Originally Posted by
Yoshi
I put a freewheel on my fixed-gear commuter, flipped the wheel and never went back to fixed. Different strokes, I suppose.
I think that the larger freewheel idea has a lot to do with going downhill - on a fixed-gear a large cog is going to require a high cadence when going downhill but with a freewheel you can just coast.
If it wasn't for this big-@ss hill on my commute I would've kept it fixed but it's so nice to coast down that bugger, especially in the afternoon. I can hog the lane and go 35mph all the way down. Riding fixed, I had to scrub speed with the brakes to keep from bouncing off the saddle.
Sheldon's advice is based on the assumption you would be riding fixed all the time and have singlespeed as backup for when you got too far from home and/or had too many hills to navigate. The easier ss gear would let you rest a bit.