not particularly unusual. In my previous city, there were serious hills around the river bluffs in an otherwise flat city. We don't even need to consider mountains here.

I have done club rides with a fixed gear, and I would always get crushed on the descents by the roadies.

The fact is, on a fixed gear, your maximum speed it limited by your cadence (unless you unclip). On a bike that coasts, it is limited by gravity, skill, and your sense of self-preservation.

Well ss is used for mountain biking, but we're talking about a pretty different deal then. They run very low gears that are useless on the flat.


Incorrect.

i cant trackstand without showing my trouser shame :(
For some reason I'm visualizing a kickstand here...

Haha, I think I've mentioned earlier in this thread that I prefer singlespeed because I can easily swing the pedals around to the position I want them in when I'm stopped at lights. That's pretty much the only reason I'm riding singlespeed and not fixed right now. .

lolwut

What kind of a ***** reason is this? You lift your rear wheel and spin the pedals. FINISHED. DONE. FINITO.