Are fixed -single gear bikes bad for inner city rush hour traffic? I went on a test ride today and not being able to coast was a little annoying. I had to either continually pedal or brake. Something I learned today that I've never noticed is that half of my riding around the city is coasting to red lights and intersections, or downhill etc. The bike felt a little strange. I found it slightly problematic when considering hypothetical quick reaction situations like a pedestrian walks in front of me or cars pull out in front blocking off exists- I would either be able to stop (unlikely) or continue to pedal and attempt to change directions or squeeze by without making contact. I noticed the cheap fixed gear road bikes seem to be popular but after that test ride I don't think fixed gear is for me...are hybrids my only option without spending over $700?

flip flop hub ... go with freewheel and single speed

i ride one every day

Welcome to FG cycling, did you expect something else?
A FW may well be in order, they do that "coasting thing"........

-Bandera

I actually prefer my FG for commuting in traffic because it allows you to make subtle speed changes by changing your cadence. Try giving it another week or two. If you still don't like it, get a freewheel.

I prefer to ride fixed gear in traffic. Been doing it for many years...If you never done it before, then take it easy at first and give it some time...eventually you'll get used to it, and then when you become good at it , it will be a lot of fun.

2 brakes per bike, 1 per wheel ..

Some folks love FG. That's great. Some don't. that's great too. What ever floats your boat. You need to love it, if you don't, change it.

Personally I find riding fixed takes a measure of enjoyment away from my experience. I don't feel the magic. I do however really like riding single speed with a freewheel and have commuted for years on one. I also like gears, a lot of my bikes have lots of them. Personal pref's, it's all good.

I think having gears is indispensable for city traffic. They allow me to accelerate faster to when the light changes green and maintain higher sustained speeds to keep up with traffic as much as possible. SS/FG bikes obviously have to use a compromise gear selection, meaning it's often not the gear you really want at any given time. Too high and it's harder to accelerate, and too low and you spin out before reaching the speed you want to go. I also have knees that punish me if I try to mash away in too high a gear for me. It's also great to have a bike that comes with 2 brakes. I wouldn't consider riding in city traffic without two real brakes. (I know you can typically add brakes to FG bikes if they don't have them. Seems to me that they should just come that way).

Obviously, many riders love their SS/FG bikes and overcome these issues. I just don't see the appeal. I also don't understand the alleged negatives to geared bicycles. They don't have to cost much more than SS/FG bikes, and geared drivetrains are highly durable and reliable with a little care and a relatively low maintenance effort.

I agree. I have brakes on my FG, but the ability to instantly make subtilly or powerful changes in speed make riding in traffic much easier. There is no reaction time to grab the brakes and then to squeeze them. Speed change with FG is instant.

FG takes a lot of learning to get used to, but once you are in a rhythm, it has a magic to it that I don't get when riding with a freewheel.

I can also accelerate faster with a fixed gear (or SS) than with a geared bike. Having a stiff 19lb bike with direct drive helps. I can easily accelerate as fast as a typical car up to about 20mph (after that, the cars pull away from me. ;-)

Coasting is great if you want to save energy, but for the rhythm, and pulse of urban riding, FG is very nice once you learn the technique (and don't be afraid to use caliper brakes when you need to).

You learn most of the rhythm of fixed gear riding after a few outings, its not that hard. It's also not some reality shifting way of riding bikes, it's just a much more limited type of bicycle, with decreased handling and acceleration. Not a bad choice for city riding, even if it's much less efficient than other bikes. Commuting isn't a race, so I guess that doesn't matter much. Just have two hand brakes installed, and you'll be fine. You'll figure out how to get your legs to coast in short order.

And, no, the mechanical advantage of geared bikes is in no way outmatched by the fg microscopically more efficient pedal stroke. Being able to be in your nearly perfect gear, no matter your speed far outweighs having to go from slow mashing, to spinning out at lower speeds. A geared bike from a stop, with a pilot who knows how to use it, is always faster all other things being equal.

I've been commuting fixed for 5 years - I really like it. Fixed gear riding involves another whole set of cycling skills that is fun and interesting to master. I have two brakes; I try to ride like I don't have any brakes, but I'm not shy about using them when necessary. Shifters and derailleurs can get gunked up with rain and road grime on a commute bike and I like not having to pay attention to that.

Sheldon Brown claimed that single-speed will actually help you avoid leg pain:

He also published a report from one biker who claimed that riding a fixed gear bike cured his knee pain because pedaling it "built up the opposite muscles around the knee, and that it was muscles that help hold the knee (patella) in proper alignment".

I would guess knee pain has more to do with incorrect set up, incorrect stroke, and a mix of genetics and past injuries/abuse.

I have bad joints genetically, and a couple years straight of living car free and only riding fixed didn't give me any knee pain.

Edit: cool set up diabloscott, what frame is that?

Just curious. Why did you think you'd wouldn't able to stop? Did the bike not have any handbrakes?

I started riding a fixed gear last summer and at first I had much the same reaction as you. You don't realize how often you coast until you can't.

My fixed gear does have hand brakes. I think what a lot of us do when we hit the brakes is stop pedaling. If you hit the (hand) brakes on a fixed gear bike, the pedals (and therefore your legs) keep moving unless you skid. It's a little disconcerting.

What's important to remember is that even though your legs are still moving, the bike is coming to a stop just as fast, - probably faster because your legs are resisting the spin of the wheel along with the brakes.

A common misconception about fixed gear bikes is that you are always pedaling and you can never rest. That's not exactly true. It's true that your legs are still moving when you "coast" on a fixed gear, but it's not you moving your legs, it's the rear wheel and the pedals. You aren't actually working any harder (or not much anyway) by not being able to coast in the traditional manner.

