riderx

This weekend I finally completed something I've been wanting to do for a long time, ride the entire C & O Canal. Just to make it a challange, I figured I would do it on my fixed gear road bike. I ran a 42 x 17 gear and the bike and gear weighed in at 70 lbs. when I started. 4 other riders joined me, 1 other one on a fixed gear, 2 on single speeds and 1 on a geared cyclocross. We did it in 3 days and had a great time despite some broken spokes, flat tires and sheared off rack mounts. The canal is 184.5 miles - we travelled a total of 197 with food/beer/repair stops. The colors were really changing in the trees and the air was crisp and cool.

Can't wait to do it again!

Cumberland. The Start.


Mile Post 0 - the end of the line.

beowoulfe

I see you found the zero mile marker. It's a tough one to locate!!

P. B. Walker

Cool ride!

I did a 105 mile one-day ride on the C&O in September from Great Falls up to almost Hancock. I did it with a buddy of mine who had never done a century ride. I had done several, but never on a dirt path like the C&O Trail. It was a tough century since we were going "uphill" (if you can call it that) and on the dirty and gravel. It's much faster on the road. Ended up taking us a total of 11 hrs and 15 mins Total time. We ran out of day light and he didn't have lights and wouldn't ride in the dark. So we called it a day. His wife was pacing us and we kept stopping to meet her every 12 to 15 miles. Actual ride time was 8 hrs and 15 mins. We stopped way too much in my opinion, but alot of it was silly stuff. The lenses in his glasses kept falling out. I got a flat several times.

My goal was actually to do 200km, which would have been Bills Place at Mile Mark 140.8. But like I said, he wouldn't ride in the dark. He's done the entire C&O Trail before over a 3 day period.

I'd love to try and do it in 2 days. Maybe next year.

Has anyone ever tried to do it in one day? Or in two days even? In less than 2 days?

What was the condition of the trail like? In good shape? Any new detours?

PBW

D*Alex

I have my fixie set up for "canal riding" too-with 32mm tyres, rear fender, and a 54-16 gearing. I'm a bit of a masher, and I don't carry loads on it.

riderx

I have heard the record for the whole canal was around the 12 hour mark. Haven't confirmed that yet though.

My original plan was to do it in 2 days, but there were a number of people who had expressed interest that I felt probably couldn't do it in that time frame. Plus, with the short days I felt it would be a race from dusk until dawn and I wanted time to be able to shoot some pictures. We kept a strong pace the whole time, but it was because we wanted to, not because we had to. In the end, the people who went probably would have been capable of doing it in 2 days. As it turns out, 3 days worked pretty good as one of our crew was plagued by rear wheel problems (breaking spokes) which required quite a few repair stops.

The trail was generally in good shape. The only detour was the one at Dam#4. We opted to portage our bikes through the rock sections of Great Falls instead of taking the detour there. Some spots of the trail were pretty muddy on the 3rd day and they were also doing some repair work where they were restoring the surface. That section was like riding through sand with someone holding onto your seat. Surface wasn't yet packed.

Djudd

I want to do the canal from DC in March and then continue to Pittsburgh on the ATA trail from Cumberland. I hope to do it on a fixed/free. I am not a big camper-guy so I'm looking to hunt down accomodations on the way, but I'll carry camping gear just in case.
Congratulations your trip sounds very succesful...gives me inspiration.

Richard D

Congratulations, it looks like a great ride.

Richard

riderx

Check out the Red Rooster Hostel (https://www.redroosterhostel.com/) in Paw Paw, WV - it's right off the canal. JD is the guy who runs it, he provided our shuttle ride to the drop off point. He's a good guy, will go out of your way to help you and give you info. He could probably tell you other spots to get accomodations along the way. If you talk to him, tell him I sent you.

jrafter

The C&O is a great path that i rode most of the summer but not all of it just parts here and there.maybe a group from this forum should get together and ride it......would like to see more of your pics from your trip.

riderx

You can see a few more of my pictures and some different words about the trip over here. Also, one of the other riders has posted a bunch of his pictures at this link.

I'll get some more pictures posted when I scale them down to a reasonable size for posting. Thanks for reading.

Barnaby

I envy your trip. Just a question: What is the differnce between fixed gear and single speed, and what do you see as the advantages of a fixed gear road bike over derailleur set-ups?

MichaelW

I met a yank in Ireland touring on a Bianchi Pista fixie. He was using the tour as training for a race. The hills may be short, but some of them are quite steep.

On singlespeeds , you have a frewheel, so you can stop pedalling and roll. On a fixie, when the wheel turns, so do the cranks.
Fixed wheels are very simple, with little to go wrong, hence their favour with couriers, city commuters, winter roadies and flatland MTBers, but they are tough going in hillier terrain.
When your deraillieur gets mashed up, you can turn a standard tourer into a singlespeed. Horizontal dropouts and a chaintool really help here. If your freehub breaks, you can turn your bike into a kind of fixie with bits of wire connecting the large rear cog to the spokes.

riderx

MichaelW sums it up pretty well: an SS can coast, a fixed gear can't. Which means you get to pedal every single inch of mileage that you rack up. The drivetrain is as simple as it can be on a bicycle, so there is less to go wrong on a fixed gear. Another advantage is it forces you to pedal in circles instead of squares, very good at smoothing out your technique.

