Fixed AND Clipless?

"Gippledocks" <[email hidden]> wrote
in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Anyway, here's the thing. On my other bikes I ride
clipless, but I built

up

Quoted message said:

the fixie with plain rat trap pedals, not even with
clips and straps. Prudent? Cowardly? You decide. Yet I
swear I've seen folk riding fixed AND clipless!! How on
Earth do they disengage? Now maybe I'm an artless fellow
of the first order, but nine times out of ten I can't
disengage on

my

Quoted message said:

freewheel bikes while the pedals are going round.

I found clipless made fixed much better - none of that
trying to find the toeclip having set off from a junction at
speed (but I use double sided spds).

I wouldn't want plain pedals - at least with clips/clipless
your legs get pulled round for you when you forget..

cheers, clive

"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Gippledocks"
<[email hidden]>
wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Anyway, here's the thing. On my other bikes I ride
clipless, but I

built

Quoted message said:

up

Quoted message said:

the fixie with plain rat trap pedals, not even with
clips and straps. Prudent? Cowardly? You decide. Yet I
swear I've seen folk riding

fixed

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

AND clipless!! How on Earth do they disengage? Now maybe
I'm an

artless

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

fellow of the first order, but nine times out of ten I
can't disengage

on

Quoted message said:

my

Quoted message said:

freewheel bikes while the pedals are going round.

I found clipless made fixed much better - none of that
trying to find the toeclip having set off from a junction
at speed (but I use double sided spds).

I wouldn't want plain pedals - at least with
clips/clipless your legs get pulled round for you when you
forget..

cheers, clive

Seconded - I've used fixed for winter training and (once
upon a time) for track racing, and always preferred
clipless. It's possibly *slightly* harder to get your feet
*in* with road pedals (I used Shimano 7401s or Look
variously), but no problem whatsoever to get them *out*.
Take a look at www.simondaw.freeserve.co.uk/cycling.html
for a picture of me on grass with fixed and clipless! (Dura
Ace, I think.)

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Quoted message said:

I've recently resurrected an indifferent '80s 10-speed
light tourer as my first fixie.

Which is very interesting to me, as I am just starting out
on the same road. What did you do for transmission, chain
run etc? And what gears did you go for?

I was hoping to get hold of an old disc brake hub and mod it
for a sprocket, that's looking unlikely now so I'm beginning
to think I should get a proper track hub and have (or try
myself!!) a new wheel built up, unless I can find someone
selling a track wheel.

I'd be interested to read about your experiences doing the
conversion.

bfn,

Tony B

Gippledocks
[email hidden] opined
the following...

Quoted message said:

I've recently resurrected an indifferent '80s 10-speed
light tourer as my first fixie. So I'm on the learning
curve: long periods of mechanical bliss and perceived
efficiency punctuated by omigod moments when the brain
spots a hazard and lets the legs forget to go round. So
far I've been lucky enough to avoid being launched into
oblivion, but it's not yet clear whether my legs will
learn before my luck runs out.

Twice I've done that. First time, I'd just built the fixer
and was still getting used to it. Second was about a week
ago. I'd just been chatting to a friend about how easy it
was to get used to it, and how I barely noticed any more.
Rode down the hill hit a really rough patch of road (Bloody
buses) and tried to freewheel. I worked it out just in time
and wobbled to a halt at the lights 50 yards later.

Jon

Simon D [email hidden] opined the following...

Quoted message said:

Seconded - I've used fixed for winter training and (once
upon a time) for track racing, and always preferred
clipless. It's possibly *slightly* harder to get your feet
*in* with road pedals (I used Shimano 7401s or Look
variously), but no problem whatsoever to get them *out*.

I actually found it easier to clip in on the fixer. Being
able to put pressure on the pedal when it is still rising,
coupled with very predictable movement means that I can
usually clip in before I need to apply power. This has
dramatically improved my sprinting starts from lights. Of
course... if you do fail to clip in at the start, there is
the problem that the difficulty increases with speed and the
only way to slow the pedals is to slow down. I've only had
this happen once and I'm blaming it on having only had 3
hours sleep.

When I built my fixer earlier this year, it didn't even
occur to me to put anything other than clipless on it. I
couldn't ride rat traps and the thought of proper toe clips
and straps terrifies me.

Jon

cgi.ebay.co.ukeBayISAPI.dllOpen ↗

Cheers for that, I'll have a punt later.

Tony B

ebay said:

cgi.ebay.co.ukeBayISAPI.dllOpen ↗
76765964

Did you have to tell him?!

Colin

Gippledocks said:

Anyway, here's the thing. On my other bikes I ride
clipless, but I built up the fixie with plain rat trap
pedals, not even with clips and straps. Prudent? Cowardly?
You decide. Yet I swear I've seen folk riding fixed AND
clipless!! How on Earth do they disengage? Now maybe I'm
an artless fellow of the first order, but nine times out
of ten I can't disengage on my freewheel bikes while the
pedals are going round.

I ride fixed and clipless. I only tried non-clipless a
couple of times while I was waiting for my SPD-shoes to
catch up after moving to London. I find it a lot easier
clipless for those moments when you "forget" to keep your
pedals turning.

AFA disengaging goes, I'm usually pretty much at a
standstill by the time I disengage. The cadence is so low
that unclipping is a trivial affair. In emergency stops, I'm
not sure what happens since the conscious part of my brain
is usually occupied with other things. It seems to work
though, prolly because I don't put my feet down while I'm
still moving, regardless.

