Some thoughts from the distant past if anyone is considering riding fixed.
The first Audax I completed on fixed was the PBP in 1983, I rode a gear of 64.8” or 48 – 20. It was an incredibly fast spinning gear to ride, there is a time on many hills when people with gears stop peddling on the descents, it was at this point I would often pass a group of riders. I found 64.8 an easy gear to ride on both climbs and descents. I always rode with two brakes, and used them both to slow the momentum of a fixed.
I quit smoking in July 1981 and started to ride a bike, it had a 72” fixed. I changed over to gears and managed a 600k the following year before breaking my collar bone. In the second year I did the end to end in May and that put me off distance riding, so I put a 64.8 fixed on my bike.
When my friends said they were doing the PBP three months later it did not appeal at all. That is until Jane Ramsdale said in jest; why don’t you do it on a fixed. I entered two shorter practice events but packed on both, so the PBP became my first completed event.
The thought of riding a fixed is possibly harder than actually doing the ride on a fixed, I think a lot more people have the ability to do the ride but never attempt it. I found that it helps to sort the mind out first. When I took on a ride that I thought might be beyond my capability; I would make plans to ride to the event and back, we rode about 200k to the start of the PBP and back, although on the way back a kind Frenchman gave us a lift for about fifty miles. I don't know how it helps, but planning to do an extra 400k somehow made the 1200k seem easier.
