Today was the "good weather" in Melbourne that I have been waiting for to
have a crack at riding to work on the Fixie. I started off pretty
tentatively on the downhills (alternating between applying some front and
then some rear brake to reduce heat build up) and I had a couple of times
when I almost tried to coast when coming into a corner or stopping at lights
but apart from that it was pretty cool (even managed not to fall off!!)
I am running a 44/15 ratio which my calculations say is 79.2 inches and I
found that it wasn't too far off the mark. It allowed me to keep a fairly
decent pace on the flats and it wasn't too bad for the uphill bits (although
going up past Ivanhoe Cycles was a bit of an effort!!!). I found that by
the trip home my pedalling on the flats had smoothed itself out considerably
and I wasn't having any dramas with trying to coast anymore. I managed a
couple of short trackstands (practiced for about 10 min or so on Sunday at
home) and on one of them I even managed to ride backwards for a metre or so
(gotta work up to doing reverse circles!!).
The wierdest feeling that I found was slowing down on a down hill using
backwards resistance on the pedals rather than the brakes. I found that I
couldn't apply constant resistance and so I was sort of starting my
resistance with the back leg as the pedals started coming up from the
bottom.
Overall I was pretty happy with the bike (ie. it is big enough for me) and I
will definately be using it more regularly after the Mont has finished.
Ride On,
Gags