The pedals carrying your feet back up to the top position from momentum? :)

I'm also fixie-curious. I think of it as a sportier beach cruiser and I loved my cruiser before it was stolen. It was so simple. I may still get one and accept the limitations that it's not gonna be as good as my 3x9 up hills and that I won't be able to kick it into high gear for a burst of speed. I think a fixie would be better in an area that is generally flat or inner city where a tight handling bike. Again, I have not ridden a fixed gear...I just have my reservations.

+1
if i get a fixed gear, it will definitely have brakes.

Tell me about it , I'm just a few miles inland of the biggest body of water
on the planet.

Ok, and I enjoy riding my fixed gear. :)


I have a couple hills on my commute and I learned to deal with it. I have found the all around gear I like and I go. Outside of commuting I actively go climbing on my fixed gear because it is challenging and I get a big sense of satisfaction when I reach the top. Coming back down is even more exhilerating

I ride exclusively singlespeed these days, and I live and ride in very hilly areas. There's no magic solution to finding a gear that will be good for everything. If you only have one, you have to pick and choose your areas of compromise: A tall gear will be good for open flatland cruising and suck for hills or stop 'n' go traffic. A teeny gear will kick ass for climbing and suck for downhills and flatland cruising; you might be first off the line at a stoplight, but you'll get shelled after 10 yards when you're doing 120rpm and stuck at 17mph.

My commuter bike is set to 70 gear inches. I get a cruising speed of 19mph at 90rpm, and I can comfortably climb the mile-and-a-half 5% grade on my way home. The short section of 12% grade on my way to work sucks, but I can grunt my way through it.
My CX race bike varies depending on the course. So far I've used 65 gear inches for my "tall" gear on dry, flat courses and 56 gear inches for my slog gear on muddy, hilly courses or courses with lots of technical turns and few flat-out straighaway sprints. I race Cat-4 35+ against a bunch of dudes with gears and after 4 races I'm still ranked in the top 30% for the the primary series I race in. (I placed top 20 in the secondary series I race.) So it's possible in some situations to be just as quick on a singlespeed as the geared gang.
My brevet bike sits at a cozy 67 gear inches. Rando isn't a race, and I'm not looking to set any speed records. Add in that most rando clubs love hills, so I picked a gear where I can cruise comfortably at 16 - 17 mph without spinning too high, still have reserves into the headwinds without digging too deep, and I can climb most long grades without getting up out of the saddle. I'm not going to be setting any speed records, but I can easily finish all but the toughest of courses within the allocated time.

I have my next 3 bikes planned out in my mind. The next one is definitely a road bike, the one after that is a Moonlander, and the third one is going to be a fixie. I don't see using the fixie all the time, and definitely not for commuting, but I see using it for fun when I feel whimsical. Originally I was thinking of making the Moonlander a fixie, but to be honest that doesn't seem like a great idea if I decide to take it into some deep snow.

I'm too much of an engineer to handle riding a fixie all the time, but the historian in me wants to feel oneness with the original bicycles as well.

PS: when I do eventually get a fixie, I'm thinking of going with a double crank plus a dingle plus a flip-flop, with no derailleurs. That'll give me 6 total ratios (4 fixie, 2 SS), but I'll have to get off the bike to change gears. Is that cheating? :D

I love my fixed gear and ss bikes but when I was looking at riding into a 30mph headwind today was happy to have 18 speeds to work with.

If I had two good legs riding fixed into severe winds would not be as much of a problem as it is now.

I have gears, but have started another experiment of going to SS by finding one gear and leaving it there. Been two days without shifting; if I make it for a full month, then I can explore further about committing funds to a dedicated SS bike.

This is the way I made the transition. Rode a dedicated ss commuting for a year before I made the jump to fg w/t same GI. Then after 2 years I've increased the GI by a little over 5 inches. Now I've got a dedicated multi-geared commuter for hauling clothing, food for the week on Mondays. The rest of the week I use a fg w/seatpost rack/trunkbag combo for hauling the day's clothes and food containers homeward. Love the 2 bike system. There have been a few 'fg days' when I woke up to 'the wall' and having the multi-gear available was a welcome relief. My rt commute is 42 rolling miles w/84.4 GI. It's a beast at times.

