what fixed gear bikes have you ridden?

I've built a couple to flip, a few to experiment, and one or two others for friends (yes, last week I was involved in fixifying a minty 1981 Raleigh Super Course and a Basso. So shoot me.), but I do not have one of my own.

If I did, it would be either a '40s path racer (complete with fenders, of course) or a genuine track machine.

-Kurt

Argh, not this again. I've been riding fixed on the streets for over twenty years now, and geared roadies slightly longer. I've done my fair share of conversions, as well, and ride a converted UO8 and a Converted PX10 (A truly beat up one I found as a frame only). I have to say the massive amounts of BS on both sides of this issue constantly amazes me. I prefered the fixie "movement" about ten years ago, when it was just a bunch of guys converting old and unwanted road bikes (yes, they used to be unwanted crusher material). Now it is much more a fashion movement, and the DIY attitude I used to see has largely faded in favor of the flavour of the day.

Here's what fixies are truly good for: one, developing a steady cadence. And two, in certain weather conditions (snow, rain) you have a far better feel for the back wheel than you do on a geared bike. They are good in traffic, but only under a skilled rider (more on that later), and certainly not a huge or even noticable improvement over a roadie in that department. They used to be good for bar hopping too, because no one would steal them because they couldn't ride them, but those days are sadly over.

Here is some of the BS I've heard about fixies over the years on this board and SSFG:

1) You can trackstand on them, where you can't on a geared bike. Truth: Yes, that's a great skill in traffic, and yes, it is easily done on a geared bike. I'll never forget the stunned hipster who watched me trackstand my old PFN (a geared bike) while insisting it could not be done.

2) You're far more "connected" to a fixie than a road bike; you and the bike are a mystical one. Truth: you're gonna feel connected to a good road bike, too, especially on one that fits you right. If you buy this, you've drunk a lot of fixie koolaid.

3) They're easier to maintain. Truth: Mixed bag. IME they go thru chains and the bearings in the BB and rear wheel quicker than a roadie. Not having the gears give you at best some minor break from maintanence, and keeping proper chain tension on a fixie is important. A wash at best.

4) They're easier to stop. Truth: Hahahahahaha. I haven't noticed any difference, and I know how to skip, skid, and resist stop very well.

5) They're practical. Truth: depends. If you're lugging a light load, sure, they're fine. If you're hucking up hard hills, forget it, and if you're hauling a big load, not at all.

6) They're not fashionable. Truth: oh, yes they are. especially right now.

7) They're quieter. Truth: okay, Campy record ten sounds like a typing pool when coasting. But I've got roadies quieter than my conversions-- depends what you're running.

Now on the other side:

1) Converting to fixed damages the bike. Truth: Not unless you start attacking it with the dremel. Leave it so you can take it back, you're fine. Most fixe conversion riders don't bother with the dremel.

2) Converting to fixie destroys another good vintage bike. Truth: In the course of our retoration/rebuild projects, many of us have taken apart bikes for parts for another build. That, of course, destroys the original build on the parts bike. On the other hand, this allows someone else to buy the frame and rebuild it. That, for instance, is how I got the frame for my Mondia project. I'd be willing to bet the parts were taken off it to be put on something else. And I've got a Frejus ready to sacrifice for the Mondia right now. I don't like it, but the Mondia is my size and the Frejus aint. And if someone buys something just as a frame and builds it to a fixed, isn't it better the frame is being ridden? Heck, I'dve been fine if some other tall fella bought the Mondia before me and made it into a fixed gear. Well, maybe not that fine with it.

3) And the truth is, many of the scenesters have become so obsessed with NJS/ " true track" geometry that they sneer at conversions anyhoo. It's kinda sad that a group of folks who once prized a DIY ethic now treasure spending much loot on the "proper" bike.



The current fascination with fixies is a fad, no matter what anyone says. Eventually the style mavens will move on to touring bikes, recumbents dutch city bikes, Segways, or whatever, I dunno. It's worth recalling that the vast majority of the bikes we so admire on this board were part of another fad-- i.e. the bike boom of the seventies, without which we would never have had so many of those cool vintage frames we so love.

Some of the riders that bought into the fad will discover a love of riding, and continue on with it, long after fixies are relegated to the dustbins of fashion for some inexplicable trend, like gluing magic cards to your forehead, or something equally non-sensical. I've helped several people convert bikes, and almost all of them have kept riding. That's a great thing.

If I have one major problem with the fixie fad, it's the sheer number of fixie riders who simply can't ride the darn things. They can't trackstand, they can't stop them (especially after removing their front brake) and they weave thru stop signs and intersections like drunken circus bears on a tiny bike. I wish for their own sake they'd find a deserted parking lot and practice stopping and other skills; it's not exactly like riding a freewheel bike. And I wish they'd learn to check their chain tension-- I've seen two brakeless riders now throw their chain and then have to stop desperately. It's only hilarious if they escape death. I've seen countless other fixies in town with very loose chains, which is a problem. There's no mech to pick up the slack, kids-- adjust your wheel in the drops. Please.

