Originally Posted by
Spld cyclist
I think having gears is indispensable for city traffic. They allow me to accelerate faster to when the light changes green and maintain higher sustained speeds to keep up with traffic as much as possible. SS/FG bikes obviously have to use a compromise gear selection, meaning it's often not the gear you really want at any given time. Too high and it's harder to accelerate, and too low and you spin out before reaching the speed you want to go. I also have knees that punish me if I try to mash away in too high a gear for me. It's also great to have a bike that comes with 2 brakes. I wouldn't consider riding in city traffic without two real brakes. (I know you can typically add brakes to FG bikes if they don't have them. Seems to me that they should just come that way).
Obviously, many riders love their SS/FG bikes and overcome these issues. I just don't see the appeal. I also don't understand the alleged negatives to geared bicycles. They don't have to cost much more than SS/FG bikes, and geared drivetrains are highly durable and reliable with a little care and a relatively low maintenance effort.
Lots of fixed gear bikes were formally geared bikes that were converted. They at least had two brakes. Some new fixies come with two handbrakes as well. My son's did. There is a fashion aspect to fixed gears that discourages the mounting of any components or accessories that aren't absolutely necessary for the bike to be usable. You are free to ignore that.
Regarding the gearing all I can say is that it's a different mind set. I'm not a young guy anymore. I've had some knee pain from cycling a few years ago (on a geared bike) that I thought was related to mashing but maybe it was a seat height issue or something else. It happened over a winter. So I had some concerns about my knees when I decided to give fixed a try but it's been a non-issue.
I don't accelerate as fast and I don't have as high of a top speed. That is true and I was reminded of that when I rode my geared road bike for a couple of days last week. The bottom bracket on my fixie was creaking and it was driving me nuts.
But I went back to my fixed gear as soon as I had the bottom bracket taken care of. On my commute the top speed isn't quite that important to me. As far as the appeal goes, I don't know how to explain it other than the simplicity really is nice.