Fixed Gear ?

flapsupcleanup said:

Several of the locals here are planning on riding fixies more over this next winter with the theory that somehow it will help their performance next season. I've thought about this and I'm not sure I can see how that would provide any benefit over riding my regular bike. Any thoughts?

I see no reason why one would use fix gear bicycle if one doesn't plan doing track training/racing

But I know that those who strongly believe in the benefits of riding fixies can be at times very hard to convince. And so I don't even try.

I've read people who say they tried it and found it helped them a lot. It's one of those things I'll probably someday. But today, it reeks of effort.

normZurawski said:

I've read people who say they tried it and found it helped them a lot. It's one of those things I'll probably someday. But today, it reeks of effort.

I would even recommend that you don't try it, or that you don't try any other potentially dangerous plan.

I can certainly understand that these bikes be popular among the community of bike courriers. These guys are marginal and like to be recognized as such.

But a 'normal' cyclist shouldn't put himself in a potentially dangerous situation. Riding with a transmission and two brakes is already dangerous enough, no need to do it with no brakes and no transmission.

I find riding fix gear bikes outside of a track (in traffic) is totally ridiculous and can only do more harm than good.

Maybe so. Both Friel and Carmichael have fixed gear workouts in their books. It seems tangential to something the readers of their books might do in a practical sense. I would be intrigued to try it on an XC MTB course with limited hills. It seems like you might get some balance and strength benefit out of that.

riding fixed gear will teach you how to balance your bike better, how to achieve a proper cadence, how to maintain a better pedal stroke at high RPM, how to approach hills for optimal climbing speed, and strengthen your body faster than any other bicycle.

just because its fixie doesnt mean you cant have dual brakes.

risks of fixie? learn how to ride it and its safer than any other bike. my chain and sprocket as a direct breaking mechanism has never failed me. its better on snow/ice/rain than any other real affordable breaking system.

SolarEnergy said:

I would even recommend that you don't try it, or that you don't try any other potentially dangerous plan...

???

SolarEnergy said:

...I find riding fix gear bikes outside of a track (in traffic) is totally ridiculous and can only do more harm than good.

Having ridden a fixie for many years (and I'm not a courier, although I used to race road and track), I find your assertion that riding a fixed-wheel in traffic is ridiculous, to be, in itself, ridiculous. You do not know what you are talking about. A fixed-wheel on the road offers control which you appear not to have experienced.

Jenkins said:

riding fixed gear will teach you how to balance your bike better, how to achieve a proper cadence, how to maintain a better pedal stroke at high RPM, how to approach hills for optimal climbing speed, and strengthen your body faster than any other bicycle.

just because its fixie doesnt mean you cant have dual brakes.

risks of fixie? learn how to ride it and its safer than any other bike. my chain and sprocket as a direct breaking mechanism has never failed me. its better on snow/ice/rain than any other real affordable breaking system.

Agreed.

take your old road frame and just (not to quote an advertisment..) do it.

people that go on about it being dangerous or counter productive just havnt done it.

put a minimum of a front brake on it... take it easy your firts couple of rides... and its actually quite amazing once you get the hang of it.

all you need is an old bike, a hub, and a bike shop to lace it up (providing you dont do it yerself)

if you have vertical drop outs- use an eccentric hub

horizontal drop outs? use a normal track hub.

its kind of "free-ing" taking all that extra stuff off the bike and paring it down to something soooo simple.

check out the single speed section of the forums. ALOT if info there and shops to help you get going.

The whole idea of simplicity appeals to me for sure. But I'm curious if any of the experts think there is any training benefit to fixed gear. As I said, intuitively I can't see how it would help more than my regular ride, but there a lot of folks out there who swear there are gains to be made there.

once you make a bike up and take it out for your first ride.. you IMMEDIATELY realize- just how much you can rest with a "normal" bike. Especially in a group ride.

you dont realize it- but you can coast, back pedal, ease up... essentially REST your legs quite a bit more than you think. on a fixie- your legs have to be kept in constant motion at all times, even when slowing- or your knee smacks your chin. thus, you do more work/ have a stronger work out/ have a more efficient work out.

you also dont get the luxury of tuning your gear ratio to your physiology or road/ wind conditions.

if you are more full of slow twitch muscles... and perhaps are more aerobically inclined- you probably spin a bit higher than most- and the opposite for fast twitch sprinter types. and consequently, you alter the gear ratios to keep your legs at an effort level/cadence that is most comfortable/efficient for them. same with hills and wind.

a fixie locks you into one gear and makes your legs work outside of their comfort/efficient range.

thus you get stronger and more adaptable.

the ONLY negative ive come across is- your knees take a little more stress on a fixie. ive adapted to it- but guys with glass knees should perhaps think twice about it. (or go single speed)

i hope ive explained it clearly. it really is quite different front a geared bike.

but seriously, give it a go. with taking all the [censored] off a bike, even something from the 80's can easily be pared down to 16/17 lbs. so its easy/ cheap/ fun/ and a better workout.

what more can i say to convince you?

and besides, chicks dig track stands.😄

I am glad if I triggered a debate on this topic. I am afraid that I won't be part of it though.

EoinC said:

I used to race road and track

SolarEnergy said:

I see no reason why one would use fix gear bicycle if one doesn't plan doing track training/racing

As for the security issue guys, as long as you don't join any paceline or group ride, I think you are secure (at least for the others).

Last time I saw a fixy causing a group crash, the folk just couldn't corner with the group. His right pedal did scratch the ground as the right turn was just to tight and boom, boom and boom.