Someone previously mentioned the SA S3X...there's a Mercier at BD for under 400.00US. Steel frame, rack bosses, etc. W/a 78.8 GI chainring/cog combo one wonders whether the ratio goes up from there or down. Would think it would be lower. Especially for loaded commuting. I've got an old Raliegh Sport that is in 3d gear at rest going lower w/each shift. Probably follows the same design except fixed.

I've been a "full time " SS/FG rider for few years now. This means I don't own any geared bike anymore. I have 3 bikes and none of them have gears. As long as I am healthy and strong I want to continue riding SS/FG.. I don't really want to go back to gears. On very windy days I just go slower, in winter time I gear down and spin more.
I don't have a problem if it takes me a little longer to get to my destination. I live and ride in flat/rolling terrain, but some rural areas I ride are very hilly.

SS/FG's has gear.

Nothing wrong with that. Ride on.

As for me, multi-gear is a must. :)

I have two Masi Speciale Commuters. One set up as a SS, the other multi-geared and I use the SS 99% of the time. When I do take out the multi-geared, I ride it like a single speed as in I hardly ever shift.

Like the OP I live in a flat city on a Great Lake and yes sometimes there is wind. I just put my head down and pedal hard.

Everyone is different, we all ride what ever bike we want but we still have one thing in common, we commute by bicycle. Lucky us!

I think I might be SS-curious. I may try to put one together sometime. Generally it's flat around here and I can probably get through most hills. If I can't I'm certainly willing to walk the bike. Walking is good exercise.

For me, I figure a 42 front ring and about a 16 or 18 on the back..

I have a new project that I might single speed it up. It would certainly be interesting.

My commute involves a section of 12-15% grade where even 22 inch gear is quite difficult. The 1/4 mi on either side of this is about 8-10% grade. I'm not able to any part of this in my 36T middle chainring at all. Do you just zig-zag or walk up the street in this type of situation?

When climbing:

1. Maintain momentum as long as possible.
2. Sit and spin until you have to stand and smash.
3. Keep cranking until you reach stall speed.
4. Get off and walk.

Keep at it and before you know it, you'll find you won't be walking anymore :).

Thanks for telling me, I didn't know that.

On some of the rural roads that I ride, Zig-Zag is the only way to ride up, can't do it in a straight line, sometimes I come across a hill where I just get off and walk part of the way, this only happens on my recreational rides... my daily commute doesn't have any big hills. I run 65-70 gear inches.

I absolutely can't stand fixed gear -- to me it's incredibly annoying to be forced to spin down hills while resisting and riding the front brake. That's just me though, a lot of people like it and more power to them.

I love riding SS though. I ride a trek earl every day to work and love it. It's quiet and needs almost no maintenance whatsoever.

right now im riding my FG in SS mode but thats what i do. and i haven't been riding for long(3 weeks?) on my current commute route is only 2.3 miles with about 50/50 up n down hill and im already able to make it up every hill. my strategy is haul ass down hill, pray for a green light, and pace myself going up. wakes me up in the morning. :)

I alternate between my roadie and fixie just because I like to mix it up. The fixie is more fun though.

I've ridden SS for commuting for about a year now and love the clean look and simplicity. I've built some muscle so the hills are not a problem (they are short so climbing them is like a quick sprint). Wind is a bit of an issue - almost wore me out last Friday. The only thing I regret is not being able to go to a higher gear on the flats. That's about to change since I am building up some new wheels. For the rear, I opted for the Sturmey Archer S2, with the kick back 138% second gear. I don't know what I will end up with as far as gearing and will experiment a bit. I am aiming for 2 gears that straddle my current set up 50/50.

I decided on the S2 primarily because of the simplicity - no cables or levers.

-G

To each their own preference but I will always ride multi-gear bikes for one reason. In my eyes the bicycle is a machine intended to efficiently utilize the energy produced by the human. Multiple gears do that more efficiently (at least in the vast majority of commutes). That...and I like tinkering with any and every machine I own. The more parts the better, so long as they do not negatively affect the efficiency of said machine. If SS/FG is more fun for you then by all means that is what you should ride. But for me...fixed gear will always be a flawed design as will single speed (albeit to a lesser extent).