It's also disconcerting going from a fixed gear to a freewheel bike. They seem broken. "Why did the pedals stop moving? Oh... yeah" You find yourself pedaling while coasting just because.

Anyway robin, you do get used to it and a lot of us feel that riding fixed gives us a better feel for the road and better control than we do with a freewheel bike. Foot retention of some sort is highly recommended.

I've never ridden FG, so question--how to they stand up against hills? I go over two steep freeway overpasses on my commute. One of them is super narrow and I often have to stop on an uphill or downhill grade with intersections at both bases. FG doesn't seem safe to me...

I ride a fixed gear all year for commuting, my commute is about 26 miles RT and I also use it to get around the urban sprawl. I've never found an issue with using a fixed gear in the city as long as you're not crazy and use a front brake.

Where the real pain is is jumping back on a freewheel/freehub style and thinking your chain is broken.

I guess I'm not sure why you mean. Fixed gear is harder on hills in that you can't shift down, but it's really no harder than a single speed.

Are you worried you wouldn't be able to stop? Fixies can have hand brakes though lots of people go without a rear one. Some don't have any hand brakes at all and that variety I would consider unsafe.

fixed gear simply requires a different set of skills and muscle training.

Not being able to coast doesn't make it dangerous. You can't coast when you walk or run either.

If you haven't ridden fixed before, a test ride in the city can make you feel insecure. That's because you don't have the skill. There's no way to tell if it would suit you without giving it a good try. I am not a fixed-gear zealot, but I do have a fixed gear bike, and I like it. It's not the only bike I ride.

The hillier your terrain is, the more having gears will help. If it's fairly flat, a fixie is fine. If it's mountainous, you're asking for at least a large challenge.

Fixed is pretty popular here in Manhattan. It's not that hilly here until you get to Harlem and farther north.

I also see a lot of single-speed commuting bikes. That's the one thing I don't get. If I can have the luxury of coasting, I also want the luxury of gears. The weight and expense and maintenance of gears are not onerous for me, so there is no appeal in having a single-speed freewheeling bike. But of course, to each his own. If you have one and love it, that's good for you.

You are correct that you are almost always in the "wrong" gear which, paradoxically, is the advantage of a fixed gear. Too high a gear helps to build strength; too low helps build a supple high cadence. Do this for a season and you'll find that you have widened your powerband and this will be an advantage no matter what kind of riding you do.

I've been riding a fixed gear since the early 70's, initially as winter training and on the velodrome. Now I ride fixed pretty much all the time. I put over 20,000 km per year on my fixie, largely commuting, but also randonneur rides (Paris-Brest-Paris and London-Edinburgh-London), up mountains like Haleakala on Maui, and I just returned from a bike tour in Turkey with lots of steep climbs, but nothing I had to get off & walk for. And I have no problem walking the fixie up hills that are too steep. Once the speed goes down to 5 kmh, I walk, since it's much easier, and I can walk up a hill at 5 kmh. (I don't understand why people need gears low enough to struggle up hills at 3 kmh...)

And people are right, fixies are not for everybody. You need to be a pretty experienced rider to appreciate the tight control and hair-trigger handling you can get from a fixie. Because there are no jockey wheels pulling a chain that's too long, the drivetrain is EXTREMELY efficient. Because the thing doesn't coast, the pedals go over top-dead-center by themselves; you don't have to waste energy pushing the pedals over this very subtle "dead spot." And because you've only got the one gear that keeps spinning, you tend to develop a very smooth riding technique. You learn how to "float" the pedals. You get rid of wasteful upper body movement, and your standing climbing becomes much more effective as you learn to use more body weight and forward (rather than side-to-side) motion to get you up hills with much less fatigue.

If you're not impressed with the ride of a fixie now, that's OK. You're just not ready for it. I enjoy riding the fixie on long brevets and century rides because I KNOW I can finish the thing in good time on a regular geared bike. Riding the fixie makes it more of a challenge. At some point in your cycling career, you just might reach the point where you've got the urge to try riding a fixed gear, even if it's just to ride the track. "When the student is ready, the teacher will arrive."

Luis

Lots of fixed gear bikes were formally geared bikes that were converted. They at least had two brakes. Some new fixies come with two handbrakes as well. My son's did. There is a fashion aspect to fixed gears that discourages the mounting of any components or accessories that aren't absolutely necessary for the bike to be usable. You are free to ignore that.

Regarding the gearing all I can say is that it's a different mind set. I'm not a young guy anymore. I've had some knee pain from cycling a few years ago (on a geared bike) that I thought was related to mashing but maybe it was a seat height issue or something else. It happened over a winter. So I had some concerns about my knees when I decided to give fixed a try but it's been a non-issue.

I don't accelerate as fast and I don't have as high of a top speed. That is true and I was reminded of that when I rode my geared road bike for a couple of days last week. The bottom bracket on my fixie was creaking and it was driving me nuts.

But I went back to my fixed gear as soon as I had the bottom bracket taken care of. On my commute the top speed isn't quite that important to me. As far as the appeal goes, I don't know how to explain it other than the simplicity really is nice.

I've only been commuting fixed the last year or so.. speed control without using the brakes, track standing, the occasional emergency reverse are all things I've grown to love. Now if I'm running late and still going to ride admittedly I bust out the geared road bike and fly like the wind..

I haven't ridden an adult fixie, but isn't it basically the same bike we all rode when we were about 7 years old? Where we didn't have a hand brake but you just pedal backwards to stop? Funny that we have to re-learn how to ride that way after spending so much of our youth doing just that. Seems like it would be the most natural way of cycling.

It's more like the trike you rode when you were even younger than that. The pedals will keep turning as long as the bike is moving even if your feet aren't on them. A fixed gear is not the same as a kid's bike with a coaster brake. That's like a single speed.