This is all a moot point anyway.

The fad is over. They've moved on to vintage geared bikes.

Dig a hole in your back yard and hide your derailleur stash! You'll be able to retire this time next year

Great post. This should be copied and bookmarked for all future "Fixed Gears R Stooopid" Threads.

Wow this post stunned me.

It could be that some people don't want to deal with derailleurs... OR they just want a different riding experience. I would really love to know what fixed gear you've ridden where you had to walk up hills and spun out at 10 MPH. Might be the engine and not the bike.

Well..... it's either this, or the "look at me - I passed a guy riding a CF bike while riding my two wheeled crab-trap, so he must be a tool" threads.

Crab trap? Isn't that a valuable Italian custom?

The toolness of riders must, IMO, always be measured against the guy in my neighbourhood who rides his Magna to work every stinkin' day, even in the rain or snow. Against that, we are all tools and Freds.

Seriously.

Re: spinning out at 10 mph.



I gear most of my bikes (unless they are set up for touring) so I can spin out at 30 mph and still climb all but the nastiest of hills here and that make descending a lot more fun as I can still reach 40 mph.

There are many folks I know with nice road bikes that can't hang on to my back wheel and a lot of that comes from riding tens of thousands of miles on a fixed gear... do that and the times you find that you are in the wrong gear will become less and less as your power range will be most increased.

Racers of old started by being put on a fixed gear and after 1000 miles would then be put on a geared bike as after this amount of time they would have increased their fitness and suppleness by many degrees.

Riding fixed has made me a much stronger rider and I was already pretty strong.

The big nasty here is 12-18% for most of it's distance and then has a 22% grade at the top and I have yet to walk that on my fg's... it's nearly 1000 feet of "lets see how tough you really are".

I have come very close to nailing a sub hour 40 on my 1955 Lenton and if I had not stopped to take a few pictures I would have.

As a lover of classic bikes I really love fixed gears as they are a significant piece of cycling history and were once considered to be a most viable form of transportation... even when geared bikes were available.

I am always happy to see people riding, no matter what kind of bike that is.

Any trashed frame makes me a sad camper.

In the vein of Sixty Fiver's post above, it is worth remembering too that even single speed bicycles can be set up to suit local needs. I think my approach is a little bit different than his, but still even if it's just one speed, you can freely change in what you like in many cases.

In my case I run a stock single speed gearing on my ballooners, which is usually a pretty high gearing, especially in the pre WW2 Schwinn-Henderson. I do have custom chain rings for the ballooners that are a little bit lower geared than the stock stuff, but since I like originality as much as possible, I stick with the stock components where I can.

My approach is that I very much prefer stock gearing for originality if I can get away with it. If the terrain is really THAT bad, I have my 3 speeds to go to (which do in fact have 22 tooth cogs to lower the gearing a bit). So you could get the best of both worlds-- pull out the high single speed ballooner for a shorter, flatter ride. For a longer, hilly ride, pull out the customized 22 tooth 3 speed and climb a few hills. Who says you can't have both a single speed and a geared bike?

These are pretty obvious points, I think, but certainly worth mentioning.

As a bit of humor: I honestly thought until I was probably 14-15 or so that most bikes were single speeds. Most people didn't ride bikes where I lived because of the long, rural distances to travel. My bikes when I was younger were all single speeds. I got my first 3 speed in college. I started with a little Schwinn coaster bicycle from the 1980s and moved up to my dad's '62 Higgins middleweight. I got that going again when I was 10-11 and then moved up to my grandfather's '36 Schwinn-Henderson (New Departure D model coaster). I revived that one when I was in high school and then got a car. It was only in high school that I realized how many geared bikes were around because I had to run down to the shop to get replacement tires for the Henderson. I guess you know what you grow up with best of all, and for years it seemed to me as if the norm was fat tires, a single speed, and just coaster brakes. Go figure

Good point. Along one of my favorite routes there's a rather fancy country club and several times I've run into this Mexican kid who rides to work there on his Next. I'm faster than him. barely. And I'm not going in to work an 8 hour shift.

Somebody out there asked me what do I know about riding fixies, like have I ever ridden one ? What fixed bikes do I own, etc...

Whoa, three track bikes, four road bikes with flipflop hubs and a fixed cog on one side. Ranging from 1905 to 1970.