Alexey

I cycled C & O Canal and Great Allegheny Passage from Washington D.C. to Pittsburgh, PA, and back.

More correctly we cycled from International Airport Dulles to Washington D.C. on W & O Trail, and only then we got on C & O Canal Towpath.

The odometers showed more than 1500 km when we finished the ride in IAD. Here is the report about this tour with photos.

Bikes and equipment we brought with us from Ukraine as checked-in baggage.

Barnaby

RiderX-I posted before on this thread. I had an old racing book that recommended fixed-gear training prior to racing. Until your thread, that sent me to the Sheldon Brown site, I never really considered it. I thought it must be a relic from the past. Now, my appetite is wetted by the idea. I have an old Concorde racing bike with tight geometry and a 6 speed freewheel that I now want to convert. Do you use the flip-flop hub or track hub? I guess this convert. requires a brand new wheel or a new spoke lacing for the same rim and new hub-am I correct? On your trip of 197 miles over 3 days with about 50 lbs. of weight, was the surface road or trail? How was the gearing (42/17)? I am considering a competitive run next summer that is out and back. The back is quite hard uphill, the out of course is fast-most hit 74 kmph for afew miles non-stop. What would you recommend for the cog, and lastly how hard is it to change cogs in this arrangement? If you have time to respond, I would appreciate it. Thanks again.

riderx

Barnaby -

I use a cheap flip-flop track hub that I got as a prebuilt wheel from Sheldon Brown. You should be able to use your old freewheel hub, the threads for a track cog are the same. What you don't get is a reverse threaded lockring. However, you can use an old bottom bracket lockring along with some Locktite to give you some insurance. I run a set up like this on my one side of my single speed mountain bike hub. Check Sheldon's site for a bit more info on this. You may also have to redish your wheel.

The surface on the Canal trip was clay and crushed gravel. Roots and rocks were present a lot and the surface was generally rough. Running 700x35 tires pumped up around 80-85 psi with a 50# load allowed you to feel every pimple in the trail, especially at the speeds we were traveling which were generally around 15 mph and up. The gearing was perfect IMO for the conditions and load.

Thoughts on gearing: First, a lot of this depends on fitness. I primarily ride a single speed mountain bike on very steep terrain and I tend to be a masher, so my fitness level is pretty good. The 42x17 is what I normally run on my fixed gear on a day-to-day basis. I can spin along at a nice smooth cadance on the flats and grind up the steepest of hills - one around here is a 17%+ grade. Downhills have your legs spinning like egg beaters. Changing cogs is easy. If you have a flip-flog and have only a couple of tooth difference between sides, all you do is flip the wheel - remember, no rear brakes to readjust the pads, you just have to worry about being within the chainlength unless you want to add or remove links.

I would suggest trying a few gear combos on your current bike to find where you might like to be before you buy your ring and cog. Picking your gear is a compromise determined largely by the type of terrain you plan on riding. If you had two chainrings and two cogs available to switch up with, you could have a good number of options.

Hope that helped. Good luck and let's see a picture of that bike when you get done.

Barnaby

Thank you RiderX for the time for doing this. I am on the lookout now for a track real wheel or hub and will start from scratch. I was thinking that chain tension would be one of the most important things after conversion and thought that you would want only one chainring, with a removed front deraillieur. I thought I woud follow Sheldon Brown's advice on the purchase of shorter stack bolts to accomplish this. But if there is not problem running the 42/53 rings that I have now, I will leave it alone. You mention buying a new ring-would I still have to do this for some reason? Thanks again for the trouble.

riderx

I would personally only run one ring, you could just have more than one for those occasions when you would like to use a different gear. Sheldon has some bikes set up with more than one ring and I've heard of people setting up there bikes with two rings and a flip/flop that would allow different gears but use the same chain length - for instance 46x13 and 42x17.

You can use your existing chainrings, but it is always best to use rings that weren't made to shift. Rocket rings are cheap (Sheldon should have these and Danscomp.com should too) and are drilled for two different bolt pattern cranks on one ring.

BTW, chain tension is extremely important and you do not want to use any type of derailluer or tensioning device on a fixed gear.

Barnaby

RiderX-I think I see the two ring thing since 46/13 and 42/17 both add up to 59 total teeth for chain length. I guess if you had a flip-flop or double fixed hub, you would have to be within 2 teeth using only one ring, othewise the drop-outs would not handle the slack. I'm guessing here! Mention is made that you remove the back brake, do you then sort of mash backwards the way we used to do when we were kids to stop with the pedals? Are you able to modulate the brakes this way?

riderx

You are absolutely right about both the total number of teeth and the approximate amount of play being a 2 tooth difference.

About braking: many fixed riders don't run any brakes at all, you simply slow your pedaling or lock your legs up, similar to a coaster brakes action. I run a front brake for emergencies only - If I drop my chain (never happened yet) I can still stop or if some idiot pulls out in front of me in their car. Otherwise, I really don't use it.

Barnaby

Thanks again RiderX

Just two more concerns, and I will not bother you on this thread!

1-I have a tight geometry steel racer, and a Miyata 1000 Tourer, with more relaxed angles. Which would you be more inclined to convert to a fixed gear bike?

2-Going downhill at 74 kmph. How do you do this? I figure that the cadence must be around 200 rpm. What happens if your legs can't keep it up?