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Hippy is correct. Jesse explains it in the video I linked.
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Indian Pacific Wheel Race official Facebook page made this post today:
'Arthur Richardson was the first to cycle the Nullarbor in 1896. It was a feat he completed solo. Alone. Aged 24. Back then there were no roads and Richardson had to pick his way along terribly rough tracks and wade through miles of sand or try to navigate around them. He relied on remote stations, the few established towns and railway work crews to survive. There were no reliable maps, no GPS devices, no passing cars, no communications, no reliable food / water sources, no gears and no fat tyres. The #ipwr riders will have it easy in comparison.
The first Overlanders rode fixed wheel bikes. Freewheels weren't yet available. Will anyone ride the Indian Pacific Wheel Race on a fixed wheel bike? Now that would truly honour the spirit of the Overlanders!
Australian ultra-endurance cycling legend, Rod Evans has ridden huge distances on a fixed wheel bike amongst his massive list of records and achievements. Rod is so keen to see folks honour the original Overlanders that he is putting up his own prize (nothing to do with us!) for the first fixed wheel rider to make it to Sydney. The prize is the weight of the rider's bike and gear in beer. If you don't drink beer, I'm sure Rod will organise something else. Once again, this has nothing to do with us but honouring the achievements of the original Overlanders is very important to us. Thanks to Rod for doing the same.
Looks like I'm doing it fixed after all!
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I'd probably take a flip-flop and a chainring to maintain chain length... and a back brake for descents
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'Same gear' is what I consider the spirit of fixed gear but everyone has their own opinion. For me it's picking the right gear for the ups, the flat and the downs. I don't consider a S3X as "true" fixed gear for example.
If you get your spinning sorted out then you can gear down a bit. On hilly rides I've ridden both gears and fixed I've ended up walking the same bits regardless of the bike I'm on (mostly 18%+ stuff in that there Wales). The power input is the same after all (although efficiency is much less at lower rpm), it's just how well you can balance, tack, and wrench the bars about at <25rpm rather than sitting and spinning at 90rpm+.
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The guy who is putting up the challenge said something about flip-flop being okay, but it would be more simple to have it be a single gear. Less to think about and worry about on the ride - apart from whatever hell your gear choice will cause you lol. I Everested on 42/23 (48") on a 7% hill, and even that felt big after 20 hours. Obviously, I think it would have to be a larger gear for overall speed on flats and just suck it up on the climbs. 71" would probably be a good in-between and is what the challenger recommends.
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It sure would be more exiting of a challenge if you can't have that second gear, tho the original overlanders might have used flip-flop too.
74" was great for PBP and I feel spinny gears are kind of fatiquing over longer distances. But if it's too big and the conditions get rough, you're in trouble.
Fuck, I want to quit my job and ride everything.
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Fuck, I want to quit my job and ride everything.
This.
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Great that you are doing it on fixed!
I think it would be much harder without flip-flop, for two reasons:
Firstly it's like two separate events - a virtually flat ride from Freo to Melbourne then a ride through the mountains.
Secondly, the wind will make a big difference to what gear you'd want across the Nullarbor, and you can't predict it well enough to decide: I watched the forecasts closely last year and I never expected that it would be 6 days of headwind. So I averaged under 20km on most days. For the few hours I had with still air (overnight on the 90-mile straight) I was doing 28-30km.There are a couple of ramps right before the SA/VIC border that you will have to walk. I almost had to walk them on 34x40. Very short but must be 2o+% (or else I was completely shagged at that point!). Otherwise, I can't recall anything steep before Geelong - apart from a couple of switchbacks on a road going into Torquay. They felt vv steep but was dark so couldn't see.
Are you trying to do it vegan? Other than the couple of hours when you pass through the big cities, that will be tough. I had to eat a lot more meat on IndyPac than the TCR.
I found there was meat in things I didn't expect to have it (eg do you want beef pie, steak pie, mushroom pie, potato pie? - I ordered the last two and they both had meat in anyway). When there were veg options I found they were often out of stock. Also, my mouth got so fucked that I needed mushy food so, at Eucla RH, I ordered the spag bol as there was no other pasta/rice dish, and chips would have been like eating razor blades. And finally, chocolate milk is a big thing in Australia.
I am so looking forward to dot-watching this!
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Livin' in an Iced Coffee paradise...
I was more successful in managing to avoid caffeine than meat. Only one iced coffee when there was no chocolate milk, which set me up for an all-nighter. Part of the motivation for the all-nighter was to get up the field so that there would still be chocolate milk at the next roadhouse!
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Yeah, I personally find the thing that f**ks up my legs the most on long distance fixed rides is the somewhat uncontrolled semi-resisting / semi-floppy-legged spinning on the descents when you don't want to go crazy fast. Seems to shred every fibre of my legs haha
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Having to go out this 4 days off from work and nail a 500 mile ride recorded. The joys of not using a GPS for over two years.
hippy
MisterTomTom
veganjoseph
pascalo
Greenbank
Samuli
skinny
SomethingOrOther-
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Indian Pacific Wheel Race - IndyPac - IPWR
Posted by
@frank9755
Even that is not easy: it might take two days to hitch a lift from adelaide to say, Eucla roadhouse to fill in for your stricken mate. Or just nip back the 1,000km or so...