Is it possible to survive riding downstairs on a fixed gear bike? I do it all the time on my mountain bike, but I usually coast down them. I am a little scared to try it on my fixed gear.

i've done it down small sets of stairs. no more than 8. i suppose if you can post, you can manage most sets.

On a road or track bike??? Almost all the parts would be destroyed pretty fast if you weigh more than 80 pounds. Wheels first, but probably the frame and even stem etc. Even more so if you crash, which you probably would. Not designed for that sort of thing. On a fixed BMX I guess it would not be all that difficult...

I have a Surly Karate Monkey that I have built as a fixied gear. Should hold together. I just have a hard time imagining pedaling down the stairs.

If you have short cranks, brakes, and fat tires, riding stairs isn't that bad. The main things you have to worry about are pedal strike regulating your speed. My commuter bike is set up with 37mm tires and a front brake and I have no qualms about taking a staircase or two. I would not do it on my track bike though. Your karate monkey should have no problem.

It depends on how steep the stairs are. On shallow stairs, you shoud be OK. On steeper stairs, pedal strike is a good possibility. Try walking the bike down the stairs first and see what happens.
Or, you can find some other way to kill yourself.
Just kidding. Be careful.

I've gone down a 6-step staircase on my Miyata fixed conversion. Even though it had a fairly low BB, it had 165mm cranks so I didn't encounter any pedal strike.

I'm a big guy, and BOMB stairs. throw a police metal gate down to ride up a set, and just ride down anything you see. 10 set, no sweat. you can roll your bike through once to make sure you don't get massive pedal strike. that's why sf rides deep v's. sometimes we forget were not on a bmx.

It's not as hard as it seems, and I doubt it's much worse for your wheels/bike that big potholes. I've done it a bunch of times, no problems what so ever. just watch out that your pedals can clear the edges. Just keep your arms & legs like noodles and let the stairs do the work. make sure you're going straight down them the first couple of times, before you try to take them at angles.

PS. It's impossibly easy to do on a MTB/BMX. It's easy to do it on fixed.

Respect to teadogg etc. BTW, it's being not much worse than a big pothole isn't too reassuring. Just do a search for "pothole tacoed wheel" in the roadie or mechanics forum

haha, I guess this is true. but as other have mentioned, one shouldn't ride like that if they haven't the proper equipment. My deep-v's hold up quite fine, I bought them for the very reason of not having to worry about potholes.

MKORP.... Can we uh. have some uh. video footage of this puhlease....

I've gone down some stairs and you definatley have to watch out for pedal strike. Most stairs I can ride down but once I tried on a steep set of stairs and my pedal hit the first stair and then my back wheel was airborn the rest of the way down, luckaly I didn't fall and the set was on 4 or 5 steps long.

pinch flat??

Depends on your fork clearance. If youve got about 5mm like me, the fork flexs on descents and drops and tyre rubs on main tube which effectively locks up the front and 'wahhheeey' over you go.

Otherwise its a cinch.

all things being said, i've bunnyhopped down a 5 stair set on my SS crosscheck, (but i did have a freewheel at the time)

awesome idea

https://michaelmartin.com/blog/photos/track_video.html

you don't wanna see me ride, i'm old. look at my friends..

thats how i dislocated my shoulder...

I've done stairs fixed, pay attention and stay loose though, you'll look a fool if you fail