When I was racing, I'd commute on my fixie in the winter, and use last year's racing bike converted to fenders as the rain bike during the racing season. This allowed me to save wear on the more expensive equipment used on the A bike. As I reduced my volume of racing, I did more and more of my rides, and all of my commuting, on the fixie. Since I stopped racing, I use the fixie exclusively on the road (I still train on the track, but with a dedicated track bike, although my fixie can also be switched into a pure track configuration in about five minutes.)

By "exclusively," I mean that I ride the fixie for absolutely everything. I've ridden Paris-Brest-Paris and London-Edinburgh-London on it. I competed in last years Furnace Creek 508/Trona 353 with it, and will be riding this year's Hoodoo 500 on it. I've climbed Haleakala on Maui and it's been with me in Italy and anywhere else I travel (it's got couplers as well!).

There's something distinctly satisfying about using just one bike for absolutely everything, like rolling around the backroads in France or Scotland and telling people, "yeah, this is the bike I commute to work on." I guess the one downside is addressing the issue of reliability; if the one bike breaks, then what? But the components most likely to fail are usually wheel-related (punctures, spokes, bearing failures), and I've got all sorts of spare wheels. I've also got older spare frames laying around that can be mobilized within an hour to two.

I'm just one of those crabby guys who thinks N+1 is wasteful and just encourages the corporate guys to invent more useless flashy bike stuff.

Luis