fixed gear for road/street use?
 

For you people that ride a fixed gear, do you only ride it on the track or do you use it on the road? I love the connection i get with a fixed, but it seems a bit dangerous to not have breaks. Do you get used to it? I live in a relatively flat area to i won't have to tackle hills that are too big. Am i better off getting a ss?

If you are riding on the street you SHOULD have a brake. Also Im unclear weather or not you know that you can put a brake on a fixed gear.

It is dangerous to ride without brakes on the street... this is why my fg road bike, fg touring bike, and fg mtb all have them.

Was out on my road bike this evening and I can't imagine having to do a brake less panic stop at 45kmh.

When I am on the touring bike and carrying a load of gear there is no way I am going to be able to un-weight the back wheel and on descents the momentum created rates brakes... two of them.

The mtb is the only bike that I would ride brakeless as it has such a low gearing.

I've been riding fixed for about 4 months. Until tonight, all my riding had been on the road. I always ride with a brake (except on the track, of course), partly for safety, partly because I just don't like using my legs to slow down all the time, and partly because I don't care about not being cool.

I've been riding for 2 years. I only put a brake on in the winter months.

When I used to mess in sf in the 90s i rode a brakeless track bike


Now that I'm older and wiser, I have a front brake, which I use whenever I want to stop.

i leave my front brake on but don't use it as much in the winter months. Front wheel skid on snow is scary.

Yeah, fixed =/= brakeless.

I have ~1500 miles on my track bike this year... lets just say most of that is street.
They brake comes off on track days.

I just took off my front brake on my bike. I live in Utah, and most of it is flats anyway, so not to many hills to worry about. I just ride around town, and I love it. You really have to be super observant though, and really focus on everything going on around you at all times.

just use a brake. if you feel comfortable going without, then you can decide to take it off. no biggie.

Exactly...I don't get why he'd use a brake for winter. It is quite useless, I've fell on my ass before from using my front brake and skidding on black ice. Scary ****.

I have a front brake, and wouldn't be comfortable riding without it. If you have to stop quickly, a rear wheel skid simply can't stop you as fast as a front brake can. (You should, of course, be careful on slick surfaces, where you wouldn't be going as fast, anyway.)

Once, commuting on a bike trail, I was riding around a blind corner too fast, and a student from the track team came around the other side in my lane. I braked as fast as I could while veering left, and he jumped to his right. I grazed him, but one of us would likely have been injured if I didn't have a brake. Now I take the road more often, and if I do come to a blind corner, I yell or ring my bell. Still, while prudence and foresight can avoid some dangerous situations, to count on prudence and foresight to be able to avoid all of them would be neither prudent nor foresightful.

behold, bikes with brakes

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...r-SS-FG-Photos!

If I didn't have a front brake on my fg, I probably would've been seriously mangled or dead a few days ago.. car in front of me slammed on brakes to avoid hitting something. We were probably going 20-25ish.. no way my legs alone would've stopped me fast enough before slamming into the back of it... plus i was riding too close for the speed we were going. :o

Almost all of my braking is front wheel in the winter.

The rear brake is pretty much useless imo.

It is all about having proper tires.

Funny, I almost never use my front brake for winter and I had Gatorskin, maybe it's not the proper winter tires.

http://www.dirtragmag.com/blogarific.../studtires.jpg

I couldn't imagine running anything other than gnar cyclocross or studded tires in the winter.

I might want to invest in a pair of cross tires, I ride a lot in the winter.

I would only use a brake if i lived in a hilly area or went mach 12 all the time.

This.

Use brakes; you'll be fine.

I ride with cross tires or tires with spikes and a lot of traction.

I feel I don't have as much power as I do while riding in the summer, so I use my front brake.

I would only install a brake if I needed or wanted to stop at any time.

Seriously, running brakeless is only for the Riding Dutchman, who is doomed to pedal endlessly until the end of time, or for riding on a velodrome track where everyone is going in the same direction, the side are banked steep enough that you simply ride up the side until you lose enough momentum to put a foot down, and nobody else has any brakes either, so you all watch out for each other.

If you're going to ride outside the velodrome, state law in most places requires that you have a mechanical brake... usually specifying that it must be able to skid the braked wheel.

I guess it all depends on where we are riding. NYC streets rid snow pretty fast so usually I don't go on snow, but when I do it's often just a small patch and i found my 700x23 slices thru the small patch instead of rolling on top of it and it's better than wider tires. But then I'll come across a frozen slick pot hole cap or puddle so front skidding across those are scary.

IMO with your fixed gear, you should always put a brake if you're riding the streets, who cares if people talk crap for having a brake. You'll have the same connection with the bike even with a brake, on and off the road. You don't have to use it if you feel comfortable stopping without one, but it's best to leave it on the bike for situations in which you may need one.

^this^