Not very good for balance.

flapsupcleanup said:

The whole idea of simplicity appeals to me for sure. But I'm curious if any of the experts think there is any training benefit to fixed gear. As I said, intuitively I can't see how it would help more than my regular ride, but there a lot of folks out there who swear there are gains to be made there.

I used to ride a fixie for spring training (until ~4/15). It was sort of an old-school thing about improving the pedal stroke. I own one today (Bianchi Pista with a front brake), but I haven't been on it for 18 months. One, I don't need to improve my pedal stroke and I want to focus on targeted efforts at my preferred cadence. A fixie would force me into cadences higher or lower than I prefer. I just no longer believe it results in any meaningful training benefit that I can't achieve with other high-intensity efforts. I may ride it again some day, but it will be just for fun and not for any specific training benefit.

RapDaddyo said:

but it will be just for fun and not for any specific training benefit.

exactly. That to me is the best reason for doing it.

Frankly, balance can best be improve by doing some roller, steady state pedaling no stop can be acheived on closed circuit or on a trainer, higher cadence can be acheived on a road bike as well, my bottom bracket is fairly round at least I think.

Plus I truly think that sometimes, there's something *practical* with the ability to stop pedaling and simply coast, without passing over the handlebars.

i dunno boys and girls...im just sayin, i went fixie and i will never ride a freewheel again. call it being to deep into riding, but there is something zen like and calming about riding a fixed gear.

i dont need 10 gears, my legs have turned into 10 gears.
ive learned how to approach hills with roper momentum and how to get the most out of my stnadup climbs.
ive learned how to keep pedaliing and producing power through turns.
ive learned to look FAR ahead of me at all times, to be fully alert.
i can go on and on, but its just something that people who love fixies get, and those that dont... well dont.

fixed gear brings the fun back into cycling for me.

Jenkins said:

i dunno boys and girls...im just sayin, i went fixie and i will never ride a freewheel again. call it being to deep into riding, but there is something zen like and calming about riding a fixed gear.

But, the OP's question relates to improving his performance. Do you think you have increased your sustainable power more by riding a fixie than you would have by riding a standard road bike? If so, why?

RapDaddyo said:

But, the OP's question relates to improving his performance. Do you think you have increased your sustainable power more by riding a fixie than you would have by riding a standard road bike? If so, why?

id say yes, because i have to maintain a higher power output up hills, and never get a rest from pedaling. you really get alot of rest time on a freewheel, you get none on a track wheel.

RapDaddyo said:

But, the OP's question relates to improving his performance. Do you think you have increased your sustainable power more by riding a fixie than you would have by riding a standard road bike? If so, why?

I had ridden track before riding a fixie on the road. My road riding did improve after shifting to a fixie. Whilst it is certainly possible to spin out a freewheel, most people don't, because nothing is forcing them to. Fixie's definitely promote smoother pedaling techniques. You appear to have attained that (but, then again, you did use a fixie).
I'm with Jenkins - I love riding my fixie - even more than my road bike.

SolarEnergy said:

I am glad if I triggered a debate on this topic. I am afraid that I won't be part of it though...

Why engage if you don't mean to continue?

SolarEnergy said:

...As for the security issue guys, as long as you don't join any paceline or group ride, I think you are secure (at least for the others).

Last time I saw a fixy causing a group crash, the folk just couldn't corner with the group. His right pedal did scratch the ground as the right turn was just to tight and boom, boom and boom.

Not very good for balance.

I have ridden my fixed-wheel in road races - no problem, except when faced with a howling tail-wind whilst under-geared - those 54T+ chainrings beat a 48T, no matter what you do. I've been in plenty of road races where the pack has been brought down by someone riding with a freewheel (matter of fact, I don't ever recall having been brought down by a fixed-wheel in a road race). There is a method for going fast around a corner on a fixie - perhaps your one-off culprit was outside of his operating envelope. The tires on my fixie let go before I get a pedal touching down - ask me how I know...
For the rest of you, as Jenkins has pointed out, there ain't no resting on a fixie - try riding a road race on one and you'll soon notice how much resting everyone else gets from freewheeling.
Enough off the scaremongering. Fixed-wheel is great to ride - try it before you lambast it.

EoinC said:

Why engage if you don't mean to continue?

Because the purpose of this thread is to determine if the fact of riding a fix gear bike can have a favorable impact on the performances.

I can't really debate this without putting the question in a specific context.

A question that would be more "debatable" could be :
Given one's actual performance level, goals, strenghts/weaknesses, approach to training (powermeter? course types? turbo trainer? roller?) and finally available time, is it smart to invest time in this thing or not?

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Without knowing what your goals are, what is your actual performance level, what your training schedule is. Without knowing what you do and how you do it etc etc, I can't shed rational arguments in this debate.

I can only talk about me then. I ride a bicycle equipped with a powermeter. Therefore, when I do my intervals in order to improve power output, I Hate coasting (stopping pedaling). I hate that so much because 1 watt gets deducted from my average power when I stop pedaling for 10sec. And it seems to take forever to put it back in. So I never stop pedalling except for security reasons; too many pedestrians crossing the track for example. Note that if I ride a fixy and have to avoid pedestrians, I will probably apply a negative power on the pedals, which is not very productive neither.

What you guys don't seem to know, is that the sole fact of having to pedal all the time doesn't garantie that you pedal hard "enough" all the time. I can easily see that on my power display. I can still be pedalling and pulling 200w if I am tired. In the context of a threshold interval where I should be pulling 280w, that's no good.

The best way to make sure that you apply the desired amount of power on the pedals all the time during a ride/race, downgrade upgrade and flat, ALL the time, is to ride with a powermeter, not with a fix gear.