Reasons to ride Fixed Wheel
Do we need to list them?
Posted: 16 January 2009
by Richard Hallett
Reasons to ride fixed wheel are, at this time of year, many and varied, but the most obvious starts covering the transmission the moment you leave your front door. A month of freezing weather with little if any rain to wash them clean has left the roads coated in a foul, grey, gritty, slippery, salty muck that not only besmirches the paintwork but attacks metal parts with gusto.
Delicate derailleur mechanisms and lightweight cassettes might almost have been designed to accumulate this clag in their many little corners; jockey wheels, sprockets, control cables and chain all start to suffer from wear and corrosion unless cleaned scrupulously and frequently.
Compare this with the simplicity of a fixed transmission, which, with just one sprocket, a chain running in a straight line and no control cables has but one wear interface, where the chain runs onto the sprocket. It also lessens reliance on and use of the rear brake, which means longer-lasting rim and brake blocks. Not only does a fixed wheeler need less frequent cleaning, but cleaning it is so quick and easy it can be done more often…
Then there’s bike control on roads that might as well be covered in ball bearings; having the pedals connected directly to the back wheel offers much more precise control over rear wheel rotation – and therefore braking in hazardous conditions - than does a freewheel.
Descending a long hill is no longer a question of enduring an icy blast that quickly removes warmth from the knees and leg muscles. Instead, the legs have to keep working – hard – while speed is inevitably low, so there’s never a chance to get chilled.
And then there’s the training effect. Fixed may not be the only way or even the best way to get fit on a bike, but it does impose some useful challenges. One is the need to find a high cadence for riding on the flat provided the gear is well-chosen. Find yourself pushing along on ever-bigger gears, and a few sessions on fixed are the perfect way to break out of the vicious circle.
Fixed wheel also counts for more than riding with gears and a freewheel. A two-hour training ride with no chance to rest the legs feels like three hours of ‘normal’ riding, making it a great choice for the time-poor. Why? Hills, of course. Up or down, they make life hard for the fixed rider and virtually guarantee a real improvement in strength and technique. Which has to be a good thing, surely?
Discuss this story
Have to say I got a singlespeed for moutainbiking last Summer and haven't looked back - its great for being easy to clean, it makes you go for the climbs instead of changing down and just twiddling, and there a whole load of efficiencies due to lower weight and a straighter chainline. So thrilled have I been with the singlespeed moutainbiking experiece that I bought a fixed wheel Pompino for road riding in December. Great for evening rides, but did 60 miles on it last weekend in N Yorkshire, and did a very hilly 30 miler today. It is just fantastic! 
Posted: 17/01/2009 22:29
The drivetrain might be the most efficient, but Mike the bike is right about the efficiency of converting your energy into forward movement. Gears (and that's gears in general, not just derailleurs) were invented for a reason. I'm not knocking SS/fixed by the way, but to claim they're more efficient in any meaningful sense is a bit misleading I think.
Posted: 19/01/2009 10:26
The drivetrain might be the most efficient, but Mike the bike is right about the efficiency of converting your energy into forward movement. Gears (and that's gears in general, not just derailleurs) were invented for a reason. I'm not knocking SS/fixed by the way, but to claim they're more efficient in any meaningful sense is a bit misleading I think.
I believe Chris Boardman set the current 25 mile comp record on fixed. When the gear is the right one, it is great.
Posted: 19/01/2009 12:21
Right, but I think for most purposes terrain, traffic etc. mean that the gear often isn't the right one and in general the benefits of less loss in the drivetrain will be minimal compared to the benefits of gears. Edit: Assuming your priority is most miles for your effort of course. I've got my pedant's hat on today but I really don't have it in for fixies- horses for courses and all that 
Posted: 19/01/2009 13:16
is it me or has nobody else noticed the absolute schoolboy error on the pic in the article where the quick release has been fitted to the drive side tut tut tut
Only on a thread about fixed wheel would this be brought up...
It's DA's bike and he had been turbo training on it, hence the turbo-specific skewer. Apparently he finds it best to fit this particular skewer this way round for personal reasons Besides, Fausto Coppi is supposed to have fitted his q/r's this way round, although I suspect this is a rumour based on pics taken during the 1950 Paris-Roubaix, which he won using Campagnolo's Cambio Corsa.
