Originally Posted by
illenvillain
The reason I ask is because I was just dusted by a guy on a cervelo. I kept up for about 10 minutes but my legs were just killing me. Im running a 44/14 and only had my fixed gear for about a month but still i consider myself in pretty good shape. He claimed to be running "something similar" to mine gear ratio wise but I seen him spinning much faster.
I've ridden a few of the slower paced group rides on my fixed gear. I showed up for a road ride but only two other people were there and they said they pace wouldn't be over 15mph for the ride so I rolled the roadie back in the Element and pulled out the San Jose. We did 50 miles with 3 stops and I had no trouble keeping the pace. We climbed a few small hills and hit some rolling territory and I did fine; going downhill was a bigger challenge. But I've got brakes. We finished the ride with a 14.7mph avg. speed for the ride. (42-15 gearing)
With the faster riders? No way. And if the route has steep climbing, no way.
I did a ride where we went up Monte Sano(Bankhead road) which was a 3+mile climb of an average 5.6% grade. One steep section then it eases off. I stayed with some of the guys, a couple went on ahead and a couple fell behind. We regrouped at the top then I flipped the wheel to the free side for the ride back down.
I just had a thought. Recumbent riders LOVE to tout how they are so much faster than DF roadies. Why not a fixed gear recumbent? Or is that just so far off the Jackass Tarck scale as to be unthinkable?