Audax on a fixie

[Doo]

Happy New Year Nearly Folks,

Fixie's are fun. Audax's are fun. Who likes to ride using a fixie on an audax?

I'm interested knowing what bikes folk use and their gearing too. I have a Dolan FXE which as ace, but I haven't managed to cycle a 200 yet...

Cheers,

Doo

[Pedal Castro]

I did my first 200 fixed to make it more of a challenge. 

[quixoticgeek]

I did my first 200 fixed to make it more of a challenge. 

I did min in January when the temp was floating around zero. Having only started cycling properly 8 weeks previously. And I thought I was mad. Starting out with Audax on a fixed is a whole new level!

J

[Nim]

I started riding audax fixed because I only owned one road bike at the time, an On-One Pompino which I'd bought for commuting and then gradually built up to doing longer leisure rides. At some point around 10 years ago I heard about audax and thought I would try it, so naturally I just used the bike I owned. I really didn't know any better, and it worked fine! I would absolutely recommend it.

Those first few rides were a learning experience, and I had some interesting conversations with other fixed riders who I found out were always happy to talk and hand down the wisdom. Fixed audax is a niche within a cycle sport that is already considered tough, so there is a rapport and camaraderie within fixed randonneurs. Conversely, geared riders often assume fixed is harder than it really is (don't tell them)

One point to bear in mind about fixed audax is no matter how long, hilly or arduous a ride may appear, someone will have done that ride - or similar - fixed wheel in the past, so it absolutely can be done. If you're the type that likes to have a goal, check out the AUK Fixed Wheel Challenge to work toward an award: https://audax.uk/awards-pages/fixed-wheel/

As to the choice of bike, I would say if you are comfortable riding your FXE for some hours at a time at a steady pace and comfortable with your choice of gearing up and down the hills you'll face, then that setup can absolutely work fine for audax. Being comfortable at longer distances is IME a case of trying it and then sorting out any niggles or pains.

Gearing is a very personal choice and I tend toward low to medium gears, even though I ride mostly in the flat terrain of Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. Here are some examples that work for me:

Flat stuff - 73"
'Do everything' gear ie most of my rides - 69"
Hilly rides, or I feel like taking it easy - 66"
Relentless sharp hills eg. Sussex / Kent AAA rides - 63"

[felstedrider]

I’ve done a sub 70hr PBP on a Dolan FXE.  79” gear.  My most comfortable finish.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

I am a bit of a lightweight overall as I haven’t gone beyond a 600 on fixed yet and not very hilly brevets either, though I have done lots of longer brevets on gears. I commute and do audaxes on a bitsa Pompino, usually on 44/16 and 700x32C. I’ve also taken a fixed Moulton Stowaway round an SR on 56/13 and 35-349 but that was about 15 years ago.

I find fixed a touch harder overall than gears but it encourages me not to bust my gut too early in a long ride. My effort through the event tends to be a bit more measured. The main hassles on fixed for me are not being able to enjoy fast descents (which I really enjoy!) and getting a sore bum on flatter courses. I start dreading descents and look forward to steeper pinches that let me ride out of the saddle more as the ride gets longer. The aficionados will say I need to up my gearing accordingly but I am always a little wary of my knees. Some lucky folk seem to have knees (and bums) of steel but that isn’t all of us.

[L CC]

I've ridden up to 300s on fixed, but only in East Anglia. 73". I tried 68" but never managed to up my cadence sufficiently to match the speed of the 73". I used to hate riding with a tailwind as it forced me to pedal faster than I was comfy with.

Mr Smith has also retired his fixed since we moved to first North Yorkshire and definitely here in the wilds of County Durham. He used to run somewhere north of 80" in West Norfolk.
It's not fixed friendly terrain for me here but inevitably there are those who do. They are stronger and lighter and mostly younger than us.

[Doo]

Thanks all for those comments - I found it a very interesting read.

My gearing is 70'' (48 x 18) and something I've never really played with - just used the same gearing as pretty much all my historic single speed bikes. This Dolan FXE is my first fixed. I've had her a while but the thought of a long distance ride on her still makes me a tad anxious. Maybe, I'll make a goal of cycling a 200k event, fixed this year...

Cheers,

Doo 

[Ivan]

I also started out on a Dolan FXE, riding PBP in 2015 and around Iceland as a 1400km group DIY in 2016. It's a fantastic entry level bike despite anti-aluminium snobbery in some audax quarters - when I treated myself to a semi-custom titanium Burls frame just copied the dimensions across, and only now does my bike every get complements!

I tend to ride in the mid 70"s depending on the amount of climbing, but I'm more of a grinder than a spinner. My approach at the beginning was to basically keep increasing the gear ratio until I reached my limit - for PBP started out on 79" but flipped to 74" on the last day after I developed a bit of tendonitis, which is a bit of an extreme example. However, it's one of the main reasons I love riding fixed - feel like I'm much more in tune with my body and vary the effort now to always remain within my long-term capabilities.

