What Use for a Single Speed?
 

Hi,

So I used to have an endurance road bike and would enjoy riding my single speed bike if I wanted to do a fast ride for an hour. My Endurance bike weighed 23 pounds and my single speed steel bike (a Motobecane Track) weighed in at 18.5 pounds. But I gifted the endurance bike to a kid.

I then built up my own steel bike from a frameset (Venturi Breezer) (see Breezer Bikes - Bike Archive | 2013 | Venturi) and it weights in at around 19 pounds.

Since it has an aggressive road geometry (the TT of mine is 57.5 vs a ST of 54) and is a steel bike I find I don't ride my motobecane track at all.

So for those of you who have race geometry road bikes, why/when do you ride your single speed bike?

Good question, I have a Venturi, and a Bianchi Pista myself, and I have an old sport touring bike ( a Zebra) I just converted from fixed to single speed. For longer rides and going fast, it's the Venturi. For quick exercise rides, it's the Pista. The Zebra, I think, will be for just casual rides around town, errands, with friends, & such. With it's longer geometry, plus carbon fork & seatpost I put on it, it's cushy, but it feels soft & flexy compared to the others.

Yeah, those Venturi's are fun to ride fast!

Why do you ride the Pista instead of the Venturi for quick exercise rides?

Unfortunately, I don't run many errands on my bike so I'm at a lost at what to do with the Motobecane Track. I built up my Venturi in January and haven't ridden my Track since then, not even once.

No disrespect to the Track, its an under-estimated bike, but I can't see its purpose right now.

I have a fixed gear Gunnar and I ride it on group rides when we are on the east side of Austin and sometime for riding around town. That bike has road bike geometry and is comfortable to ride for 50-60 miles. I haven't ridden it on a century since they usually end up with some hills. I might do that next.

I have a steel track bike and I don't ride it on the road. It is too harsh to ride on rough chip and seal roads for any meaningful distance. I'll go ride it on the track in Frisco, but not that often since it's a 3 hour drive each way.

I have a Bianchi Pista and a road bike. Not sure that the road bike is "aggressive" but it is a standard drop-bar geared road bike.

The Pista is used for fun and enjoyment, mostly rides <20 miles at lunchtime. I work from home and have a variety of 12, 15 and 17 mile routes that I can do from the house in an hour or so. I'll ride it maybe three days during the week and occasionally for rides up to 40 miles in the country on weekends or at night with lights.

The Pista is set up 48/16 fixed and I ride it to help with cadence and build strength - it is somewhat hilly where I ride. It has made me a better climber and I'm not as inclined (no pun intended) to coast through turns or downhill on my road bike as I was before I started riding fixed. It is a bit more of an intense workout - generally a bit higher average heart rate and more effort than the road bike for any given climb.

It's also cool. Ain't gonna lie. Everyone asks about it when they see it.

@Inpd, you mention single speed and not fixed. I would encourage you to try fixed if you are not doing it now. Riding fixed is different from a bike with a freewheel. The difference is difficult to describe. Physically the muscles don't have a chance to relax and are held in tension all the time. Psychologically, one doesn't ride a fixed gear bike as much as one cooperates with it.


-Tim-

For my riding uses & local terrain, single speed (vs. fixed or geared road bike) is neither fish nor fowl, and it remains to be seen how much I'll ride this particular setup. That was the point of my experiment, actually. Fixed, to me, is better for short exercise rides because of no coasting and working harder on hills. That's also the same reasons it's not the best choice for rides over 20+ miles.

I know far more roadies who wonder, if you have a nice road bike, why you'd even bother with a FG/SS. It just seems impractical, too hard, dangerous, bad for your knees, etc. There are the fixie loyalists you say "you only need one", and roadies who say "I don't need one".

My Track has a flip flop hub so I rode fixed and enjoyed the connection you had with the bike a lot. It's exactly as you describe. But I switched over to the free wheel side for convenience.

Perhaps I should try riding fixed again to see if that could be its place. Good suggestion!

I have lots of bikes...carbon, alloy, and steel. I usually choose my SS when I want something light with no frills to ride around the city (park in the garage I use for work...use the bike to get to different parts of the city for beer and whatnot), or I have to put it in the wife's car, or it's some big group ride consisting of a lot of not very fast riders for some kind of event. If it's the latter and flat, I'll likely choose my 3 speed though.

For those of who us came up in the Old School it was traditional for both road and track racers to put in winter base miles on a fixed gear, still do >40 years on.
Riding a FG on the road was a tool to develop a powerful supple high cadence pedaling technique with both spin and grunt on demand.

Oddly enough cycling is a pedaling sport, having an efficient pedaling style is more important than any hardware doo-dads. :eek:
That being said riding FG on the road isn't for everyone, it takes a serious commitment to technique, a properly set-up machine and seat time.

-Bandera

Ha!

Many guys are too young to remember the tradition of doing winter base miles on a fixed gear. I actually forgot about that.

Now everyone does winter miles on virtual reality island projected onto a 60 inch plasma screen in their living room.

I have a geared road bike that I ride occasionally. I spend the rest of my time on the bike riding fixed gear. I'm not sure what it is, but I enjoy my track bikes more than my geared road bike. That said, when I do take the geared bike out -- I can feel where riding a fixed gear bike pays off.