Originally Posted by Rowan
Ever ridden with 1000 screaming little Campy or Phil freehubs around you on a ride like PBP? Silent? You *must* be trolling. Or you don't know what you're talking about.
I'm new to it. I like it. And by the way, you need to come here if you want to talk about climbs... boy.
No, I'm new enough to cycling (two years) that a ride like PBP is still outside my experience, but you've mentioned to manufactures who may happen to have noisy freehubs. Since I'm not prone to coasting anyway, I rarely hear mine, and certainly when it's all greased up for winter it's pretty damn quiet. I'm not so much trolling (okay, maybe I'm trolling a little) but I'm tired of the hype around fixed. I'd like to ride around on my fixie without people thinking I'm a smug fixie rider (I'm really just a smug bicycle rider, but that's another issue).
I bet there is great stuff to climb down under. I've been including bicycling in my traveling as much as I can this fall. If it weren't for the endless flight and super expensive plane tickets, Australia would be a neat place to ride. I've commuted for a week in Seattle (not exactly a flat city), ridden over the Hoover Dam (not at all flat to get there, and traffic!), and just got back from two weeks of riding on St. Croix, USVI, which is an island of volcanic origin. But the physics of it don't let a fixie get both up and down a steep grade and a reasonable speed in both directions.
I've only had a fixie for about two months so I've only ridden about 500 miles fixed so far (although 130 of those were in the same day), so maybe my religeous transformation is pending. I'm not saying I don't like riding fixed, I'm saying I don't think all the hype is particularly accurate.