I picked up a Motobecane Track a little while ago and finally got to take it on a real ride yesterday, on a "hilly" 50 km loop. It was surprisingly not the disadvantage I thought it would be, on the uphill or the downhill. I am running the stock 46x16. The funnest part was passing decked out roadies on the hills. One guy had a full time trial setup. Of course I was still mashing at a way lower cadence than I would want to, but I found that the fixed gear kind of forces you to kill yourself trying to go fast on the hills. If you go slow, you're toast.

Anyone have any recommended tricks for dealing with low cadence on hills? I got a bit of a sore back from cranking up on the handlebars, and found that standing in the drops helped a bit. I also tried to get a bit of a forward/back bounce in the bike to smooth out my pedal stroke. Also, is there any way to relax your legs on long downhills without getting saddle bounce? I can keep hold that really high rpm when I am pushing my feet around, but if I let the pedals push my feet, I start bouncing right away.

Recent useful thread on climbing fixed:
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/815182-Get-Over-It-How-to-Climb-on-a-Fixed-Gear-Bicycle

It's surprising, isn't it? You read enough posts by idiots on the other sections of this board and you'd think a fixed gear just plain doesn't work unless it's totally flat. Start riding one and you find out that it actually works just fine in the hills and is quite enjoyable.

We used to have a published author that was into looking at road riding fixed with some depth that isn't usually devoted to the subject, but this forum just wasn't mature enough to handle it. These are good links to start with.

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...d-Gear-Bicycle
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...d-Gear-Century
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...d-for-distance

With respect to your questions:

Your body just gets stronger and the lower cadence becomes more natural the longer you do it.

Learning how to descend is sort of the same. Your body gets used to your feet spinning around and the hop eventually goes away. It is useful to recognize the different pedal strokes since some are better for super high cadence.

a) try a smaller gear. I can ride (up and down) in the mountains around so cal in a 44x17. Unless you're a monster with a high ass to mass ratio (and I know at least one) that's a pretty big gear for climbing.
b) spend time motorpacing to get used to floating on the downhills. "Floating" is what trackies do rather than coasting. With practice you can get used to holding really high cadences, especially if you just have to chase the pedals. You don't want the bike to push your legs around, you just want to match the speed and let gravity do the work, but don't let it do work on you. It's really just a lot of practice-- on the track I can watch people spin out and bounce at relatively low cadences, and after they've had some months of practice they smooth out and can get rid of the bounce.

Actually, you'll soon be strong enough to turn the big gear at a reasonable cadence and totally wax the whiny roadies.

Downhill? Run a brake and feather it to control speed until you can spin at 150rpm. It'll come...

Small hills, maybe, anything larger and longer than a good-sized roller is going to require you to climb it at a slower cadence. The strength comes from being able to keep turning the pedals at slower, much harder rates for longer periods of time. Prolonged 6%-7%+ requires a different type of strength than the short bursts up smaller gradients.

A reasonable cadence (based on power output) up a shortish (@1 miles) 6% hill would be 40-50rpm which is around 8 miles an hour at 70 inches fixed. The strength required to achieve this goal is different than being able to sprint/spin up shorter/less steep hills.

Don't be afraid to gear down, I road 6 months 48/15 , got a 17t cog and I feel like when I approach a hill a devilish grin sweeps across my face as I spin as hard as I can to the top, I like to switch up the gearing between a little better flat out gearing and more of a spin gearing to help all around development

I have the same bike as you and also ride in socal. I've been riding for about 8 months and when I go on the trails, I pass all the road bikes at my normal riding speed (then again I have no idea how far them came from so they could just be on their way back). You'll get used to your gearing and how your bike feels. I used to hop around a lot at big downhills and really struggle on long uphills. That pedal stroke advice is really useful but you end up figuring that stuff out anyway the more you keep riding.

Oh I can hold up to 200 rpm if I have to, but that basically means I'm working my ass off spinning my legs on the downhill. I was hoping there was some trick to taking a break.