Quote Originally Posted by Tri Girl View Post
Thanks for the link, Christopher. NOW I understand!
Question, tho. Does your cadence determine how fast you'll travel downhill? If you slowly pedal downhill, will you go very slowly?
They are just fascinating bikes- I'd love to see someone riding one.
My boyfriend did several of our double centuries last season on his fixed gear and while he could stay with the lead group on the flats and many of the climbs, he would get dropped on the descents every single time. If you play around with the Gear Inch Calculator you can see what your cadence would be at a certain speed with various gearing. Obviously your speed has to top out because at the higher cadences you're bouncing all over the saddle and your legs just can't spin any faster.

It took him a lot of experimenting prior to Furnace Creek 508 to decide what gearing to go with. Ultimately he chose 49/17 because he didn't want to lose as much time on the descents. It ended up being too big of a gear and he lost way more time on the climbs. His descending speed topped out at around 30mph, which is very slow compared to the other racers on multispeeds that were flying down Towne's Pass at 45-55 mph.

As far as pedaling slowly downhill, that works to some extent, but unlike some others, our FG's are equipped with both front and rear brakes. I just don't trust being able to slow down enough without them.

Hope that helps!