Sixty Fiver

This is a comfortable bike...

EatMyA**

Sixty fiver is that a mountain bike? It looks sweet man! Fenders and racks too. Thats what you need in the street! I have a fg mountain bike too. I think they are more confortable.

I dont do long rides just started doing 100k rides on the weekends. To my credit I do them on a fixed gear schwinn varsity with the one piece "ashtabula" crancks, a foot of bar drop, 27x1-1/4 tires and wheels, and steel rims.

Jerseysbest

Buddy and I just did 240 miles over two days. He rode fixed, I rode geared.

Sixty Fiver

It is a 1987 Kuwahara Cascade and really was designed more as an expedition bike than a mountain bike.

It has Ishiwata quad butted tubes, very slack frame angles, a long wheelbase, braze ons for multiple bottles and a seat pump, and even has a spoke holder for the rear stay.

I also have a Shasta that I converted to fixed that I ride in the winter and bomb around town on but it could handle some distances as well and has tires better suited for riding the trails. My Cascade was set up like this before I decided to make it a full on touring bike.



My favourite long distance bike, (and perhaps my all time favourite bike) is my 1955 Raleigh Lenton fixed gear... we have done many metrics and full centuries together in perfect comfort.

EatMyA**

You have some nice bikes man. I have seen more of your builds and they look like they are great for urban riding. I think most people that commute or that ride on the roads with traffic alot, would benefit from a set up like yours than what most road bikes, track bikes, hybrids and mountain bikes offer.

Thanks for sharing.

edit: holy crap the cascade is lugged too.

Sixty Fiver

I usually build up my urban bikes the same way I would build up a touring bike as the requirements are very similar... I used to ride as many as 100 km a day without even leaving the city so needed bikes that could handle that.

Conversely... if I wanted to load up the Cascade and ride 1000 km I would be good to go.

I believe 88 was the last year Kuwahara made these gorgeous lugged frames.

BENNOCKSIT

I just did 55 today and I thought that was a lot. I couldn't imagine riding a century or double.

fuzz2050

That bike is gorgeous, and awesome, but do me one small favour

please get that rack level, it's the one thing that's off about that bike.

Sixty Fiver

It is a hard bike to fit a rack to as the wheels are 26 by 1 1/4 and the horizontal distance from the seat stay to the rear mounts does not accommodate a rack designed for a 700c wheel / frame and the 26 inch rack needs an extension as it touched the fender.

I am fabricating a new rack (it has to look period correct) and have a really nice vintage bag with some modern fittings that should be going on shortly.

artesc

Out of curiosity, OP, how long does it take you to finish the 750 mile rides? (I thought I was reading it wrong at first....wow).

And yes, you should definitely shorten your stem a touch; I am a bit stretched out on my bike and it gets quickly uncomfortable after about 75 miles or so; a shorter reach would make thing easier, but I don't often ride long (relative of course) distances in one shot, so I haven't gotten around to it.

The Octopus 

I've done three 1200Ks, all on geared bikes. Times were 63:24, 79:10, and 87:15. The clock runs the whole time. The first route I was trying to ride fast, and it was easy -- it only had 18,000 feet of climbing on it and the weather was good. The second I was taking it easy, it was a tougher route, and it rained pretty much the whole time. The third was very difficult (somewhere around 50,000 feet of climbing), it was blazing hot, and I was taking it easy. I had between 9 and 15 hours of sleep on each of these rides. More on this kind of riding here.

I'll try wider tires before messing with the bars. I don't think the bars themselves create road chatter so much as tranismit it. And I'll see how the position is as I increase the ride length -- I'm riding 200K tomorrow on the fixie on a hillier route. More data collection!

digthemlows

Me and a friend are doing the AIDS Lifecycle in 2 weeks... 545 miles (San Francisco to Los Angeles) in 6 days on fixed gear conversions. It'll be fun....

TRAUMAhead

What route?

