Originally Posted by charles vail
Take your current bike and find the gear you think you can ride all the time and go out for a ride (no shifting).....if it works on your normal route, then go fixed, if not, use gearing like the pros do. Don't forget, if you live in hilly terrain, are over 30 years old, carry a little "extra baggage", and/or have not been riding for a long time, your knees will protest if you force them to grind up hills in too high a gear ratio. All this talk about fixed gear riding is fine for short flat rides or if you are exceptionally fit and young. The pros use fixed gear riding for specific training, for a short time period and then use gears when the race season starts. For the faithfull fixed gear advocates, I understand the attraction of riding fixed with the simple maintainance and the "zen" experience but lets be realistic, please!
I'm not exceptionally fit nor young...actually I'm a bit overwieght and pushing 40. I think that grinding up hills seated applies to both geared and fixed bikes....doing so over long periods simply is not good on the knees. On a fixie, I'm more limited by the steepness of the grade before I'm be forced to stand on the climbs. On a geared bike, I'm less limited by the degree of the grade, and more inclined (no pun) to sit and grind...which from my roadie days, caused me to have knee problems. Standing on a 5% grade on a fixie or grinding up a 10% grade seated on a geared bike...which is worse? I think it depends on too many factors to consider one worse than the other.