Pfft, the real weight savings are in water bottle cages:

https://www.zipp.com/OnlineStore/Acce...me,ProductName

what is trolling?

wait are you serious???!!! Why in the world are they against commuting?!

Commuting is supposedly "junk miles", or riding that does not increase your fitness if you are already fit. So, they drive to work. That's the mindset for ya, right there.

Re: Junk miles

I often treat my commute like a TT and given the right condiions have covered my 13 km urban commute in as little as 23 minutes... that gives me an average speed of 33 kmh over that distance. This ride normally takes me between 25 and 30 minutes in the summer as it's not every day you manage to hit every light and manage to avoid traffic snarls.

Commuting accounts for 12 of the 16 thousand kilometres I rode in 07 and during some of those other 4000 kilometres I was able to pull off a sub hour 35... on a fixed gear touring bike that has no carbon and very little else but steel in it's construction. It hits the curb at 32 pounds before I add a speck of gear.

I will be back on those roads next summer and will be looking to improve on that with a much lighter, albeit geared road bike and will also see what I can do on my fixed road bike... these are both significantly lighter than the touring bike and run taller gears.

I figure all those junk miles must have something to do with how I ride and I do put in as many miles as many good road cyclists and ride moire than most people I know.

But I'm still a Fred.

I don't drive and ride or was riding every day until I was sidelined with a back injury.

Pretty much mander said it. A lot of roadies don't consider it "real biking" and therefore don't do it. The only real rides are training rides and races. Bikesnob has satirized this notion a bit. I know an LBS owner who coaches the local university cycling team and raced back in the day who proudly tells everyone how he doesn't commute... haha.

Yup that's me. I know better than to race some of those guys. They're wearing lycra and training for race while I'm wearing a hoodie and going to the bar.

I have also known to be powered by booze and caffeine...

same here, but not on a fixed gear quite yet

Well its simple isn't it. The people that move up (yes up) to a fixed gear, are usually fit young guys who have had heaps of years experience with other bikes, and probably commute as well. In other words, really strong riders.

The people who ride road bikes are usually weekend cyclists who don't commute and not as young or as fit or a man. (cause admit it how many girls ride fixies). In other words, not as strong riders.

The other reason is that gearing and freewheel makes you lazy. Its like the old saying: Why stand when you can sit! Why struggle in a high gear, when you can coast or ride in an easy gear. Riding in a 48-16 or something makes you a strong rider for the simple fact that to maintain a decent crank rotation speed, you need to be going to 30 - 35 kilometers an hour, and a normal cyclist just doesn't keep it up that high.

lisita -

I started riding a fixed gear at 41 after gaining heaps of experience riding geared and ss bikes and finding that I wanted more. I would agree that the majority of fixed gear riders tend to be < 30 but most of these younger riders don't have that much experience with bikes... this is where age is an asset.

I live a car free life so the majority of my transportation is done with my bikes, usually fixed.

I have built nearly as many fixed gear bikes for women as I have men and many of these "girls" are as strong a riders as I have ever seen.

Most cyclists don't ride 30-35 kmh and I include fixed gear riders in that category... I have to spin my fixed road bike at 100 rpm (with 77 gear inches) to maintain that speed (and can) but most folks are not in that kind of shape to run that kind of gearing over any distance.

70 gear inches seems to be the average gearing for anyone who uses their bike for serious transportation although I rocked 81 gear inches for better than 4000 km and didn't really have any issues.

Many of the guys I ride with think I am an animal.

In reality, I just ride more than they do.

endurance

Nonsense. Fixed gears are popular, and half the people I see on them I am willing to bet have not been on a bike since they were kids. They are hardly uniformly strong riders.

I'm calling bull****, I know plenty of weaker fixed gear riders. Your description of fixed gear riders may have been accurate maybe in the mid-later 90's. Not now though.

You know....cat 1, cat 2, cat, 3, cat 4, and even pros ride road bikes. Also, I've never seen a girl on a fixed gear bike. It must be that their girly knees snap when they try leg-over skids.

Why ride in a more reasonable gear? Because it's faster, better on the knees, more efficient. Riding a 48-16 makes you tire out quickly. Maybe you can get away with that gearing on flats, once you hit even rolling hills, it's just a matter of time till you blow up.

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!