timmyc123

*Please send serious e-mail replies "TimmyC123@gmail.com"

My friend and I are riding cross country and we were looking for some sort of sponsor. Just to help pay for spare tubes, new tires etc. Any ideas? We don't need anything to fancy, just a small company or something interesting to promote on the road via word of mouth/cycling jerseys etc. We will be able to confirm with photos and video and hopefully people telling the sponsor how they heard about them.

please help.

-timmy

Ken Cox

Cross country, like, all the way accross America?

On a fixed gear bike?

I'd like to do something like that.

We have Tour of Oregon, 500 miles, that crosses the Cascade Mountains twice.

It takes seven days and everybody camps out along the route.

I'd like to ride to Portland, Oregon, from here in Bend.

165 miles through the most beautiful mountains on planet Earth.

I'd like to carry minimalist camping gear and do it all on one gear, no flipping or flopping or otherwise changing gears enroute.

I think I could do it at 65 gear inches.

I don't know about crossing the Rockies, though, on one gear, and then using the same gear to cross the Dakotas.

But then again, a 42t ring and 19t cog would give me 59.7 gear inches, and, at that number of gear inches, between 80 and 90 rpm would give me 15mph, a four minute mile.

Three thousand miles equals 12,000 minutes.

Four hours of riding in the morning and four more hours each afternoon equals 480 minutes, or 120 miles a day at 15mph.

Man, I don't think I could spin that fast, for that long, that consistently.

But then again, I'd get really, really good at spinning, wouldn't I?

Twenty-five days.

I could take Sundays off and do it in one month.

Hm.

One Gear Across America!

OGAA

One Nation, One Gear!

ONOG

Has anyone ridden accross America on a fixed gear bike?

Cyclist0383

^^^
I don't know anyone who has ridden across the US, but I guy I know rode from London to Riga on a fixed gear.

timmyc123

there has been quite a few people to do America on fixed. I met a couple last year, and they said they had about 15 people in their crew alone. it's not an impossible feat, anythings possible. just how you handle it and your own specific route and experiences make it what it is.

LóFarkas

The math is correct and it may sound realistic, but I don't think it is. 1 day, yes. 3 days, maybe. For weeks on end without being a serious endurance athlete... 120mi/day on a fix is not gonna happen, not even on level terrain and supposing good weather, which is obviously not going to be the case all the way.
Of course you may be an endurance athlete for all I know.

goldener

i am also planning on doing something similar..

ken cummings

Sure it can be done. Just checked the UMCA records. A Thomas Stephens of England did it in 1884 on a fixed gear (AKA penny farthing / high wheeler). Took him 104 days, 6 hours and he averaged 1.36 miles per hour.

Back to the original posting. Good luck on finding sponsors for a fun ride. If you had some higher purpose for the ride, like raising money for testicular cancer you might get better responses.

goldener

everyone toured and rode cross country on fixed gears before the freewheel or multiple speeds were invented.

Shiznaz

I'm riding up from LA to Vancouver and then east to Toronto starting late may. I'm going solo and unsupported but I'll be using gears though.

dutret

how many people do you think rode cross country before the late 19th century?

goldener

i'm not up on all my bike history and such, but i thought the freewheel didn't become popular until the 1920s or so?

wasn't the tour still riding fixed gears into the 1930s?

there have been plenty of people who have toured across england and europe on fixed gears before the freewheel and/or multispeeds were invented, simnply because bike touring and cycling was way more popular over there that it was in the us.

but yea.

Ken Cox

No, not an endurance athlete, although I work with two endurance athletes who do those hundred mile runs.

I agree with LoFarkas's assessment, and I meant my comments as brainstorming.

I have not signed up for the Tour Oregon because I don't think I can do 500 miles in seven days.

As for my hoped-for ride to Portland, I have alloted four days for a 165 mile ride, and I have my doubts about my ability to do even that.

Out of curiosity, did they say how long they took to do it, and any specifics about the route?
I wonder what route would get a person across the Rockies for the least expenditure in energy.

mander

for Timmy

That's a ballsy move my man, and a nice lifetime experience. Good luck.

Brandish

I met a group of guys on Ragbrai last year that were riding across the country on fixed gears for a charity, so it ha been done recently. They were affiliated with a church or something so they raised money that way. They also had a network of people across the country that would put them up and they could get real meals etc.
On the same note there were quite a few riders in my group last year at ragbrai that did over 500 miles in under a week on fixed gears. I dont remember what their gear ratios were but there actualy was a ton of hills last year and alot of climbing. I rode a friends fixed on the third day which was around 70 miles and we kept around a 15mph average for the day.

joshben

yeah, i kinda know these guys, they run an organization called Adventures for the Cure...there were 3 riders on Steamrollers, plus a support crew of two in a tiny old Nissan...i did the leg from DC to Baltimore with them, which was a short day for them...i think they were averaging something over 100mi a day...i know they were sponsored by Surly, so i'm pretty sure they got the frames for free, i'm not sure if the components were part of the sponsorship deal (this was nearly a year ago, so obviously the Steamroller Complete was not around then)...the charity is to raise money for diabetes research (one of the riders was type 1 diabetic) and for a group called Kupenda, which i think works to educate disabled children in Africa...anyways, cool guys, good challenge...

as a side note, i've been doing some long distance fixed riding recently, but only on the weekends, not day-in, day-out...last weekend (the 24th/25th), i did 174mi on saturday, then 106mi on sunday (this was in the relatively gentle terrain around Richmond)...and this past saturday, i did a 200k around western maryland (which was much more difficult, but still doable)...

edit:
[plug]oh, and for anyone in the maryland area who likes running, the same guys are putting on this 5k race on the 14th[/plug]

and as far as the rockies, i don't have any firsthand experience, but thes guys said the appalachians were harder...go figure

fixiation

https://denver.yourhub.com/Denver/Sto...ry~282745.aspx

guy from denver riding the great divide, 2,500 miles, 200,000 feet of climbing, on a fixed gear.

Dogbait

Here's a report of Kent Petersons' fixed gear ride across the Cascades, Rockies and Dakotas from Washington to Minnesota. He used a fixed/fixed, 42x16/17.

Fixed Gear Ride

trons

why did i laugh so hard reading this

SpiderMike

There was also "The Big Fix". I think they were rasing money for some research on some disease called Histiocyctosis or something like that. I remember due to a TV interview I saw with one of the participants, a local Doctor. It peaked my interest, but I never could find anything about their route.

humancongereel

ha ha, the guy i know who did it hopped a train across the rockies...

Ken Cox

Fixiation posted the following link.

https://denver.yourhub.com/Denver/Sto...ry~282745.aspx

It makes a great read.

bmike

that link got mashed. find the original below to read it... its about dave nice, who had his fg mtb stolen while he slept on last years great divide ride. crap story that his bike was snitched during the event... but from what i hear he took it all in stride, walked a zillion miles to civilization, and is going to try again.

goldener

dave's a good man. he posts on another forum that i'm on. i've even bought stuff from him. good guy.

stachemaster

it does happen. my buddy and i went 100-120+ miles everyday for 2 months, from nyc-sf. i had never done touring before. we were just having fun.

why dont people search this, it has been done many times before. and in recent history too.

pictures
www.jamesmulry.com/cc04/

doco

https://www.annielondonderry.com/
Annie Londonderry — the first woman to bicycle around the world on a fixie