How to win a national championship on fixed

[Karla]

Richard Bussell won the national hillclimb champs at Jackson Bridge yesterday, riding fixed.

Looking at the splits, he started 'slow' and finished fast.  When he passed me on the finishing ramp, he was visibly going very quickly indeed.

His win is impressive for a number of reasons:

He beat pro roadie Ed Bradbury and pro MTBer Tom Bell
He also won the 10 mile champs this year
He dropped 6 kilos since his 10 mile win in order to prepare for the hillclimb
He won on fixed on a technical climb that changes gradient quite a lot: starting with some very steep hairpins, flattening in the middle and then getting steeper at the end, via a corner that actually goes downhill!  Several people rode fixed yesterday; I certainly wouldn't choose to do so. 

Here's an article about his bike

Here's the Comic report on the race

What's the betting that everyone rides fixed in the hillclimb next year?

http://www.kimroy-photography.co.uk/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=465656&g2_serialNumber=1

[zigzag]

it's a sensible choice, in the right gear i climb better on ss than on geared bike. fixed/ss would definitely be my choice if i chose to take part in a hill climb competition.
yesterday i gave some welly on one hill (riding ss 86") and came 8th out of over 1600 on strava; it wouldn't have been possible on a geared bike.

congrats to Richard Bussell

[Deano]

He did well, especially carrying that sign on his back.

[Cudzoziemiec]

http://www.kimroy-photography.co.uk/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=465656&g2_serialNumber=1

Watermark's in an unfortunate place!

[Karla]

Aah, that was meant to link to the main gallery.

There are also some more creative photos here.  Jim Henderson and the HighOnBikes rider tie for the winner of the gurning competition, but no. 230 in the blue kit and yellow cap gets an honourable mention for doing some really impressive shivers at the top of the climb after he finished his effort. 

it's a sensible choice, in the right gear i climb better on ss than on geared bike. fixed/ss would definitely be my choice if i chose to take part in a hill climb competition.
yesterday i gave some welly on one hill (riding ss 86") and came 8th out of over 1600 on strava; it wouldn't have been possible on a geared bike.

I'd quite like to try it for a more constant gradient, such as the previous day's student championship up Curbar Gap.  I think a climb as variable as Jackson Bridge is a different matter though.

[simonp]

Well, that's a nice symmetry with where I came riding my fixed Audax bike in a hill climb (I wasn't quite last, but I was very close). I did remove the saddle bag, but I had a hub dynamo, Bagman II, lights, and aluminium mudguards.

[Mr Larrington]

I have a vague recollection of Andy Pegg (the Flying Window Cleaner) so desperate to finish last in a race that he entered a hillclimb on a borrowed upright trike, complete with child seats, and still didn't come last.

[rob]

As a schoolboy I rode the Lincolnshire hill climb champs on the steepest hill they could find.   Took me 3 minutes and the winner did about half that.   I remember being dizzy for some time afterwards.

@Mr Larrington - I used to see Mike Burrows and Andy Pegg in the bike shop on the end of my road when I lived in Norwich 20 years ago.   Andy cropped up in the QED documentary on the Lotus bike alone with said shop.

[fd3]

Here's an article about his bike

Surprised that h e is using aero wheels, would have thought low profile rims would be lighter and the aero advantage would be less important in a hill climb.  For that matter, as it's all about his acceleration, I would have thought a 650c wheelset might be better (and lighter).

[Karla]

He's using 20mm tubular rims, which are hardly a deep section.  They're carbon, are made by Planet X and are apparently very light indeed.

That's an interesting thought about 650b wheels.  I suspect it comes down to the availability of good quality lightweight frames and wheels in that size.  His frame isn't light compared to modern road frames: hillclimbing is too much of a niche to warrant the development of ultralight fixed road frames so he's using a track frame, which is built with more consideration to strength and less to weight than would be ideal for a hillclimb bike.

[L CC]

There are also some more creative photos here. 

Those are really good.

