I wish lisitsa would come back to defend that bull****, but I doubt we'll see him again.

yeah i think to call fixed gear riders stronger is not at all accurate. no one admits to falling under this category, but there are a lot of fixie riders who are hipsters: ride around campus and do short errands. while they might be better at running red lights they arent stronger riders- i am tired of this greater than thou attitude

Raise your hand if you like to ride bicycles of all kinds

*raises hand*

I became a stronger rider when I started riding fixed gear. Although, that also could have been because I started riding a lot more about that time.

My credo has always been "when you can't coast, you don't coast, and when you don't coast, you go faster."

What riding fixed does for me is this. When I'm going along and I hit some headwind, or a grade, on a geared bike I just change gears and slow down. But on a fixed gear, I just have to deal. So I learn to focus on the engine a lot more. Concentrate on my spin, my breathing, and relax every muscle I'm not using to power the bike.

That may not make me a stronger rider, but it makes me a better rider.

What is a roadie? Someone on a bicycle wearing a roadie outfit. Or at least that's all you can go off of when you see some random stranger on a biike.

Now, suppose you've never seen a bicycle, and decide to take up bicycling. So you come on some internet forum and ask "What should I use?" And folks will tell you to get a road bike and buy some roadie clothes. In other words, if you spend the money to take up bicycling "right", you'll look like a roadie.

I pass "roadies" all the time on my cruiser bike. What that means is I pass people riding road-type bicycles wearing bicycling-specific clothes. It doesn't mean they know a thing about cycling, or have ever ridden a bike before. It's just pretty meaningless to make assumptions about their intention from the appearance. It's like driving on a highway and assuming everyone in a Corvette must be a Race Car Driver. Not quite.

My hand is up. I have a particular affinity for Jgarcias lowrider and trips to the local corner market. Gets all dem ladies, last time, between us we basically got 9 girlfriends.

Word.

Weekend messenger??? Funny, all the messengers I know work monday through Friday. ;)

Fixed gear has made me not fear spinning. When I ride my road bike I love the option of being able to gear down for this purpose. Spinning a high cadence instead of mashing feels so much more efficient, it's ridiculous.

Carbonjockey, there are really only three kinds of people who ride fixed gear. The first are track cyclists, obviously. The second are roadies who train on the fixed gear and do centuries on the weekend. The last group of people use their fixie for everything, commuting to bike polo (what you call the hipsters). The roadies typically don't commute, and the track cyclists are such a minority it's useless making a generalization.

Personally, I respect commuting the most out of any form of cycling, I think sports in general are pretty frivolous (though often fun). Why turn away young people from commuting who simply want a bike that's cooler and more fun than a hybrid or cruiser?

Yeah I totally feel the same relationship between my fixed and road bikes in terms of maintaining cadence and/or speed.

Because of my fixed gear riding, I tend to downshift less on my road bike and get out of the saddle and push over low rolling sections, or even short-distance hills. The feeling of coasting seems weird to me in all situations but stopping and spinning out on decents; The fixed exp. makes me want to pedal all the time and even soft pedal in packs/groups. Riding fixed helps me alot.

But on big hills I do the opposite; Start from the lower gears and spin my way up until I get an endorphin release. Then you start to kick ass, upshift a little and look forward to the next really steep section.

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Anyways why ride a roadbike and do roadie stuff newayz?
'Cause you can do things that you wouldn't be able to do on a fixed gear.
But,
The converse is true as well.
Ride both!

Hahahahahahaha