ok i know this has been brought up before and someone'll say "try the search feature" (but ya know what? virtually EVERYTHING has been discussed before, so i'm bringin' up the subject again ), but what's ya'll's opinion regarding 'training effect' of fixed vs. freewheel? say you're ridin' for an hour or two at a pretty good pace--is there a kind of rule of thumb about say an hour or two on fixed is roughly equal to maybe more time on a freewheel bike?

in other words, are you getting an appreciably better workout for the equivalent amount of time riding?

thanks.

Yes.

as always, it is going to depend on what you're going for. my understanding is that most road people who train on fixed do so because of the effect that it has on smoothing out your cadence/spin.

as for a time:calories burnt comparison, i am not sure that the answer is super easy. i am inclined, by instinct, to say that you would burn more on a fixed setup, but this might be wrong. if arguments to the effect that fixed riding is more efficient than freewheel riding are true, then you will have to work less and will burn fewer calories.

the "crank inertia" matter that is often used to argue that fixed is more efficient than free, if true, would suggest that you have to work less, which would lower the ratio (of time to calories burnt). again, if true, this is a very good thing for all other applications, but it will mean that you get less of a "work out" per unit of time.

just for the record, i remain agnostic as to whether fixed is indeed more efficient than free.

interesting. . .shants may be the guru of all things fixed!

we know fixed is a hell of a lot more fun at any rate. that's what counts in da long run--how much fun ya had! i'd go so far as to say, i'd probably not ride at all if all i had available was a geared bike. jus' sayin'. weird.

Keep in mind that lower gear ratios wil make you spin more, wich would make you burn more calories.

Variety is the best workout.

you can't say fixed is a better workout, just the same as you can't say that spinning classes are better or worse than road workouts. you can be lazy on a fix, you can be lazy with gears, that's not what matters.

what matters is that you're working hard enough. fix is good for aerobic workouts, since it forces you to keep spinning, but you need to have a heavy enough gear and a fast enough cadence to keep your heart rate up. fix can also be good for hills/strength, but then you have to have a really heavy gear or some good hills to make it work.

bottom line: you can get a good workout on any bike if you're trying.

It seems to me, admittedly without empirical information, that it would be entirely dependent on your approach. If you were to keep an evenly steady cadence on one gear on a bike with a freewheel then I imagine that the difference would be negligible. I think that where fixed really shines for a workout is that it takes away the option for laziness. Feeling a little worn out and a hill's coming up? Too bad. No lower gear for you. Just sprinted until your heart's about to burst? Sorry, we're fresh out of coasting. Catch your breath when you get home. Plus, the sheer fun of it will keep you on your bike longer and more often. All in all I would say that yes, fixed does provide a better workout, but not necessarily for the reasons that you might think.

When training on a geard bike, you are supposed to look for your "sweet spot" where you are right on the dividing line between aerobic and anaerobic excercize. Shifters and effort modulation are supposed to keep you there.

On a fix, you have to mash crazy up hills, and spin wildly down them. Thus, I would imagine that riding a fix is similar to a workout where you lift your maximum weight for a few reps, jog a bit, then sprint, then lift your max weight again. Not sure how good this would be for training.

For a given time/speed/distance, I beleive that when crunched for time, the fixed is a better workout. The effort is more constant, hills are harder, and the continual moving of the legs gives a bit more calorie burn.

I've ridden the same loops both fixed and geared while at the same time looking at the average speed for each loop. If the average is the same, I have always felt more spent if the ride is on the fixed.

So, given a short amount of time to ride, I will reach for the fixed.

it seems like a lot of the comments here are talking about fixed vs. geared. the answer to that obviously depends entirely on approach and technique. the question here has to do with fixed vs. freewheel -- a question that, if i understand it correctly, assumes all other variables to be equal.

I think it's safe to assume that freewheel means geared. If not, I still stand by my post.

because the person specified "freewheel" instead of "geared" and, moreover, because this is the singlespeed and fixed forum where people use freewheel setups with only one gear option, i hardly think that it is a safe assumption.

in any case, if a person has even a modicum of intelligence, they will realize that the question "is fixed a better workout than geared" is totally meaningless without specifying exactly how a given rider utilizes their gearing options.

a question that is actually somewhat interesting (and is able to be reasonably parameterized) is whether there is something about fixed qua fixed that makes it better or worse for working out than free. of course, you still have to decide what in particular you mean by "better workout" -- more calories burnt, more muscle building, perfecting certain techniques, etc -- but once that is done, you actually have a meaningful empirical inquiry.

freewheel can mean singlespeed.

So basically, those with fixed/free wheels should set them up to the same sized cog and just measure.

i just had what alcoholics refer to as "a moment of clarity"--you're right. the question assumed no gears. and it's obvious that if cadence, course, speed, etc. remain the same the fixed requires more work. i don't know why i even asked the question. i knew the answer.

Using the SS vs. fixed, all other things being equal model that we are given, here are my two main ideas regarding efficiency:

Energy transfer. On a SS, the force from your leg goes chain->freewheel cog->some teensy parts within the freewheel->hub body. On a fix, it goes chain->cog->hub body. The SS has more steps of energy transfer, and thus greater quantity (however minute) of energy lost to entropy.

