Complicated contraption

Off-topic
1

Well, some of you will have noticed an absence of “wride ups” over recent weeks. The really alert ones among you will notice that this one is in JC, not RSU. There’s a reason.

I’m based in Nottingham, in the east midlands region of England, not far from Sheffield (twinned with Venice) and Doncaster (twinned with Atlantis). The weather has been simply dreadful for the last month and a half - it seems like forever - and even the shortest trip (e.g. taking the garbage out to the bin) is fraught with danger. I’ve had wind (I should chew my food better), rain, thunder, lighting and scorching sun. If you don’t like the weather, they say, wait five minutes and it’ll change. The ground is waterlogged, fish are jumpin’ and the river is high.

The result is that I have not done a single unicycle ride since the incident a few weeks ago when I fell in the Trent trying to ride through a flooded tunnel.

But in the meantime, I have taken delivery of a new steed: a fixed-gear bicycle. Imagine a recumbent giraffe with a training wheel. Well, it looks nothing like that.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, a “fixed gear” or “fixed wheel” bike has a single speed, and no freewheel. That means that as long as the bike is moving, the pedals are going round, just like on a unicycle. There’s none of that sissy coasting downhill, and if you get off and push it, the pedal creeps up on the back of your leg and bites it.

So far, I’ve had exactly one evening in which I could ride it.

I’ve never ridden a fixed wheel bike before, and I live at the top of a hill with a T junction at the bottom.

So, after a few quick spurts up and down the pavement to make sure I had the seat and handlebars as right as I could get them, I set off. No helmet. Mistake! The bike has a short and steep frame with low bars, and everything feels very twitchy. I feel very vulnerable. Fortunately, I have brakes (real hardcore fixed-wheel riders have none, or only one) and I need them as I approach the T junction.

The coordination of starting and stopping and steering whilst still pedaling is easy enough for me as a unicyclist. It just takes a little effort to get my toes in the clips. (Clipless pedals are for later, when I’m used to it.) Accelerating from a standstill is not too difficult because I’m in a fairly medium gear (about 70 inches) but things like hand signals are a challenge because the bars are far lower than I’ve ever been used to.

A long straight and gradual downhill makes me overconfident, and soon I’m spinnning merrily along - until I remember the speed humps ahead of me, and I hear the car on my tail. I try to slow down using the pedals and nearly catapult myself over the handlebars. There is a moment of panic, and I cannot deny that I swore.

Left at the pimple roundabout, and then it’s a long slow uphill. Someone on a mountainbike is ahead of me, twiddling a low gear. I gradually catch up, but decide not to overtake as I’m not ready to provoke a race. I settle in behind him and he slows down, meaning I have to slow down and I lose momentum.

Eventually, frustrated, I pull past him and accelerate away… but the hill gets steeper, and I have no gears, and soon I am standing on the pedals, pulling on the handlebars, gritting my teeth and grunting like the plumber in a porn film (I, er… imagine).

I make it to the top, and cruise for a bit before turning left and down a steep hill. Woooh… fixed gear, low bars, steep hill, brakes on full, and co-ordination problems. The hill is littered with speed humps and give way junctions and just “going for it” isn’t an option.

Back home, and slightly alarmed by what I have bought. :astonished:

An hour or two later, the bike goes in the back of the car, and I’m off to the riverside. The long straight of road that is boring on a unicycle is soon gone, but the insects hit my face much harder at this speed.

Over the cattle grid, rattling my teeth, and then I get some speed on - until I have to slow down for loose dogs and oblivious pedestrians.

I turn off onto a side track. Here I am on a fixed gear road bike with 23 mm tyres at about 110 psi, low bars, rock hard razorblade saddle, riding cross country… I know people who find an evening watching a DVD quite exciting.

I won’t relate the whole ride - it was all the usual stuff: you know, herons, ducks, chaffinches, trees and stuff. It was interesting to see how different a familiar route felt on two wheels. On an 18 speed fat tyred mountainbike, it would have been mildly pleasant. On this machine, the off road sections were at least as tricky as on the Bacon Slicer (same wheel size and tyre section, only one wheel) and possibly more so.

