Originally Posted by
Trakhak
I've never understood why people like to slog along slowly in a mammoth gear on a fixed-gear bike on the road. For fixed-gear road riding, I've been using a 72-inch gear since I got my first track bike, in 1964. I believe that that's about the same as the Brits used for most of their fixed-gear riding in the 1950's. I got very good at spinning while training with my teammates, who were all riding road bikes.
Who said anything about going "slowly"? ;-) The bike with the 99 gear inches is a lot of fun on our "fast days" (relative term, we're all old guys) - the mid-week morning ride; a 20-mile loop with about 1,200' of elevation gain/loss. Those rides are just over 22 mph. But yeah, if I rode that bike a lot - for other than that quick blast in the mornings, I'd much rather be in the 70-80 Gi range.