Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Do you ever think you're destined...

...never to ride a geared bike?

See, I acquired an old Robin Hood 3-speed for $10, which was cool but the frame was too small; then by good fortune I came upon a 59 cm Nishiki 14-speed in the garbage (these crazy Cambridge people throw out the nicest stuff), needing nothing more than new tubes and pedals. But I knew fourteen speeds was too much, having been exclusively a one-speed kid for the last eight years, so I thought I'd start slow and put the three-speed wheels on the big road frame for a ghetto-fabulous cruiser. Well, after long weeks of slow progress (I have a 6-month-old, so free time at home tends to be limited), I had finally got the thing ready to rock: dug up some long-reach calipers, cold-set the rear triangle for the narrow 3-speed hub, retro-fitted the Robin Hood fenders with hose clamps, used a 42-tooth chainring as a spacer to get the right chainline with an extra 44-tooth BMX ring I had lying around, cut up a beer can to make a handy and attractive shim for the seatpost, and cut down some cruiser bars for the perfect reach. Yesterday I proudly zipped to work on my new ride, feeling like a multi-speed champion (it's so EASY, this multi-speed, freewheel riding!). I got halfway home last night, James Brown and Jay-Z bangin' in the earphones, when the whole thing just went to *****: chain slipped, caught oddly in pedal, and somehow wrenched the rear wheel loose. In the process of putting the wheel back in the drops, I managed to tighten the cups and cones to the point of making the three-speed a de-facto fixed gear, but I was a little wary of having it come out of the frame again, so I just walked home. In the shop (a.k.a. the basement), I promptly stripped the axle nut in my last vain attempt to salvage my multi-speed pretensions.

I was feeling pretty irritated at myself - all that precious free time wasted, not to mention the $15 or so that I spent on tubes and hose clamps! But when I hopped on the old tried-and-true fixed-gear Fuji this morning, all was right with the world.

Funny...I was just thinking the same thing. I just reassembled my 7 speed raod bike, to start riding a more distance on the weekends, and realized why I enjoyed my fixie so much. After months of riding brakeless and gearless I grew out of practice adjusting the brakes and gears. How tedious all this stuff is to adjust! After getting everything right I take a little ride and something doesn't feel right. I ran the brakes in reverse. Agh! The right side was the front and left the rear. At this point I gave up and went for a quick jaunt on the trusted (and simple) fixie. I'll fix the raod bike later this week.

Glad I'm not the only one.

Cheers

Wow, I'm surprised at all this talk of multiple gears. I just put together a 26' wheeled cruiser with a 1x9 drive train out of spare parts myself. I needed something for riding with my wife and friends who pedal at a more, ahem, leisurely pace. And that's alright, especially when you consider that riding a geared bike on occassion only accentuates the beauty of a taunt, quiet, efficient single speed. DanO

Gears have their place. For instance, when I am biking across europe next year there is no way I am riding a fixie. Its pretty much got to be a touring bike with gears to deal with carrying a bunch of stuff, and bringing said stuff up and down hills. Plus I think I would have a very hard time renting a fixed gear bike, and I would rather leave my bikes at home.

the whole thing just went to *****: chain slipped, caught oddly in pedal, and somehow wrenched the rear wheel loose.

Weird, the same thing happened to me yesterday on the Iverson 3-speed I just bought on saturday... I'm still working out a lot of bugs. So many, in fact, that part of me is wondering why I went with a freewheeled bike for a winter beater (and part of me knows I didn't have the money to get a new fixed rear wheel and a frame). I'm pretty sure that an internally geared 3-speed is the most "geared" I will ever go anytime soon, I might use one to do light touring in the summer. Other than that... I forgot how much hassle everything is.

Yeah, I know what you mean, but fixed has actually redefined my relationship with my geared.

Before going fixed, I ran 8 speed STI crap on a used steel frame with a bunch of accessories and thought I was happy. I didn't ride geared much for a good year after going fixed, but when I built up a new Surly Pacer (old frame cracked at the dropout), I kept the fixed mentality and swapped the STI for downtube shifters. Minor change, but it made all the difference. Along with the obvious improvements to my spinning, fixed also taught me to just deal with whatever gear I was in and only shift when I absolutely had to. Want to go faster on the flats? Just spin faster. Too tall of a gear going up a hill? Just grind it out. Not having the shifters right there on the handlebar helped this too. I had to conciously think about shifting and make sure that I wouldn't hit a pothole while my hand was off the bars. It really helped me to feel more connected to my bike and the road... not as connected as fixed gear, but much better than before.

So don't give up hope on riding geared. Just maybe find a better bike ;-)

Just maybe find a better bike ;-)

See also, http://www.rivendellbicycles.com/html/bikes_rambouilletframes.html

Down at the bottom, the SHIFTERS section.

My roomate borrows my geared Bridgestone (Suntour DT shifters) once a month to ride Critical Mass. He hasn't had much experience with DT friction shifters and cross chained the drivetrain in such a way that it spit off the chain. I asked him why he was even needed to shift. Appearantly because they are there.

This isn't so much a criticism, as an appreciation of fixed gear. It's one of the reasons I am drawn to downtube shifters. It's one of the reasons I started riding fixed. Just me, the bike and the ground flying past. Each has it's place, but I shor do luv ma fixie.

This isn't so much a criticism, as an appreciation of fixed gear. It's one of the reasons I am drawn to downtube shifters. It's one of the reasons I started riding fixed. Just me, the bike and the ground flying past. Each has it's place, but I shor do luv ma fixie.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say - gears are good (and have their place, as Shiznaz points out), but fixies are better. It's like borrowing a friend's baseball glove - it'll do, and it's a lot better than trying to field barehanded, but no matter how high-tech your friend's mitt is, yours is always nicer. Or something.

Anyway, I'm undeterred: Last night I dug up a 6-speed road wheel and an old mtb derailleur, so by Friday I should be testing fate again, riding to work on a bike with gears. (Why do I do it? (1) I need to tinker, and I don't have any more fixed gear wheels or hubs and the wife thinks our money is better spent on clothes and toys for the baby; (2) every six months or so, my left knee hurts; (3) sometimes I feel too damn lazy to ride the fixie; (4) it's never a bad thing to have another bike.)