I think it’s an honorary unicycle.

Now, here’s hoping for summer to arrive some time.

2

Thats interesting, it seems like you would get a lot better work out from a fixed wheel bike. Here is a challenge: try to pedal slowly down a steep hill. Hm, I would love to have one of those, I love different things like that.

3

I think it would be really fun to ride one of those things…one of my friends is looking into to getting one.

Nice rideup!

4

A singlespeed/fixie can be fun. Only your bike doesn’t have the singlespeed (coasting) option that mine has. My flip-flop hub has a singlespeed gear on one side and a fixed gear on the other. So I can coast if I want.

I got the singlespeed/fixie about two months ago. Prior to that I hadn’t been on a road bike in over 10 years. I did a lot of road bike riding during high school, college, and right after college. But the road biking dropped off completely after I got focused on unicycling again. Now here I am full circle again.

It didn’t take more than one ride on the new bike for the road bike riding skills to remind me that they never left. The biggest adjustment has been in getting used to the road bike fit again and getting the bike fit dialed in. I’m still fussing with trying saddles, finding how set forward or set back I want the saddle and where the handlebars should be.

When I first got the bike I put it in fixie mode with regular platform pedals (no toe clips). Had some problems with the pedals getting away from me and wanting to come around and smack me. I wasn’t ready for the fixie yet, at least with the platform pedals. So I switched it over to singlespeed mode while I get used to the bike.

I quickly found the platform pedals to be very lacking for allowing me to get power and aggression in climbs. Some climbs around the Seattle area can be short but steep. With a 70 inch gear you have to really attack them if you want to make it up. Platforms with no toe clips didn’t let me do that. So I put on toe clips and quickly found I didn’t like the toe clips either. Toe clips work if you have the old style cycling shoes with the cleats. But with regular flat walking shoes the toe clips didn’t provide enough benefit to really help on the climbs. So I realized I was going to have to give up on the idea of using regular walking shoes with the bike and instead go clipless with dedicated cycling shoes.

I had some Time ATAC Alium pedals from my MTB so I put those on the road bike. The Time ATAC pedals are easy to clip in but I found them very inconsistent to clip out. The pedals allow lateral float. If your cleat and shoe gets too far to once side or the other I found that clipping out became very inconsistent. If the cleat and shoe are in the middle of the float range then cliping out was easy and just as it should be. But you can’t always rely on that. I don’t know if it was because my MTB style shoes might have some interference with the pedal that caused the problems. I ground away and cut away a lot of the treat on the shoe around the cleat. That didn’t help. So the Time ATACs were out.

Switched to Crank Brothers Egg Beater pedals. The Egg Beaters have been great. A little different and less consistent to clip into than the Time ATACs, but much much more consistent for clipping out. I like them. They also are lower profile and have better cornering clearance than the Time ATACs. Cornering clearance is important with a fixie since you have to pedal through the corners. Hitting a pedal in a corner can cause you to crash. It is best to minimize that possibility.

I switched the bike over to fixie mode a week ago with the egg beaters. At first I was worried that going clipless in fixie mode was going to be a big challenge. But that wasn’t the case. Clipping in was much the same. Clipping out was much the same but you just have to pay more attention to pedal position as you come to a stop and remember to clip out early and not at the last second.

I spent about 5 minutes riding around a flat parking lot practicing how to clip in and clip out while in fixie mode. After that I headed for the local bike trail and did a 40 mile round trip ride to Seattle visiting a pub (Pies & Pints) and two coffee shops (had to get in 4 shots of espresso). Had about four times during the ride where my instinct was to coast and float over some bumps in the trail (there are areas where the blacktop is upheaved due to tree roots under the trail). That doesn’t work at all in fixie mode and the bike quickly reminded me of that. Being clipped in my feet stayed on the pedals even though I made a major pedaling error. I stayed in control. Tried to constantly remind myself that I was on a fixie. But sure enough, I’d forget again and do the same mistake.

Fixie mode is great fun. The clipless pedals make climbing easier and fast spinning easier.

