Fixie, fixie, fixie...

[alexis_the_tiny]

Does anyone ride a fixie here? I'm considering buying one. My biggest worries are stopping and whether it'll damage my knee some more. I'm already quite a bit of a klutz and somehow, the physics of a fixie stopping doesn't seem to make much sense to me (although granted, I flunked physics in both high school and college so..you know...) But yes, does anyone ride one? Can you tell me anything about it?

[maillotpois]

No. But the guy I rode my full brevet series with this year (200, 300, 400 and 600k rides) did it on a fixie. In fact, he did two brevet series and the Son of the Death Ride ride and a bunch of other crazy stuff on his fixie.

I actually have a lot of friends who ride fixies for long distance rides (double centuries, etc.) It seems to be a big "thing" here.

I'm not sure what you mean by the physics of stopping - all the fixies my friends ride on roads are equipped with brakes; they're not like track bikes. But the cadences required for descents can be quite challenging. I loved passing my friend on descents and he would get his cadence insanely high to try to re-pass me.

If you have knee damage it might be difficult to ride fixed. I am not sure how hilly your terrain is. But the standing and grinding up hills seems like it would be very painful on the knees.

[jobob]

The few times I've ridden a fixie (with brakes, thankyouverymuch!) I actually had more difficulties with starting than stopping.

It would take me a while to get used to the fact that when I made that initial push to start off, the crank would keep rotating -- it almost pitched me over the handlebars the first couple of times.

There are a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle differences in riding a fixed gear bike compared to a standard freewheel bike. You obviously can't coast at all, which can make navigating tight corners or avoiding obstacles a bit more involved. And even if you have brakes, you don't have the luxury of coasting when you brake to a stop. And of course there's that whole downhill thing ...

That all said, it's a great training tool, people who regularly ride fixes tend to have fabulous pedaling technique and road skills. And like mp said, there are plenty of people who regularly ride fixes on long distance rides ... cuz you know, riding a double century on a freewheel bike with gears is just not enough of a challenge.

[Abarnes]

Ridden fixed for over 15 years, commuting and racing on the track.
Track racing is about power and cadence - commuting is about being simple and fluid.

For commuting, two things make life good: brakes and a low gear. I have two brakes, but a single front is ok if you aren't in a hilly area.

Putting on a low gear is also good - anything in the 65-79 inch range is fine.

These two things combined makes it easy on the knees, both on the torque required to get going from a stop as well as slowing down.

Fit wise you may want to run your saddle a tiny bit higher - no more than 10mm - just to keep you from bouncing on the saddle too much. But not too much that you really reach at the bottom of the stroke.

[alexis_the_tiny]

I REALLY worry about pitching over the top of my handlebars. Seems to me like riding a fixie would have a lot more opportunities for that to happen one way or another. My commute route is pretty flat, just an extended bump or two in the way of 'hills'. It feels so exciting looking for a new kind of bike to ride and yet so terrifying. Just saw a beautiful one with rear brakes in neon yellow and green. Fantastic stuff.

[OakLeaf]

Actually just the opposite. Because there's no freewheeling, even if you have a front brake and you grab a huge handful of it, you're still getting that "engine braking" at the rear wheel. So you're that much less likely to get pitched over the bars.

Really, it's EXCEEDINGLY rare. The only reason I did it (after tens of thousands of miles and probably every other kind of crash there is ) is because I didn't believe it was possible. Seriously. Since you DO believe in it and are refining your technique to avoid it, you can stop worrying.

[carlotta]

I love riding mine (+brakes x2) for a change of pace, it's a different mental exercise than riding with a freewheel which makes it fun. It took a little while to get used to clipping in/out but I think it's made me better/smoother at that as well, particularly starting out from a stop.

I used to commute fixed, but then the commute got longer (22mi/day), and the fixie doesn't have an easy way to mount a rack and carrying a messenger bag with commuting gear that far wasn't making my back very happy. I still use it for local errands/bar runs/etc and do miss it commuting.