I'm slowly liking the idea of a single speed bike though I am not ready to own one just yet.

Even a single speed bike has 2 gears, in the saddle and out of the saddle.

When I was growing up, the only bikes available were single speed ones. Single speed was THE BIKE. When geared bikes came, they were called "speeders", but when you say "a bike", you meant a single speed.

And those thick chains with bushings - they could last for a decade easily.

I think a lot of people dismiss it and are missing out on an amazing type of riding.

I'm not proselytizing, just providing some historical perspective.

The fading "fixie fad" may have confused some about what fixed gear road riding was/is really all about.
When the fad is a faded memory old school club riders and the aficionados of obsolete bicycles will continue as they have for the last century: riding FG on the road.

-Bandera

Which reminds me to ask, just how often do you lube it? I've had my fixed gear since December, with chain case, and lubed once (although it didn't seem to need it, and I just had the case open so I lubed it). Maybe around 1600-1800 miles, no noise and when I check it looks fine, but do you ever just wipe it down and re-lube?

Shimano, SRAM, and all the bike manufacturers who want to sell you more gears don't want you to know that everybody doesn't need what they're selling.
If you don't ride long distances, and the terrain is fairly flat, wide-range gears aren't much benefit.

Fixed gear is simple, elegant, cheap, not obsolescence prone, and often just as fast. People think it's too hard, or they'll forget to pedal, or go over the bars, so they're afraid to try it. I was skeptical, too, when I first heard about it years ago. But I had to try it, so I converted an old road bike- and I was hooked. About half my miles are on fixed gear. I did change over one of my bikes to single speed, but I don't like it as much except for casual rides. It feels like the worst of both worlds.

Single speed can be a lot of fun. You can get into a different headspace when riding without the option of shifting gears because it's so simplified. You either spin faster or push harder.

I treat my two fix gears quite differently. The good one gets the synthetic yellow lube that dries on to a form of plastic. (Well, I have never gotten it to be completely clean, but it is radically better than anything but wax.) This so I can do road gear changes and stay clean. (Flip-flop fix-fix hub.) I also carry a cog wrench and a third cog on big climbing days. My winter fix gear gets the wet MTB Finishline lube as needed, never taking the chain off and cleaning.

My days of salted winter roads are 30 years past and the lubes and schedules never recorded. Edit: Rims, spokes and entire drivetrain went one year, April to April. My heavy sewup rims would be polygons supported by spokes with solidly frozen nipples. some spo tight they'd be pulling through the rims and other completely loose. New wheels and drivetrain and the bike felt like new and was again a joy to ride. Early winter I got to ride good stuff. By late January the "nice" was gone. By late February the chain was pretty sad and the wheels funky. By late March it was amazing that the bike still worked. Every March I would fall into a bottomless pothole. Thank you, CX tubulars for not pinch flatting. I rode home more than once on completely square wheels (well dents well over an inch deep). Pull 'em out (I built a special tool to do that) and ride 'em the next day.

Ben

If we are talking about general purpose, road racing bikes, yes, I would say so. Certainly that is the comparison I thought we were making.

In fairness, I can't think of many situations where my geared bike wouldn't be faster, bar maybe a long steady slight uphill grade where my 46x16 wouldn't be too low or too high and the slight weight advantage would kick in.

I do agree, though, that most other concerns about SS are unfounded. You can get good bikes without paying through the nose or peering special. In my case, though, I converted a road bike when the derailleur hanger broke.

That doesn't strike you as a little contradictory?

No, you're talking about single speeds, I'm talking about bikes with gears. Do you think that lightweight racers constitute the bulk of the geared bike market?

Similar story. I rode my UO-8 singe speed for several years after I trashed the dropout. At the coaxing of my veteran clubmates, I make a crude fix gear wheel and went for a ride. Forgot to pedal once and crashed hard. But I was hooked. Never went back. Always had both geared and fixed, but knew from that year on if I had to trim down to one bike, it would be fixed. My Peter Mooney was built with horizontal dropouts so it could be that one bike.

In recent years I have done so much fix gear riding despite having a sweet custom ti geared bike that I my lifetime mileage is now equal fixed and geared.

Ben

Like I said, that is the comparison I am making. SS road bikes (not cross or gravel or MTB) compared to geared road bikes. I'm saying that if someone walked into a fairly normal bike store today and picked off the shelf a geared road bike and a SS road bike both of which appealed to their taste and budget, the geared bike would be lighter. The facts that almost no steel framed road bikes are sold in LBSs these days, and few SSs are anything but steel make my assertion pretty much a slam dunk. But if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. No big deal. That is just how it seems to me. I know that personally I would have to search high and low for a frame and parts that could yield a SS bike as light as even my heaviest, steel geared one.

Lol. So you're comparing a niche, in road bikes, to SS bikes in general? Yeah, that's fair.

In any event, you're still wrong; there are plenty of steel road bikes sold in LBSs these days, from the likes of Surly, All-City, Raleigh, Jamis, Masi, Kona, etc, etc, etc.

A gear is a gear. There is no magic because it is on a road bike rather than a fixed gear bike.

All things being equal - weight, aero, tire size, etc, the bike itself isn't any faster or slower.

If you are consistently faster on your road bike it is because you are pushing higher gears and/or because you are pedaling faster.

The exception is downhill. There is clearly a limit to downhill speed on a fixed gear bike. I solved this Saturday by unclipping and coasting down Lucas Brunelle style.

Like I said, machts nichts.

No, there's no magic to gears, just that on any ride where I might choose to use more than one of them, I'll either get from A to B faster, or with less effort, on a bike with a 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 speed cassette than on a single speed, all other factors being equal.

Obviously fitness, and being accustomed to riding SS, would be factors in reducing the difference between the 2, and I find when I'm riding more and in better shape, I tend to shift less as my legs are more capable of smoothing out the bumps in the roads themselves. But no amount of fitness is going to get me up to the top and back down a steep hill in one gear quicker or easier than having a big range at the back.

Which is made possible in variable conditions (paceline position, grade, wind, road condition, etc) by being able to change gear ratio. For a given power, there's a given cadence where you'll see peak efficiency. Spin out and you're wasting energy turning your feet around, push high force onto slow cranks and work=force*distance wastes the efforts of the human leg. What might be a perfect gear one moment can be a terrible gear the next.

Training can mitigate the disadvantages of single-speed. Spinning a lot can, well, smooth your spinning; and there's definitely technique to keeping up good form at ultra-low cadence, both in and out of the saddle. But this doesn't solve the basic problem.

A single speed bike is fun for me, but I don't like a fixed geared bike as much.

I do really enjoy my geared bikes though.

Ride what you like. Like what you ride. Try all kinds.

Thinking about all the city riders I see on a daily basis, and having spent a little time in a shop that sells ALL kinds of bikes watching customers come and go, I'd say the number one reason they are popular is their low cost. Most of the folks you see tooling around town on single speed bikes are NOT bicycle- or cycling aficionados. As a means of getting around, they buy bikes like most people buy plane tickets: whatever is cheap, convenient, and reasonably reliable - in that order.

I ride a single speed road bike but not necessarily because I want too, it's the best second hand bike I could get for the money I had. The bike is indestructible. When I got it it was a fixed gear but I wove a coaster hub into the back rim.

I would like a geared bike but I know that buying a cheesy derailleur is asking for trouble.

No doubt my single speed is bomb proof and cost me a grand total of 185$, but if I could get a 10 speed that was equally durable and reliable and required as little maitnence for the same price;I think I would.