[Mr Larrington]

650c (not b) first came to prominence in the performance arena with triathletes so I'd expect there to be a bewildering array of lightweight rims and tyres available.

[L CC]

Apparently not.

Signed, a shortarse trying to build a TT bike.

[rob]

Apparently not.

Signed, a shortarse trying to build a TT bike.

http://www.stradawheels.co.uk/product/650c-wheels/

?

[jhob]

There are also some more creative photos here. 

Those are really good.

They are amazing photos!

Spotted our local lad, Joe Clark, in a few of them.  He managed 3rd after winning both of our local hillclimbs (Riber & Bank Road).

[benborp]

I'd quite like to try it for a more constant gradient, such as the previous day's student championship up Curbar Gap.  I think a climb as variable as Jackson Bridge is a different matter though.

I've found fixed very useful for evening out my effort over variable gradients. Now on a geared bike I feel like I'm always chasing after the right effort as the grade varies. I bought my track bike with an eye to converting it to a hill climb machine but I've not had the opportunity.

[Exit Stage Left]

I like this one of Jim Henderson, his family accepting that it's all in a day's work.
http://www.russellis.co.uk/national-hill-climb/it0odpjo81qxuqtrai443q7z7x83ah

Jim won a series of Nationals on fixed in the late 90s/ early 2000s. His most prolific bike was a steel Bill Nickson.
http://website.lineone.net/~jim.henderson/cycling/bikes/nickson.html

Riding fixed wasn't seen as particularly significant back then. It works on the constant gradients of the shorter courses, but on a ride such as Shap, parts are actually downhill, so gears are an advantage.

[rogerzilla]

At the risk of starting a holy war, the "flywheel effect" is probably more significant than the reduced weight.  Basically, the momentum of the bike gets the pedals around the dead centres for you and makes pedalling much easier.  There's also the terror of stalling on fixed, which keeps you going 

(this, incidentally, is also the reason why riding fixed doesn't really improve the fluidity of your pedalling and may make it a whole lot worse.  Yes, it teaches you to spin very fast and gives you all that souplesse stuff, but it also allows you to push the pedals up and down using your legs as pistons.  After riding fixed almost exclusively for a few years, I completely forgot how to pedal and couldn't keep the freewheel pawls in contact with the ratchet around the pedal stroke, clanking up hills.)

[Mr Larrington]

(this, incidentally, is also the reason why riding fixed doesn't really improve the fluidity of your pedalling and may make it a whole lot worse.  Yes, it teaches you to spin very fast and gives you all that souplesse stuff, but it also allows you to push the pedals up and down using your legs as pistons.  After riding fixed almost exclusively for a few years, I completely forgot how to pedal and couldn't keep the freewheel pawls in contact with the ratchet around the pedal stroke, clanking up hills.)

I had a similar thing whereby my legs assumed that upright = fixed and recumbent = freewheel so I had terrible trub every time I used the Towpath Bike.  A fews year off has cured them of this behaviour.

[Ian H]

At the risk of starting a holy war, the "flywheel effect" is probably more significant than the reduced weight.  Basically, the momentum of the bike gets the pedals around the dead centres for you and makes pedalling much easier.  There's also the terror of stalling on fixed, which keeps you going 

(this, incidentally, is also the reason why riding fixed doesn't really improve the fluidity of your pedalling and may make it a whole lot worse.  Yes, it teaches you to spin very fast and gives you all that souplesse stuff, but it also allows you to push the pedals up and down using your legs as pistons.  After riding fixed almost exclusively for a few years, I completely forgot how to pedal and couldn't keep the freewheel pawls in contact with the ratchet around the pedal stroke, clanking up hills.)

This is similar to my experience. I only get it when out of the saddle on returning to gears.  I suspect the effect is worse with bigger fixed gears.

[alotronic]

Wow - I think those photos are amongst the best I have ever seen of cycle racing. Absolutely brilliant.

[Cudzoziemiec]

They are very expressive.