I did find that my average speed in fixie mode was lower than when I was riding in singlespeed mode. I wasn’t as willing to keep the average speed up and I wasn’t willing to sprint up as fast either. That may change as I get more comfortable in fixie mode. But I’m not so sure. The bumps on the trail will likely force me to keep my speed down while in fixie mode. Bumps and fixies don’t mix since you can’t float over them or bunny hop over them. You have to hit them and keep pedaling and stay seated. So fixie mode will likely average to be slower than singlespeed mode.

The bike is currently in fixie mode and I plan to keep it that way for the foreseeable future. Fixie mode provides some new fun and the bike is for fun and for fun commuting. Bicycling used to be about performance for me. Now it’s about fun. So far I have about 500 miles on the bike with about 50 of those in fixie mode.

5

Fixies sound like great fun, I’ve wanted one for ages but I’d rather spend my money on unicycles at the moment. I’ve noticed that the number of fixies on the market has shot up this year, and most of them look really nice. Which one did you get Mike?

Also, can you do a wheelie and ride it around like a unicycle?

6

There’s a chap around Malvern who rides a fixie (an on-one pompino, made by the fine chaps that made one of my bikes). I’ve ridden singlespeed around here but at least that way you can enjoy the downhills; Malvern is a very hilly place, and he does occasionally look properly terrified going down some of the faster hills… :slight_smile:

7

And they have been sorely missed.
This was like breathing again.

8

Was the deliberate mistake the extra wheel?

9

Great wride up.

(Although possibly not what I was expecting after the internet blocker at work wouldn’t let me read it :thinking: )

10

fixies are fun, try riding backwards! :smiley:

11

Cathywood, I bet the blocker didn’t let it through because the word p-rn (po-n) was in it.

As for riding it backwards - I think I’m missing two lock rings because the sprocket unwound yesterday as I was using back pressure to control the speed on a descent.:frowning:

12

You only need one lock ring. Rotafix the cog and then tighten the lock ring. Some caution is needed when rotafixing, some people have managed to strip threads. No need to use excessive force.

Alternatively, you could do as I did: I asked one of my heavier riding mates to ride up a steep hill with my fixie, then I just tightened the lock ring. I used a Dura-Ace lock ring. This has worked splendidly.

13

That persons physics are wrong

The tightening torque using a chain whip depends on the length of the handle on the chain whip. The radius of the sprocket is the same for both the rotafix method and the standard chain whip method is the same. The only difference is that the roafix method is like using a chain whip with a handle equal to the radius of the wheel. That’s only a few inches longer than the handle on a good chain whip.

Just use a good chain whip. Why risk damaging your chain and scratching your bottom bracket using that rotafix method?

14

Thanks. I said “two” lock rings because I have a double-fixed hub: one sprocket each side.

15

Yes, I know that the physics are wrong on that site. Doesn´t make the method invalid, though.

If you´ve got a good whip with a nice long handle, use it. It´s still good to know how to rotafix atleast in principle, as you can do it on the road with no special tools. You only need the tools you use to loosen the rear wheel.

16

Thank you, this is a family site frequented by innocent young children and respectable middle aged ladies. Please keep that sort of comment to whatever other grubby little forums you frequent.:smiley:

Interesting comment from my cycle shop. I rang them today to politely enquire, and they told me that they don’t usually fit lock rings because many customers prefer the safety benefit. In an emergency, you can stamp on the back pedal, unwind the sprocket and freewheel.

It almost sounds like it might almost work, almost.

Either way, they’ve agreed to post me a couple of lock rings.

17

Oi. I´ll try to watch my language… :stuck_out_tongue:

Intresting comment from the bike shop, indeed. I really hope all fixed gear bikes they sell have two brakes…

18

Certainly, hardcore stuff: there’s a large brick you can drag behind you with a piece of string, and there’s a stick clipped to the cross bar that you can take off and poke through the spokes.

And here’s something that’s true: in the old days, they used to wear leather gloves and grab the front tyre with their hand if they wanted to stop suddenly.

In those days, very few bicyclists could still play guitar. :astonished:

19

Erm, you do know about the old foot-against-the-backfork-trick, in case of emergency, aye?
I can’t imagine the leather glove to protect those accordion-ticklers much really either.