Originally Posted by
swissycle
When reading about bigger rides or amateur races, I’ve been noticing something of a pattern: singlespeeders will say something to the effect of "I geared down to 42/18 to make the hills manageable,” whereas a geared rider (perhaps on a vintage bike) might observe “with a lowest gear of only 42/28, the hills were a bit challenging…”
What gives? Are geared riders climbing Mont Ventoux while we singlespeeders are climbing speed bumps in a parking lot? Are we cavalier about our knees? Do we just have bigger thighs?
It sometimes seems like singlespeeding (to say nothing of fixed riding) is quite a different discipline from “normal” cycling.
Many fixed-gear and single-speed riders ride in cities nearly exclusively and avoid hills that are steeper than 5 degrees or so.
That said, I started riding a track bike on the road in 1964 and resigned myself to climbing whatever I needed to climb when out training with my teammates.
After 60 years of riding maybe 30 percent of my racing and training miles on a fixed-gear bike with a 48/18 chainring/cog combination, my left knee has finally convinced me to give up riding fixed and stick to geared bikes.