Although I've been riding a fixed gear for over 40 years, I'd been reluctant to post in this group because I figured it was a bunch of egotistical self-absorbed hipsters discussing their stupid skidz stops, but somebody on the 50+ list mentioned that there was a 40+ group of fixed gear (and SS) afficionados posting here, so I thought I'd check it out. I gradually worked my way over most of the 20+ pages and I'm ready to add my two bits:
First, I refer to my bike as a fixie. After all the years I've been riding (at first in the winter when I was racing, then year round after I stopped racing), including lots of track racing (with a podium in the points race at the 2002 Masters Track Worlds in Manchester and lots of 2nd places at World Masters Games, Canadian National Masters Championships, North American Masters Track Championships, and a few wins at the Easter meet in Trinidad in the 90's, I figure I'm entitled to call it anything I want.
I can understand TT's feelings about the word "fixie," though. I feel the same way about the word "half-bike," even though I also drive a tandem. I really hate it when tandem riders call single bikes "half-bikes." Just plain stupid and disrespectful, as well as perverting the true nature of what constitutes a "full bike"...
Anyway, I started racing in 1971/72. I lived in Oakkland, CA at the time, and in addition to the road bike, I bought a Gitane Interclub track bike, which I fitted with a front brake and used on the road in the winter, running the stock 46x16 that came with it. I didn't realize that this was a track warmup gear, so I rode it on the flat and over the hills for a couple of years. When I moved to Vancouver, I discovered I needed to fit a rear brake after my first crash on ice in the winter, where I learned that you do not touch the front brake when it's icy! Since then, I've always used two brakes on the road.
(By the way, a fixed gear is a REAL advantage on the ice! Especially on descents, when you can feel just when the rear wheel has locked up.)
I started track racing at the old China Creek Velodrome in Vancouver under ex-pro 6-day rider Norman Hill, who taught us all to NEVER BACKPEDAL, it's bad for the legs, real track riders never do it, it's too sudden and just makes guys sitting behind get really angry. As a result, we never even used lockrings, and I still don't. I think they're more dangerous than they're worth, as they could cause the rear wheel to lock up if the chain falls off.
When I went to university up here, I rode up 1200' Burnaby Mtn every day in the winter on the fixed gear. With all the snow, ice, and road salt, I could destroy Phil Wood hubs and bottom brackets in one month of winter riding. I remember one evening, there was a foot of snow on the road, and I half-slid that bike all the way down the 5-km descent.
I had the Rodriguez built in 2009 after I broke my Benotto track bike that I was using on the road. That Benotto was what I raced on in the early 90's, when I was in my 40's, and when I set most of my personal best track times. I had hoped to ride that bike at Paris-Brest-Paris in 2011 just so I could say that I had used the same bike to set all my PB's between 200 meters and 1200 kilometers, but it broke at the head lug in September 2009. The Rod was built in October, and I specified S&S couplers, as I intended to do a lot of traveling with it. To date, it's been on ten round-trip flights, as far away as Hawaii and France.
I rode PBP on it in 2011 (and most of the brevets leading up to it), and in 2012 I used it for my three California Triple Crown rides (Davis, Borrego Springs, and Knoxville). As I've said, it's my main bike; it's used for commuting, training, track riding, organized rides, etc. etc.
One of the things I love most about riding my fixed is going on organized rides, like the big centuries, torquing up long climbs out of the saddle, passing guys on their $5000 carbon fiber bikes with the 11-speed Di2 and the carbon fiber wheels struggling up the climb, and it's all I can do not to tell these poseurs that they've just been passed by a 62-year-old dude on a steel fixed gear bike, see ya!
It wouldn't be the same with a single-speed. I think SS's are for wimps. Hard men ride fixed gears, and part of the joy I get is feeling a certain kinship with the real tough guys who raced on fixed gears over the badly-paved/unpaved roads of Europe early in the 20th century. This was a big reason for deciding to do PBP fixed.
Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the Rodriguez (built by Dennis Bushnell at R+E Cycles, Seattle, from True Temper OX air-hardened tubing):
My coupled Rodriguez fixed the day after I finished Paris-Brest-Paris in 2011 (just under 65 hours, done as three 400 km days).
The Rod the other night configured as a track bike at the 200-meter indoor Burnaby Velodrome (takes about five minutes to convert; a bit longer if I switch chainrings (and sometimes chain). I had specified split cable stops, so I don't even have to undo the rear brake cable anchor bolt. Oh yeah, I just swapped the fork for a 300-gram ENVE 1.0, just a super fork!:
Being a contrarian, I like to have one bike that does EVERYTHING. None of this stupid "n+1" nonsense for me!
Luis