I can answer for myself: First, I started riding fixed relatively young -- 42, IIRC -- when my knees were strong, and perhaps got them used to it; and I gradually learned to stand for longish periods, which puts less strain on your knees. Also, I rarely ride longer than 30 miles at once.
In short, you can adapt to standing for long periods. Further, if you don't do this already, learn to shove back way behind the bb, so that you are pushing the pedal over TDC, to some extent. Lastly, you can also "scrape" the pedal at BDC, and pull up (this requires cleats of some sort to be easy, IME) for a bit of extra torque. I find longish, gradual hills among the most enjoyable of terrains; 68" to 76" gears with current bikes. Heck, I climb that way on my derailleur bikes, too, though perhaps a tooth or so lower. Patrick Moore, whose near-63-year-old knees seem to be fine, Deo gratias. On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 8:40 AM, lum gim fong <john11.2...@gmail.com> wrote: > My only concern for myself regarding trying fixed is hurting my knees by > always trying to pedal too hard. Hilly where I live. I see it is even > hillier where Patric lives. So how do you pedal up those long, tough hills > without shooting meniscus out the sides, especially at our middle age? > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.