Thank you Zach, associate ed. SS/FG!

And March 30, 2003??? Doh! (yet another nice edit)

sorry I am not so good with my english as you see when your from the back woods its hard to learn how to talk straight in the back woods of georgia sorry mister gee you really put me in my place darn I am going to have to really reevaluate my life and social standinds as I am not really part of this society now am I after all most of our business is done in english and spanish and hmong and cantonese and arabic and a plethera of other languages here in california but please please help me learn proper english and grammar skills I am sure you could enlighten me as it is your aim in life to bring it to my attention....

Dude, I ran that **** through Babelfish and it still don't make a lick o' sense.

Gee, mister - I have a friend from the backwoods of Georgia who works in biotech and writes like leo ****ing tolstoy. You probably should reevaluate your social standards.

Punctuation also helps...

My most recent bike was born during the peak of my brokeness this summer. i live in brooklyn and my old bike had gotten stolen and whilst hanging out on my friends roof i found an old road frame just chillin up on the roof. I was really surprised, it was a 1987 dawes eschelon and it weighed almost nothing. A few days later i went to the lbs and appraised new parts to put on the frame. in choosing to make it a single speed, i saved probably a hundred fifty dollars off the bat. From my experience, i've had to replace dereillers a few times due to my riding style (kinda jenky and reckless) and didn't want to have to deal with dereillers, and the added weight from both dereillers, extra gears, larger gear cog, etc. At that point, my bike weighed probably 5-6 pounds and a few months ago i converted it to fixie, simplifying it greatly, getting rid of the brake calipers, levers, etc. I would say the appeal of fixie/ss is the absolute simplicity you get from it. No brake maintenance, dereiller adjustment, puting chain back on when it falls off the crank. so yeah. SIMPLICITY

being from the middle of nowhere is no excuse for not knowing your own language. maybe it's the years of inbreeding or something, but for real dude, go take an english class

The irony of your post amuses me. Especially since you dragged up a thread more than three years old.

It's a different ride than a multi-geared bike and you approach the ride differently. I have several geared bikes but got a Schwinn Cutter SS for Christmas. I have more fun riding that than the geared bikes. Short rides are more challenging, having to more actively gage the terrain. Also it gets my butt up out of the seat on the steeper hills. In a sense it's kind of like the difference between driving a 4WD truck in the mud, and driving a sports car on a track. Both are fun activities. Both require driving skills, but they require different driving skills. SS is kind of like that.

Riding my 1st single speed in over 30 years has made me a much stronger rider. And beyond a simple increase in muscle strength, I've become a better rider. You are forced to develop a wider useful RPM range and better climbing technique.

But none of this is "Why" I got back into riding SS. My 1st vintage British road bike was a '76 Raleigh Super Course with plain gauge Reynolds 531 main tubes and 2030 forks and stays. Since then I've added 5 much nicer vintage road bikes with butted 531 tubes, forks and stays. I wasn't riding it any more so logically I should get rid of it. But it's just such a fine looking and handling bike I couldn't part with it.

So I decided to turn it into something that would give me a type riding experience none of my other bikes did. With no braze ons or derailleur hanger and long horizontal dropouts it would be a perfect SS. The stiff frame I didn't like as a road bike is just... ...right... ...for... ...grunting... ...up... ...steep... ...hills. Because I have a large and diverse fleet of bikes, I expected I'd ride it only a few times a year, as a novelty. But it turns out I ride it more often than any other. Usually shorter rides, under 20 miles, but the 1st day on it as an SS I did 61 miles.

My SS is wonderful for when I'm riding alone, with slower riders on derailleur bikes or with other old farts (I'm 63) on their single speeds.

But when I've tried riding it with similarly fit riders on road bikes, I've had to work my ass off. Meanwhile they had to take it easy to avoid dropping me.

Zombie thread.