Any Clydes Ride a Rush Hour?
 

I'm going to be geting back into biking after a long lay off and the simplicity (uniqueness) of a SS intrigues me. Any big guys ride a Raleigh Rush hour? I took one out for a spin last week and it was a nice ride. I like the steel frame. The ride reminds me of my last road bike, an 80's Raliegh Grand Prix. Any comments would be appreciated.

I barely fit into the clyde category (6'1" and 205 lbs). I havent specifically ridden the Rush Hour, but I've been riding single speed/fixed gear bikes for about a year and a half now and I love it and have no problems dealing with hills and such. If you are anywhere near my size, I'd say go for it. If you buy a low cost ss or fixie, just make sure the budget wheels are properly trued and tensioned so you don't thrash em.
On the other hand, I have a mountain biking buddy whose a major clydesdale (~7' and ~340 lbs.) and there is no way that guy could ever ride SS. He simply cannot climb hills without his granny gear. Based on this observation I would imagine that really huge guys would have a tougher time with ss or fixed, because of the added challenge of lugging all that weight uphill in a high gear....am I wrong?

I'm 6' 240ish (its falling and I need to weigh myself again)

I've been riding SS about 1 month now (old bike wasn't worth replacing the derailleur and I wanted to try SS/fixed) in a fairly hilly region. (lots of small-med hills) I'd love to have a cyclometer that I could download a detailed table of how my speed varies over time...the graphs would be amusing.

my bike originally offered 52x15or so for the fastest gear and 39x24 for the granny. I now run 52x20 because that was the straightest chainline for the existing chainwheel and cluster.

To be honest I haven't seen my speed at the top of the hills change much. If I'm doing a good job hammering out of the seat, I can do maybe 10mph max, usually more like 8. in the seat I do more like 6-7, which was about what I was getting with my derailleurs.

On the flats and downhills, the fact that I don't have to muck around with shifting means my cyclometer currently reads 31.3 as my max speed. that was one particularly long low-grade downhill that I pedaled most of, but I can usually do 26 coasting on most of the downhills. 19-20 seems to be my max on the flats but there's not a long enough flat for me to really say because I usually peak at 20 and see my speed go down as a result of an oncoming grade.

so SS is possible for clydes, and I have to say that I like it better than my original 10 speeds. I should be able to report on fixed gear as soon as my new wheelset comes in. I'm a little worried my mass-induced high-speed decents are going to make my knees beg for death when I go fixed gear, but we'll see.

Ya know...I stopped having knee pain when I started riding fixed...and I skip stop, bomb down hills at warp cadence, do seated climbing, and all things that are supposedly bad for your knees on a fixie. I'm not sure that going fixed caused my knees to improve. It could be that my knees were going through the process of strengtheneing anyway, regardless of what exactly I was riding. Occasionally I'll feel a little knee strain, but this is usually on my geared bike, not my fixie. All I'm saying is that after a year and a half of riding fixed, my knees seem fine.

I converted an old Miyata to fixed... many, many,many miles ago. I love the thing. I've actually been looking at getting a Budget Fixed (Bianchi Pista, Schwinn Madison) or just build up a Surly Steamroller. The stock rims of a budget will be ran until they die. Then I'll upgrade to Mavic Open Pros. Got the QBP prebuilt Surly Hub to Mavic OP on my conversion, no probs. The old Arraya front rim has been trued a couple times now. Torn between upgrading front wheel, or frame with actual track ends.

Thanks for your replies. I'm 6'1" 230. I had been toying with the idea of converting an older steel frame road bike and using some of the savings on better quality wheels. One of the issues I had with my old road bike was the wheels keep going out of true.

According to Sheldon, Old steel supposedly makes a *****in' conversion. I'm doing more or less exactly what you're toying with...soon as the nice double-wall alloy wheels with DT spokes come in.

I have ~1,500 miles on my Rush hour, & am thus far generally satisfied. At about 215 pounds, plus usually a 20 pound backpack, I'm not too massive, but perhaps a bit more than average. The frame & fork have held up with no problems, but a few spokes (two in front, one in back) have popped. The current plan is to ride the wheels into the ground, then build up a set of 36 spoke legacy wheels.

Gearing-wise, I found the stock 48x15 to be a little tall for hilly urban riding. 48x19 has been working great, but I'd probably go 48x17 if living in the flatlands.

Along those lines, have you seen the new Raleigh One-Way? Similar idea, but civilized for more utilitarian use. I think that Raleigh has it up on their website at this point. If I could do it over again, I'd have gone for the city bike instead of the track bike.

The wheels are the weakspot for most clydes. If you get some strong, well built wheels, you shouldn't have any problems. I don't know what the Rush Hour comes with, but do a search to see the reviews on them.

Along those lines, have you seen the new Raleigh One-Way?

Yes, and it looks pretty good also. I haven't seen any reviews of it. I do like the possibility of fenders. The Rush Hours forks seem kind of narrow for fenders.

I don't have the Raleigh, but I'll recommend the Redline 9.2.5, which I ride. It has a steel frame, 36-spoke wheels with Formula hubs and wide(30c) tires stock. My wheels are true after riding it practically everywhere since April. For the record, I'm 5'10", 230.