Posted: 21/01/2009 14:18
I've never tried it. I'm told it's good in traffic, don't really see this as starting and stopping would surely be more difficult ?. I Imagine clipping in is tricky ? Maybe faster at ones optimum cadence but wouldn't that be for only a small percentage of riding time ?. Would the stress on the knees be recommended for all riders struggling up steep hills ?. Is it safe descending at 200rpm ? I fear walking or falling off uphill and the cadence required downhill just sounds and looks silly. I'm willing to be converted but I'm not sure.
Posted: 22/01/2009 15:22
It's much easier to 'track stand' on fixed 'cos you can rock the bike back and forth as desired even when the road camber is not in your favour. Clipping in is no harder than with a freewheel provided youo do it before you start pedalling fast. Or get double-sided pedals. Yes, the times when fixed might be faster than gears are few and far between but I doubt most fixed riders do it for that reason. And it's precisely because you are so often outside your optimum pedalling range that it provides that extra training stimulus talked about. Gear right - about 63" to 67" - and you will find you can ride most hills without a struggle. Funnily enough, longer ones to be taken seated are harder than short steep ones which you can ride out of the saddle. Really steep ones tend not to be that long and you can always walk for a bit if you must. Use your brakes if needed on a descent to keep speed and cadence down and you won't need to worry..It's not a non-negotiable requirement....
Posted: 22/01/2009 15:35
I have fitted one of the cross brake levers (suplied but not fitted) to the front brake of my Tricross as I find it more stable holding the bar centres when descending. I just hit this at about 30 mph (150 rpm) which is about as fast as my old legs will stand. Quite right about the hills Richard. The long 8% to 10% ones are a sod hence I go east on fixed but west into the Dales on gears.
Posted: 22/01/2009 15:52
I love my fixed. I've been riding it for 7 or 8 winters now and its great. Easy and cheap to maintain. It is a different ride to my race bike. If I'd just gone for the winter hack - then that would be a bike thats not quite as good as the race bike - this is completely different. Fantastic for climbing hills on as you cant rest up at all. Its beaten CF bikes uphill before now - despite my Fixie being er, "big boned". Who are these newbies saying its a fashion gimmick ? Blokes in my club have been riding fixed for decades. And you can tell they're well adapted to it when you go out on a club run in N Wales and it takes you ages to spot they are on fixed. OK -its not for everyone - but you cant knock it until you try it.
Posted: 23/01/2009 10:08
It has become fashoinable in London (and perhaps other big cities in the UK) thanks partly to messengers and their need for something cheap to run and, IMO, partly because fixed wheel was regarded a decade ago as some sort of superior kind of cycling by people who should have known better. The only irritating aspect of this is that the current breed of fashionable urban fixed riders think they thought the whole thing up. Since they are easily recognisable, not least because they are invariably over-geared, the knowledgeable find it easy enough to distinguish them from old-school fixed enthusiasts.
Posted: 23/01/2009 11:20
I converted my older steel road bike to singlespeed for three years, by which I mean that I used a freewheel. I fitted a flip-flop hub with a fixed sprocket on the other side, however I only tried it fixed once - I really didnt see any benefit of not being able to coast, I could only see dissadvantages. I thought it was great road-riding with singlespeed though, with 42-17t was a good combo for most rolling roads down in the South East, I could get up all but the steeper chiltern hills and I didn't really spin out until 25mph. Downhill faster than this was fun as I was encouraged to corner better and conserve momentum. However I have converted it back to geared so I can use it for all-round training bike and group/club riding, so I can keep my newer road bike for 'best'.
Posted: 23/01/2009 12:34
I love all the flannel about fixies being less prone to wear and tear and not having to worry about the muck build up. All true of course but there's only one reason people ride fixed. It's great fun. Of all my bikes, the fixie is the one I'd most upset to lose. I ride it every single day and would do my long weekend rides on it if my mates wouldn't get annoyed at waiting for me on hills (top and bottom). It's also improved my sprints massively thanks to the inforced cadence work I now do on steep hills. I can turn a controlled 120 - 150 rpm for about 800 metres now, which none of my mates can do.
Posted: 30/01/2009 15:49
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