Originally Posted by dumpstervegan
I do wheel-truing and chain maintainence not because it is a fixed-gear, but because I ride in a dense, urban environment. Riding over pot-holes every day can put your wheel out of true pretty easily whether your bike be geared, single-speed, or fixed.
There are millions of bikes out there doing daily heavy duty in similar environments going through life without ever getting their wheels trued. And are still
reasonably true. Some of these put in decades of use like this. I have one myself. Many of these bikes are single speed coaster brake or three speeds, live outside 24/7, and are lucky to get a shot of WD-40 when the chain squeaks. I personally am a little nicer to my bikes. My three speed gets a few drops of 30wt motor oil now and then.
If you
must have your wheels absolutely true, or just like messing with your bike, I can fully understand. But any bike that
needs monthly truing doesn't fit into the bombproof category. Or at least has to get in line behind the afore mentioned coaster brakes and three speeds.
Originally Posted by dumpstervegan
As for the chain, when one rides in a city you'll definitely get grit in your chain which needs to be cleaned out regularly. With regards to tensioning the chain monthly, there are two reasons for this: First, when you take your wheels off to true them you need to retension the chain as you put the rear wheel back on. Second, by putting a lot of torque on your chain (starting and stopping with it) it'll naturally get stretched out a little faster than a geared/ss chain might. Therefore you should retension your chain and replace it about once per year on a FG bike.
If you replace the chain once a year religiously, I suggest you might be able to omit ever really cleaning the thing at all. Unless it gets caked with mud or something. I have a pet theory about cleaning being worse than replacing.
In the end, I think of single speeds-fixed, free or coaster-as just simpler. I like to mess with bikes, too. But it's interesting, I find when I decide to stop repacking, readjusting and generally stop messing with one, it gets along fine without all the extra attention.