Mazaev

Well, ended up doing the 150 to Montauk on the TK2 Sunday running 48x16. Averaged 17.7mph. Was promised a nice tailwind, but ended up with rain most of the way and riding into a nasty headwind.

Had to make a small saddle adjustment and felt good until mile 125 or so... then started feeling the knees. Popped a couple of advils along the way. Finished feeling pretty good except for some knee soreness.

Came out to do some laps in the park just now, but half a lap into it ended up with some pretty bad knee pain at the top of the knee cap and hightailed it back home to throw some ice on it. Any of you guys have experience in dealing with this?

gottliver

Hey Mazaev, it was cool seeing you on the ride! I had knee pain as well. Posted about it, thread topic is well..knee pain!

I lowered my seat before my ride on saturday, only 21 miles, but i was hungover so it seemed like a lot more! knee pain was significantly reduced. Im theorizing that with all the uphill grinds and dh spinning, as well as all the seated locked in pedaling, a slightly lower seat height will ease the pressure on all the joints. Adds some "wiggle room". I only lowered it about 2mm.

Going for a ride now curious to see how it feels.

Mark

martinus

So, you're the one ...

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gottliver

ride two w/lowered seatpost...only had time for a 20 miler, but no knee pain!

The Octopus 

Update: Have since done 2, 200K (125-mile) rides on the bike with no changes to it. The first was pretty flat (2700 feet of climbing); the second wasn't (9700 feet of climbing).

Here are a few observations from the limited data:

• A lot of the discomfort in the butt disappeared on the hillier ride. Just getting up out of the saddle put an end to the rear-end problems.
• Thank god for two brakes. You've got to be certifiable to run only one on a hilly route. Braking on the down-hills is a ton of work and alternating hands is key. Any thought about minimizing clutter or weight or preserving some kind of track aesthetic is out the window when you're coming down a hill on which you've previously hit 45mph on a CX bike running 32mm tires. (If this doesn't sound like work to you, go do it for 10 hours and check back in with me about how you feel!)
• Braking that much takes a toll on your upper body, not just your hands. Much moreso than on a geared bike. If you're going 30mph but your bike (and you're body!) want to go 45mph, all that potential energy has to go somewhere.
• You can get up some crazy-steep s*** if you're determined enough. I walked nothing, but had to tack on one nasty hill.
• You climb a lot faster on the FG than on a geared bike, all things being equal. Keeping that cadence up is key.
• Similarly, you don't spend as much time jacking around on the FG bike. No lollygagging after a climb or putzing around. My rides felt much more "efficient" than on a geared bike.
• You pay a lot more attention to the terrain on the FG bike than on a geared bike. You're "reading" the terrain to anticipate where you'll need to stand or brake or where you might comfortably grab a drink or a snack. Hills that before looked like they were one pitch now reveal themselves to have little benches where you might grab a stroke's-worth of rest or steeper spots where you've got to really focus on making sure that top crank arm gets around to six o'clock.
• Riding distance on a FG bike can be solitary. On a hillier route it would be difficult to stay with others. You'd climb faster than many and descend slower than all.

400K (250 miles) this Saturday -- doubling the longest distance to date and keeping the bike set up the same. This route has something like 16K of climbing on it, including one hill that I'm certain I'll have to walk. We'll see how it goes. More data to follow!

CliftonGK1

I did a loop century with ~6000' of gain. You bet I was thankful for having both brakes to alternate on during a couple of hills: 9% downhill for 0.5mi, and 7% downhill for 1.75mi would have killed me with just a single brake and backpressure.

Not only is the braking taking a toll, but the climbing too. You may not notice it, but climbing those steep hills means you're pulling on the bars a lot more than if you had a granny gear to spin out going up those monster steep climbs.

The Octopus 

Completed a 400K (254 miles) on Saturday on the fixie. It took 20:15 from start to finish and included 15,100 of climbing. I didn't have to walk anything. Everything feels great today -- no knee pain at all. Some leg soreness, but no more than had I ridden the event on a geared bike.

