Yea.........I haven't tried a fixie yet and prefer the ability to coast the downhills. I might like a fixed gear and as I understand them, you can get away with a taller gear due to the inertia effect of the pedals turning constantly. If I were about 75 pounds lighter and 20 years younger I might try riding a fixed gear in the 70 ish range as many do. I think a low 60's fixed gear might be somewhat exhausting for anything over 10 miles. I like the fact that coasting my single speed lets my legs recover and spinning the flats and rolling hills is just relaxing. I really have to work at climbing however as I cannot stand due to a bad left knee/hamstring injury. It buckles on me and going down stairs isn't too solid two years after the initial injury. Guess I should have a surgeon take a look at it.......! These days I pick my routes and the bike I use for them and try not to overstress my knees. Bicycling is becoming more of a transportation method for me and I am finding I can go farther with less effort if I take it down a notch or two. I'm not 'car less' just 'income light' these days. Its interesting that you mention your 'extra bag of gears', I actually thought about doing the STP with a single speed and taking an extra chain/freewheel set plus tools if I needed a tall tailwind gear or a super low gear for part of the route. It starts sounding a little nutty after a while but its different and that makes it fun for me.
On Jan 25, 12:53 pm, PATRICK MOORE <bertin...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 12:32 PM, charlie <charles_v...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > > The > > overall effect is that with a limited gear bike you use up your energy > > climbing a higher than normal gear (faster) instead of hammering along > > on the flats and gearing down on the climbs. > > I am not sure how to label it other than to say I use my energy > > differently. > > Amen to that, plus you "strategize" your efforts much more, in other simpler > words, you plan ahead. This, to me, is a large part of the fun of single > speeding (in my case, mostly fixed). > > I tried a 60" gear fixed off road for a while, but found the (steeper than > road) downhills supremely annoying, and -- with the 175s on it at the time > -- found myself flailing angrily and futiley on the flats, so I bumped it up > to 64-65" and it was fine. I think given my predilection for mashing, that a > 65" gear on road ought to serve me as a 60" gear does you. Thanks for the > feedback, that helps me learn what low gear to start with. > > My Technium was certainly not a high end one, since, even with the aluminum > tubing, it was quite a heavyweight. And it had long stays (I ran 32s -- > possibly even 35s, I can't remember, but certainly at least 32s; big white > tires -- with fenders). It would have made a wonderful QB surrogate and I'm > sorry now I sold it. Oh well. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