Anyway, it's true this whole thing is a bit stale and everybody knows everybody else's hand, so I propose we do an acid test on this one (no, not dissolving fixies in acid):

Anybody on this forum or elsewhere thinks that on a fixie he can better me around here where it's long, long climbs, brutal 14++ % bumps, gravel on the roads, unexpected sharp corners at the bottom of long hills wins a Peugeot px 10 or some other wreck to turn into a fixie in the impossible event that he beats me (or any other moderately fit rider). We can then have a return match where you ride your fixie around a flat town in traffic, and I ride a road-converted MTB with indexed 2 x 7 gearing, cantilelevers upfront and vee-brake rear to normal cantliver levers. Talking about a minimum 80 km+ country ride here, and 3 hours in town, not parading up and down main street impressing the talent at the cafes.

Anyway, fixies are simple, there can be a certain beauty to them. They are fashionable/fad but that's not necessarily bad. They are good for winter training (single speed is probably just as good), and they are good sport, because nothing beats whizzing past a fixie rider stuck to the road. Fixies are fun, not fast except on sprints, or for record attempts on track. When derailleurs were allowed on the tdf, the average speed alsmost doubled.

And with that I shall retire and partake no further in this debate

Do any of them spin out at 10 MPH?

I don't think anyone was arguing which was better. I am also fairly certain most cyclist are smart enough to recognize that if two riders of equivalent skill and strength were to ride a fixed gear and a road bike the majority of the time the road bike would leave the fixed gear behind.

I agree for the most part... However, in my experiences riding in winter conditions a fixed gear > single speed for traction control.

Which is funner to ride? Can anyone "out fun" me on my track bike with their geared road bike?

Hey! Hi! I'm not usually in this forum, but... I couldn't resist.

I ride both geared and fixed.

If I'm going on a long ride, and there are going to be major hills, I fully recognize that my geared bike is more appropriate, and also more enjoyable.

If I'm barhopping, going to the store, transporting any sort of cargo, visiting friends, doing an alleycat, or anything within the city limits, I'll take my FG (which has a Cetma rack on the front).

However, I'm also a skinny-jeans-wearing, beer-and-whiskey-swilling, make-the-ladies-swoon, 26-year-old hunk, living in Philadelphia, which is totally flat. So, draw your own conclusions.



Edited for clarity:

My current geared bike came to me as an absurdly built single speed (tubular HED disc wheel in the back... WTF?), and over time I amassed most of a sweet geared drivetrain to put onto it, to get it back into its proper form. I still rode it as a fixed gear for a while, though, as I was accumulating parts.

My current fixed gear is actually a track frame, so I'm not taking away one of the precious old road frames and forcing it into FG slavery. Also, it's an old one, since I'm not a fan of buying a new, off-the-shelf ANYTHING when there are perfectly good ones already in existence (which are probably nicer/higher quality anyway).

This, of course, leaves out my tallbike and 3-speed tandem.

You have scored a point.

I love these threads. C&V turns A&S, only its funnier here.

-Kurt

one of the many Craig's list ads that sends me screaming from the room. If it were a better bike, i'd probably need to hit something.

https://boston.craigslist.org/bmw/bik/1271223991.html

Why would that send you screaming from the room? Lacing in a three speed hub is no big deal.

I don't think that I can be faulted in any way over my fixed conversion. It was already "trashed" long before it came into my life. Crummy paint, broken rear derailleur, two different sized rims...even the bottom bracket spindle was incorrect. I still don't know even know what it was originally, only that it's mid quality construction, probably from the eighties...

I left the hanger on. I did take off the cable guides along the top tube, but I could still add gears later if I want to. But why would I want to? I have geared bikes, too. Spread the love!

You must spend a lot of time screaming from room to room.

I like 'em both, and sure can't improve on Poguemahone's essay.

I like my fixed gear in "fixed" mode on my trainer, to the convenience store and back, and on carefully planned "out and back" rides where I go 15-20 miles out in fixed, then flip-flop the rear and ride back with a freewheel. My bud calls them "rip and recover" rides.

For everything else, I like geared bikes.

I've seen some crazy dudes on fixed gears doing near-BMX stuff on Cinelli track frames.
I'm glad they're on bikes.

This is about bikes, right?

Just riding my singlespeed. That's the way it was made. If I wanted 18 gears, i'd drive a truck.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Oh man, that's perfect...I wish I could fit all this into my signature.

Exactly. I am one of those old racers who did just that. My original winter fixie was a total junker, a Puch Cavalier frame with a steel crank, fenders, generator lights. Gearing was real low, 50 x 21 or 50 x 22. The whole idea was to spin, spin, spin and get back my leg speed after a season of mashing big gears in races. As you know, I am in the process of restoring my classic Ron Cooper from its current fixie status back to its original geared configuration, since I have built up a new fixie using a track frame I picked up for $51 + shipping on eBay (see photo).