In addition to the challenge of doubling my longest distance on a fixed gear bike, this ride added the challenge of trying to ride with others in hilly terrain. I found it to be a real challenge in the big hills -- I'd just play leap-frog with the guys on geared bikes, passing them on the climbs and getting passed on the descents. In moderate terrain it was easy to keep a common pace. Similarly, the flats were no problem except when the group wanted to whip it a bit and I wished I had a taller gear to keep the pace with less effort.

So that's over 1,000 miles on the fixie in the first month I've ever ridden a fixed-gear bike. (This is deep in the don't-try-this-at-home category.) The biggest take-away from all that is how much fun it is riding the fixie. It's tough to explain; I just feel more "connected" to the bike and the road and the terrain around me. Physically it's not all that much different than riding a bike with gears. (If there were much of a difference, there's no way I could go from never, ever, having ridden a fixed-gear bike to doing this kind of volume in 30 days.) Once you teach yourself to think about starting and stopping differently, and you stop reaching for the shifters, then it's all the same. My take on the knee-pain thing is that folks who suffer from it either have fit issues or are using their legs to slow the bike or are not smooth or in control on the descents. The impact on the parts that touch the bike (feet, butt, hands) is much more severe than on a geared bike. But, ironically, on a hilly course you spend more time out of the saddle than you would on a geared bike so that impact is felt more on the "easier," flatter routes than on the ones that involve a lot of climbing.

The next big fixed long-distance project will be a big one later this month. Stay tuned for details.

The Octopus 

Ultra-long distance fixie riding update:

Completed a 600K (375-mile) event on the IRO Jamie Roy, still sticking with the 49x18 gearing. The route had over 23,000 feet of climbing on it, and I finished in just under 35 hours. And then this past weekend, I rode 307 miles at the National 24-Hour Challenge. Same gearing. That was a mistake. The course was too flat and I ended up dropped from the fast groups and was time-trialing for most of the ride. I was aiming for 400 miles and called it a day with 4:45 left on the clock when I realized that getting 400 miles wasn't meant to be. Still, 307 miles in just over 19 hours on a fixed gear is not too shabby!

Anyway, anyone interested in putting some real miles on your fixed-gear bikes, know that it can be done even by mere mortals riding bikes that weren't designed for that kind of use.

JaredG

Fixed geared bikes were a part of the original Tour De France, so I'd disagree and say they were designed for this kind of use, but technology did advance, so there are better options.

Congrats on the ride, I'm still working up to a century ride fixed, with several 50 and 60+ mile rides already under my belt.

The Octopus 

Oops. My bad. What I intended was that the IRO and a lot of the other fixed-gear and SS bikes that people are riding today were probably not designed with long-distance riding in mind; the folks who design and build (and buy) those bikes are probably doing so with the intent that they be used in urban settings over relatively short distances. Totally agree that FG (and certainly SS) are viable options for road riding, (some) racing, and even long-distance riding.

The Octopus 

Closing this thread out, I can report success on the Gold Rush Randonnee on the IRO. That's 750 miles in 78:46 on one cog (I stayed with the 49x18 for the whole ride), including about a dozen big alpine climbs. I had to walk two short pitches of the Janesville Grade but otherwise made it up (and down!) everything on the ride on the bike.

There were two other guys riding the cog, one from the U.K. and another from Australia and both of them also finished. I rode nearly the whole ride with the fellow from the UK (who was running 48x18) and we rode into the finish together, becoming the first-ever riders to complete that event on a fixed gear.

So, folks, get out there and push youself to do some new, crazy stuff on your fixies. If a guy who first rode a fixie on May 1, 2009 can turn in this kind of ride, then just about anything is possible. Get out and ride!

dsh

Wow, that is really awesome The Octopus. Admirable! I've been wanting to do the DC->Pittsburgh ride for a while now, and the thought had entered my mind to try it on my fixed gear. This should serve as a little more motivation to stop thinking about doing it and do it.

Keep the stories coming.