[JonB]

I saw and knew a few people riding fixed on the 2015 PBP and fancied giving it a go.  Built a fixed gear bike with an old Raleigh M-Trax frame and worked up to a couple of 200s before it and I got taken out by a car. I then used many of the parts on a Dave Marsh  frame and started riding longer audaxes in 2017. I followed the doctrine which I think I saw expressed on YACF, which went something like, 'to do the longer rides like PBP on fixed, ride everything on fixed including triple AAA rides'.  I did the first fixed SR in 2018 and I did struggle on the Brevet Cymru, and the Chapman, when I ran out of energy and felt bad I had no escape route of lower gears. Having said that on the Chapman after I got to Kings and had a couple of hours sleep I felt great on the Sunday and flew up Cross Foxes (or at least it felt like that). After these two experiences I worked on pacing myself better and not pushing too hard early on, sometimes I found myself trying to maintain a momentum on the hills that took too much out of me.

I did get numb hands on the Dave Marsh and I think that was partly down to riding on 23mm to accomodate mudguards which were very tight even with 23mm and the other thing was that it only had one set of bottle cages and I was constantly thinking about water on long rides. Toward the end of 2018 I picked up a second hand Condor Tempo which is very audax friendly (bottle cages, mudguard fittings, nice geometry). The next year I managed the Brevet Cymru/ Chapman rides relatively comfortably. The biggest issue on PBP was the struggle into the headwind on the first couple of days and had a bit of a meltdown in Loudeac but after that I was fine and loved riding fixed on that rolling terrain.

Re: gearing it's always been 68/69" for 90% of riding; for the longer hillier rides like the Brevet Cymru/ Chapman I've gone with 63". Never been higher or lower. Some days when I start out and am feeling good I think I could go up a gear but then at the end of the ride when I'm grinding up a hill I put that idea out of my head.

I've lost fitness over lockdown and struggled with the fixed gear on recent rides although did manage the Moonrakers and Sunseekers 300. I have reverted to gears in the last few weeks and it's nice to have a change but fixed is my favourite and I hope to be riding longer audaxes on the fixed bike soon.

[drossall]

... but I haven't managed to cycle a 200 yet...

I've ridden fixed mainly as a winter bike and for commuting, for decades. So for winter Audaxes, I tend to ride fixed as well. They tend to be 100s mainly. I've never progressed beyond 200s, and those always on gears.

I ride somewhere around 67". Again, this is in Essex and the like. I don't seem to get up real hills on anything, but especially these days not on fixed.

[Ian H]

Most of my long fixed rides have been on 43x17, with an 18T on the other side.  Increasing age has seen more use of the 18T in recent years.  But I can still get well above 150 cadence if required.

The main trick I learnt was not to fight it.  There's an optimum pace above which you will expend an excess of energy with very little return in speed.  Living in Devon, I am used to hills.

[Planet X Paul]

In answer to the question; no.  It would never enter my mind as something I would consider doing.  Where is the logic in doing so?  I can only think that there is some sort of bragging rights by thinking that you are 'harder' than someone riding a geared bike. 

[LittleWheelsandBig]

You do you. The rest of us will do what we enjoy doing. Sometimes it is fun to do things that aren’t particularly easy. Audax itself falls into that category, compared to 60 minutes riding round the local park.

People choose to ride a tandem, a trike, a recumbent, a touring bike or whatever because they enjoy riding it, not necessarily because they cover the most ground for the least amount of watts.

[grams]

In answer to the question; no.  It would never enter my mind as something I would consider doing.  Where is the logic in doing so?  I can only think that there is some sort of bragging rights by thinking that you are 'harder' than someone riding a geared bike. 

This is why I do audaxes in my car.

As Ivan says fixed gear bikes can give you a much nicer rhythm than geared bikes and you can't argue with the mechanical simplicity. On flat to moderately hilly terrain the amount of extra difficulty is negligible.

[drossall]

In Richard's Bicycle Book, the author argued that bikes broke the conventional consumer mould, in that their beauty lay in their simplicity, and the more you paid, the less you got. That approach has been somewhat lost in the fifty years since that book came out, in that Ergos and STIs lack some of that simplicity, and electronics are appearing everywhere.

Nonetheless, in Richard Ballantine's view, track bikes were the loveliest of all, since they carried the principle of stripped-down simplicity the furthest. Fixed-wheel road-going machines are just track bikes with some minimal additions (at least one brake caliper, and sometimes mudguards). I have plenty of multi-geared bikes, but every time I ride fixed, and in spite of the hyperbole in his words, I can see what he meant.

[Hot Flatus]

There is an appeal to riding a fixed gear over long distances. Riding fixed puts you in touch with the terrain in a way that geared bikes don't.

[Doo]

Thanks again for additional comments - very interesting to see folks posts and the diverse way people think.

I do not think for a minute that those who ride fixed do so to brag.

I like riding fixed as it allows me to think less - reduced anxiety as there is less to go wrong, less faffing as I don't need to decide which gear to shift to etc, etc . I recently brought a new cassette for my geared bike and could not believe the price - fixed is defo a cheaper option for me to continue cycling.

I want to ride a 200k fixed, not to brag, but to feel I have accomplished something which I consider really rather challenging. I cycled 60k today on fixed and very much enjoyed it. 200k still feels like a dream away, however, it's only those that have dreamed that have touched the stars!

 Cheers, Doo 

[rogerzilla]

Ok, it's not an audax, but it's not far off 200k. I've done the Dunwich Dynamo on fixed three times, and on gears four times.  It was always much easier on fixed.  A lot of big hills, strong wind or the need to carry luggage would probably change my mind.