Vélo magazine fixie feature

[stevedo]

Jasmine, that was rather my thinking in opting for the singlespeed/cop-out option. I think it makes more sense in terrain which has long climbs rather than short brutal ones. (I should imagine, BTW, that the Llanberis pass is a bugger of a descent on fixed!)

[Greenbank]

(I should imagine, BTW, that the Llanberis pass is a bugger of a descent on fixed!)

Nah, it's quite nice really. I just sit at about ~150pm (48kph) using my legs and dragging one of the brakes to keep the speed relatively constant.

[clarion]

I'd like a PF Fix-Free for mountainous areas.  Preferably allied to an S3X

[Manotea]

And - of course - a supplementary question. I take it you DO get stronger after a time?

Good question. You get stronger by adaptive training. You take on a workload which is challenging and your body adapts. Then you up the ante (further, faster, longer gear, whatever) and repeat.

Unless you live in Pachu Michu, 63" SS is a receipe for twiddling/spinning out. Most of the time you will either be travelling quite slowly and/or freewheeling. So no, you won't.

The final nudge that got me into trying fixed was riding the Tour of the (Surrey) Hills audax as a geared rider. I spent all day twiddling up one side of a hill only to freewheel slowly down the other with the brakes on. I was bored rigid.

[stevedo]

And - of course - a supplementary question. I take it you DO get stronger after a time?

Good question. You get stronger by adaptive training. You take on a workload which is challenging and your body adapts. Then you up the ante (further, faster, longer gear, whatever) and repeat.

Ah, but this is the plan. I can stick on a bigger chainring when it's needed, surely? I suspect, BTW, that nobody has quite realised what a rubbish cyclist I am, and therefore why I'm gravitating towards gear ratios that would seem embarrassing to most.

Thanks again to all for the advice.

[Jasmine]

Jasmine, that was rather my thinking in opting for the singlespeed/cop-out option. I think it makes more sense in terrain which has long climbs rather than short brutal ones. (I should imagine, BTW, that the Llanberis pass is a bugger of a descent on fixed!)

Quite a few of the audaxers here will have come down Llanberis pass on fixed.  It's the shorter of the roads down, but steeper.  It's a bugger in traffic (yes, the constant stream of people driving to the top to find there's no parking past 9am!), but I end up with one brake on a bit all the way down (tbh, I hate downhills and do this on gears anyway).

I'll spin as fast as I'm happy with - spin is getting better, but I'm nowhere near the capability of Greenbank or Mal Volio.  My problem with this is that if it's cold (think Dec/Jan in Snowdonia) my hands don't like the braking effort and freeze in place.

The spin on the Llanberis pass can be entirely avoided by coming down from the pass via Capel Curig.  The permanent headwind going down the Ogwen Valley ensures you'll never spin out on the downhill!  (I've seen guys timetrialling downhill there pedalling hard and only getting out 20 mph)

I think your point here is that you live around that type of hill.  It's what you will have to deal with all the time, not just once in a while when you feel like riding out to it.  Try the gear you have.  If you find it too low then you can always get a bigger one.  If you find the freewheel dull, you can convert to fixed.

[border-rider]

I suspect, BTW, that nobody has quite realised what a rubbish cyclist I am, and therefore why I'm gravitating towards gear ratios that would seem embarrassing to most.

It's just practice.  You can opt to hoy a massive gear up hills or you could go the other way and learn to spin.  I had a lovely ride a couple of weeks ago over the Gospel Pass on a 60" fixed MTB.  I didn't feel undergeared, especially.  I used always to ride 63" in the winter anyway. 

[stevedo]

I've been a spinner for years. I used to mash, years back when I did time trials and commuted in London. I was certainly faster as a masher, but I suspect that has more to do with the passage of time than the technique.

For the past three days I've been doing a short hilly ride each morning, keeping the gear on 42x19. That's been fine, of course, and seems to allow me not to spin out until about 32 kph on the downhills. At 28 kph it's a comfortable cadence, and TBH, the majority of my cycling is about 22-28 kph (except on hills). So ... I thought 42x18 seemed a reasonable size to go for. I'm not sure I agree with the proposition that it won't do anything for strength, as it's much higher than I've been using on some of the percentages.

OTOH, I can now accept that at some point I'll have to give fixed a try. I can see that it must be a fine feeling to be remain involved during the descents.

[stevedo]

Just bumping this to say thanks to everyone for all the advice. I've now done the conversion to singlesp**d, and with the exception of loose chainring bolts all's gone well. A couple of the local minor cols passed off fine on 42x18, which seems fine for most things, though I can see that if I decide eventually to move onto fixed I'll need to go a bit higher.

So, thanks again to all.