Flywheel effect, or "crank inertia": Assuming that this phenomenon is viable, it would seem that pedaling a fixed gear is even more efficient.

I haven't heard anything to suggest anything that makes fixed a better workout than free. If anything, all (theoretical) evidence points to the opposite. Also, snowshoeing across the beach while carrying a 50lb pack is a better workout than running. Don't mean it's better.

I regularly ride my fixed on my 30 mile Sat morning group rides (non-hammerfest) and am usually bonked by the end of the ride. On those times I've ridden my geared or singlespeed bike on this same exact ride, the ride almost seemed too easy. I think this is a fair comparison.

Based off data from my Polar 720i HRM, I've found that I burn more calories when out on a geared ride than when I'm on my fixed. I think this is due to the fact that my fixed-gear is at 72 gear/inches, which is necessary for hilly terrain like Cincinnati, but too easily lets me spin out and "cruise" when I'm on the flats. When I'm on a ride on my geared bike, I'm able to put a much harder effort in, as I'm able to avoid spinning out.

But, considering that I ride up hills and steep grades constantly, with average total climbing at around 2500 feet per ride, I put the hurt on "better" and am usually as tired as I would have been on a geared ride of an equal distance.

Your mileage may vary.

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, and it might be out of the scope of your question, but one can ride brakeless on a fixed gear but one cannot (as safely) on a SS (although I know some crazies that do). Intuitively, you're going to burn a lot more calories and exercise a greater variety of muscles by letting your legs do most of the stopping, as opposed to letting friction do the stopping.

I've both a fixed gear conversion with a front brake and a brakeless track bike. The conversion has a brake because it has a nasty tendancy to throw the chain. Recently I've been using the brake increasingly often because I'm afraid that bunny hopping or skidding will throw the chain. Each bike has similar gearing. Anedcotally, I feel more "burn" after working out on my brakeless fixie than on my braked fixie.

If one is strictly comparing a brake-equipped fixie with a SS, I'd think that the difference in efficiency would be negligible (assuming that one exclusively used the brakes for stopping/slowing the fixie).

i may have been unclear, but my (very tentative) claim is that, if fixed gear is indeed more efficient than free, then you will use more energy on the free bike per amount of time (or distance, whatever), assuming all other variables to be equal. what is easy and efficient for actual use is not necessarily superior for a workout. hell, you might even want to use the ****tiest bike you can find if you want strength training, etc. again, of course, much of this depends on what you want you want to get out of your "workout."

I was going to bring this up. I have a front brake on my fixed gear, at first I was using it a fair amount, especially if I was already tired from riding. Now that my muscles have built up, I use the brake a lot less, and I don't feel like it's that hard to resist/skid/skip, but it's definitely more work than hitting a brake lever.

But I think the "better workout" argument is lame anyway. I've had people comment that my bike is so light, but then say they don't mind that their bike is heavy because they could use the workout. Of course, then we ride and I have to go real slow for them. Are heavy bikes better work outs? Not if you're only going 10mph on them. Push yourself if you want a better workout, a bike is only a tool.

what constitutes a good workout, in your book? i'd say yes, but i'm not quite sure what i'd be saying yes to.

I hate to burst everybody's bubble, but fixed gear bikes are not the end-all-be-all for workouts. USA cycling has done some tests on this. They found that track riders have the most inefficient pedal stroke - they only tend to pedal on the down stroke; this is becuase the rear wheel keeps turning the pedals over for you. So the conventional wisdom on fixed gear =s smooth pedal stroke isn't actually the truly revealed gospel, just a well known heresy.

On the plus side, riding fixed was found to develop leg speed, which is an overall component of your efficiency. If you can pedal faster under certain circumstances, you are more efficient (up to a point). Also, they were found to have better strength. This presumably comes from riding on justonegear. You need strength to accelerate, instead of changing gears to accomodate a constant output.

My road/crit racing success went through the roof in 2005 when I spent about 100 miles a week commuting on a fixed gear. I live in country that has some sharp little rollers that aren't so long. I had to adapt to keep the gear going and keep my speed up when cresting those hills, and improve my leg speed on the other side.

So I conclude that fixed riding can give you a HIGH QUALITY workout, under proper circumstances. That is, you are rested enough to keep your gear turning, have the right size gear and so forth. But it is my firm belief that to develop a well rounded level of fitness you should spend some time on a geared bike as well. That way you can work things like longer hills, jamming at very high speed on the flats in bigger gears, sprinting (on a gear bigger than a daily fixed ~75 inches).

Certainly I appreciate the love that we all have for the fixed gear. It will always be first in our hearts. But it does have its drawbacks and limitations from a training standpoint, just as it has its strong-points.

My take on this is purely a result of personal experience. I don't think that on long rides where there is not much stopping and starting and you maintain a cadence of about 90-100 rpm, there is probably little difference. However, this does not explain why I quite obviously was in much better shape after I just started adding about 20 miles a week fixed. The only explaination I could come up with is the stopping and starting I do in traffic was more of a workout on my fixed gear than road bike. Instead of gearing down, I essentially had to do leg pressing to get back up to speed.