The two times I've come off my fixie were: a. in my first
week of riding, my foot was way too far forward on the
pedal when taking off and got caught the wrong side of the
front wheel (nowhere near the clearance afforded by my
mtb), and b. when hit from behind by a lorry. Neither of
these were disengaging related, so I guess it's not that
much of an issue.

richard

Gippledocks said:

I've recently resurrected an indifferent '80s 10-speed
light tourer as my first fixie. So I'm on the learning
curve: long periods of mechanical bliss and perceived
efficiency punctuated by omigod moments when the brain
spots a hazard and lets the legs forget to go round. So
far I've been lucky enough to avoid being launched into
oblivion, but it's not yet clear whether my legs will
learn before my luck runs out.

Anyway, here's the thing. On my other bikes I ride
clipless, but I built up the fixie with plain rat trap
pedals, not even with clips and straps. Prudent? Cowardly?
You decide. Yet I swear I've seen folk riding fixed AND
clipless!! How on Earth do they disengage? Now maybe I'm
an artless fellow of the first order, but nine times out
of ten I can't disengage on my freewheel bikes while the
pedals are going round.

At various times I've ridden fixed with clips and straps and
with clipsless.

The thought of riding fixed with platform pedals sound scary
to me, what stops your feet flying off down hills? What
stops them slipping off up hills?

Clips and straps are easy to get out of if the straps aren't
tight. If you tightened the straps and forget to loosen them
before stopping, you get very good at trackstands.

Adjusting the strap tension at speed is tricky, even at low
speed you have to take a hand off the bars and reach down.
Flipping the pedal round at speed is tricky and inelegant.

Loose straps are great for practising trackstands, your feet
cant slip but you can always get them out.

Nowadays I use SPD's. I find them very easy to get into, I
start with my left foot clipped in and usually get my right
foot clipped in within 1 or 2 revs.

I haven't fallen over yet, but for the first few days
found my ankles and calfs got very tired, now I don't
notice it at all.

Trackstands are slightly tricky.

If both feet are clicked in I tend to give up sooner as
it does take a second or so to unclip. I did once bog it
up and had to lurch forward and sideways when I really
didn't want to.

If one foot is unclipped you don't feel fully 'engaged'
with the trackstand and also have to worry about slipping
off the pedal.

--
Andy Morris

AndyAtJinkasDotFreeserve.Co.UK

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"Tony B" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I've recently resurrected an indifferent '80s 10-speed
light tourer as

my

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

first fixie.

Which is very interesting to me, as I am just starting out
on the same

road.

Quoted message said:

What did you do for transmission, chain run etc? And what
gears did you go for?

Well I accumulated the bits over quite a period so I
don't know whether they're all available from where I got
them, but you should be able to find similar. Sheldon
Brown and the Web in general was very helpful in
crystalising my ideas.

The original bike had horizontal dropouts but needed a bit
of drill and file work to lengthen the drive-side dropout
(this bike is no thouroughbred). Beyond that it was just
spanner work and credit card.

The transmission is all 1/8 inch (mostly aesthetic grounds,
I admit) with 42T chainring and 18T sprocket (received
wisdom, but tested by riding my hack for a week in a similar
gear - and it wouldn't be the end of the world if I had to
change it later). These plus some chainring spacers (of
which more later) were from St. John Street Cyles.

My idea was to bung the lot together and see how the
chainline ran, correcting it with the chainring spacers if
poss or with a new bottom bracket if not.

I had Spa Cycles of Harrogate build me a wheel with Suzue
flip-flop hub and MA3 rim spaced to the bike's 125mm (if
memory serves) dropout spacing.

Imagine my disappointment when the wheel arrived with 10mm
of spacers one side and 5mm the other! Although fixed / free
hadn't been a priority I'd been thinking dishless, but I
hadn't told Spa. Anyway my head won over my heart and I
convinced myself to offer up the wheel before getting on the
phone. Whoopee! The chainline was spot on and the spacers
were redundant! Well done Spa. How could they have known?

So the message seems to be two-fold...
1. Just do it.
2. Be lucky.

--

Richard

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"AndyMorris" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

At various times I've ridden fixed with clips and straps
and with

clipsless.

Quoted message said:

The thought of riding fixed with platform pedals sound
scary to me, what stops your feet flying off down hills?
What stops them slipping off up hills?

Clips and straps are easy to get out of if the straps
aren't tight. If you tightened the straps and forget to
loosen them before stopping, you get

very

Quoted message said:

good at trackstands.

Adjusting the strap tension at speed is tricky, even at
low speed you have to take a hand off the bars and reach
down. Flipping the pedal round at speed is tricky and
inelegant.

Loose straps are great for practising trackstands, your
feet cant slip but you can always get them out.

Nowadays I use SPD's. I find them very easy to get into, I
start with my left foot clipped in and usually get my
right foot clipped in within 1 or

2

Quoted message said:

revs.

I haven't fallen over yet, but for the first few days
found my ankles and calfs got very tired, now I don't
notice it at all.

Trackstands are slightly tricky.

If both feet are clicked in I tend to give up sooner as it
does take a second or so to unclip. I did once bog it up
and had to lurch forward and sideways when I really didn't
want to.

If one foot is unclipped you don't feel fully 'engaged'
with the

trackstand

Quoted message said:

and also have to worry about slipping off the pedal.

Many thanks indeed for the benefit of your experience. I
sense an impending project for my next few free weekends.

--

Richard

--------------------

Individual replies to
[email hidden]

less the Misdirections (and note the underscore after r246)