the_don

really**********

Standing up???? There is no way you can spin faster by standing up. you have to focus and control your legs really hard to spin super fast.

Also 48x15 is a pretty high fg ratio, but a road bike you can change up to like 53x13. Downhill, I think it is easy to see that if you can spin the like mad, you will still be faster with the higher ratio.

oldfixguy

Please provide a short video of this - pedaling quickly downhill on a fixed with a good sized gear while standing. Please include stopping also.

dOOBER

its so funny reading this thread how people think counter-arguments mean that that person is against their argument. no it just merely states that the counter arguer is trying to break the other persons argument.

Anyways i feel that to get back to the OP and original point stated, if you truly like riding bikes then you cant own just one. If i am wanting to go jump on some dirt hills and enjoy some teen-age messing around i pull out my near 15yr old bmx, skipping around town my fixed gear, and to ride around rolling terrain i might bring either fixed or road depending on how i feel. What does faster have anything to do with enjoying cycling?

Lastly if you are arguing that speed is your main reason to ride fixed for a street situation then i have a question. If gears and freewheels did not speed up longer distances with varying terrain then why do they dominate the road cycling world?

Yellowbeard

Of course a fixed gear isn't inherently faster. That's dumb.

Human body's like an engine, there's a power curve with respect to RPM. Multiplying your cadence by your torque (which varies with effective gear ratio and with how hard you pedal) gives your effective power output. The faster you pedal the more power you are producing. HOWEVER, as you pedal faster you're not going to be able to put as much (effective) force on the pedals, not to mention you'll waste energy just keeping your legs under control, so there's a certain cadence where you put out your best possible power.

Unless you're ALWAYS riding your fixed gear at the speed that puts you at that ideal cadence AND which requires a power output you can maintain you're inherently slower than a proper geared bike because with the geared bike you can keep yourself on top of the power curve. Sure, you can sprint up hills on a single speed to keep your cadence up but you'll be way over your maintainable power level and you'll waste a huge amount of energy.

Fixed gears are potentially lighter, and inherently more mechanically efficient if you're chain is loose enough, but absolutely are not "inherently faster."


When I'm riding fixed on a downhill I do the standing up thing, too (not the whole way down). Dunno about best possible cadence, but if you suck at spinning smoothly it's easier standing up because you'll bounce on the saddle if you don't. My personal best was 62km/h at 180 RPM. Now I've got a road bike to play with, too.

Andy_K 

I don't think I could spin at 180 rpm and certainly not standing up. I think I'd have trouble with 80 rpm standing up. On the other hand, I've gone 72 kph on my road bike at 0 rpm.

I do get the faster fixie thing. If I use my (geared) "urban 29er" for my commute, I average about 14 mph. If I use my (geared) cyclocross bike with road tires, I average about 15 mph. If I use my fixed gear bike, I average 15.7 mph. I could average 15.7 or faster on either of the other bikes if I pushed myself, but I don't because I'm lazy. On the fixed gear, because I'm lazy, I try to keep it in the cadence range where its most efficient, which has me cruising at around 18 mph...factor in stops and starts and it ends up at 15.7 mph on average.

However, I definitely agree with everyone who has said faster is not the ultimate measure of a bike. My original point was, if you like fixed gear bikes then you can imagine yourself (I hope) in the position of wanting to build a really nice fixed gear bike. What you're looking for in a frame will depend on how you intend to use it. I spent $400 on a Cross Check frame because I intended to use my fixie as a commuter, and I haven't seen a fixed gear capable frame that's better for commuting than the Cross Check (excluding use of eccentric hubs/bottom brackets). If I had been building a fixed gear bike for general recreational road riding, the $400 vintage Colnago referenced at the beginning of this thread would have been better for the build and would have been better than any similarly priced frame currently in production that I'm aware of.

tubbo

As soon as all this snow melts. I'll be an internet sensation!

I guess depending on how steep the hill is, it wouldn't make sense to stand up. I'm not talking massive mountains, just in the context of city riding. A "hill" to me is like a small incline, because most of the land is so flat where I live (Philly), and I see fixie riders standing up all the time to boost their speed on an incline. So when I said "hill", what I really meant was "incline". I am definitely not advocating standing up on a bike going down a mountainside or anything...

Brian

With all that back-pedaling, you should be skidding pretty hard right about now.

Sixty Fiver

I love my fixed gear bikes for what they are... simple, practical, fun, and efficient.

But as far as speed goes... any honest fg rider knows an equivalent rider on a decent geared bike will own them on anything but flat ground.

These bikes actually curb out at nearly the same weight...

Fast...



Much faster...

fuzz2050

Hardly a fair comparison, the Brooks saddle adds at least 5 pounds, and the frame easily has another pound of stickers on it.

Sweet Ron Cooper though

Sixty Fiver

The saddle is a Brooks made Lycette "L'Avenir"... the quality is outstanding, comfort is on par with any saddle I own, and it adds about 2 pounds to the bike's previous weight.

With the 52:17 the Raleigh has a pretty good top end and because I am not a complete masochist there is a 19 tooth cog on the flip side for days when the ride involves wind and significant climbs.

I really love the Raleigh... it has been a geared bike, run as an SS, run as a FG, re-geared, and was turned back into a FG when I acquired the Cooper.

Gyeswho

I have found that biking (fixed gears specifically) has taught me a bit about $. At one point I really really went overboard on getting the Spectrum and to this day I still look back and shake my head at how foolish I was to do such a thing just to get a nice looking frame (because it really wasn't necessary, but gave me a chance to evaluate things). Of course on the opposite side, it has also taught me about bargaining, research, and general deal hunting which I try to do in a lot of different things now.

I'm a bit split on what I think of fixed gears: I went on a blind ignorant shopping spree on a machine which was supposed to be cheap (one notion for owning a fixed gear), but I also learned how to think about $ differently as well. Could I have the spent better, HECK YEA!! but I can also say I've had a lot of adventures and done a lot of things I never thought I could have done due to a fixed gear as well. Met a lot of folks and had a lot of interesting conversations which may not have occurred if I owned geared bikes since my enthusiasm with riding may not have been the same.

So the short answer is: yes

As far as the conversion argument goes:
I think that as long as one is enjoying their bike, they can do whatever they want to it. As long as the owner rides the bike, who cares what they do? It's for them to worry about, not the spectators. Do I think it is a "bad" thing to do, yes, in some cases, but at the end of everything it's what the owner likes not anyone else.The complaints only seem valid if the time comes for the "hacker" to sell the massacred bike to another and the buyer is horrified at what was done to it. Complaining about it seems more justified in that situation.