Dilemma of the 'mature" fixed gear rider.

I’m 54 and still riding fixed. Reluctant to part with road bike and 29er, but if I had to make a choice, the condor track bike would stay for commutes and bombing around the flatter parts of London. The days of climbing Canonbie Road or Swains Lane fixed are long gone for me.

Red wine and cheese also my downfall

48 in a few days and was riding fixed until a knee injury about 6 months back. Physion advice was to keep riding to help recovery.

I can now ride my geared bike without aggravating it but grinding up hills, even on some very easy gearing, fixed does it no good. Bike fit is dialled so not that as far as I'm aware. Probably pies though really.

There's a lot of luck in this

I don't think it's really a question of what sort of bike you ride - it's more about how well preserved each rider is, and there's surely a lot of luck about that. First you need good genes and then you must have got through several decades of cycling without permanent injury or debilitating illness.

After that there's the question of what you believe you can do. Personally, I've done more on fixed this year (just on a whim) than I have for the past few years, but when I first got back on my 67" gear I certainly did have some doubts about what hills I could get up. In practice I've found my age related deterioration has been relatively mild -although I'm certainly not going very fast. This situation won't last for ever, so I'm going to try to make the best of it now.

If you haven't seen my A.G. Duckett thread in Current Projects you might take a look at it:

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/369572/#comment16331168

I will be off for my 2022 ride (Deo volente) this Saturday, so if I never post here again you will know that I was over optimistic about my abilities!

N.B. for some reason this link takes you to the middle of the thread - if you haven't read it before you will need to go up to the first post to understand what I'm trying to do.

I wasn't foolishly over optimistic.

Ride completed without undue difficulty - the non variable gear may have made things a bit slower, but it wasn't really more difficult.

As I said in the other thread, combined age of bike and rider: about 170 years.

If you edit the link and remove the final ‘#comment16331268’ reference after the final / then it will take you to the first post in the thread:

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/369572/

Thanks Andyp!

^ Dilemma of the 'mature' fixed gear poster.

First time riding fixed in about a decade, very glad I opted for 48x19 rather than the 16t on the other side. Fingers crossed the legs of yesteryear aren't gone forever!

I’m 63 and the year before last started to regularly used fixed again having only done it intermittently for a long time. To start with I used an old Roberts my dad converted to fixed 44x18 (about 64 inches). I was using this to ride with my partner who just started to ride regularly and as I’m much fitter it somehow gave me a bit more fun and a slightly better work out. Then I bought a Super Pista for summer use with 48x17 (about 74 inches). Usually I used gears when doing longer rides on my own and have got good at swapping between without problems.
Last year I did some evening time trials for the 1st time in over 30 years and used the Super Pista on some of the 10 and 15 mile tests. I did my fastest time on it despite being slower on the downhill bits and it being under geared for the courses.
I’ll just add that I 1st rode fixed as a teenager doing a paper round on my mum’s old Claud Butler.

I’ll just add that I 1st rode fixed as a teenager doing a paper round on my mum’s old Claud Butler.

Love it!

Yeh, shame I grew out of it!
Here is my mum doing time trial (I've posted these pics before on a different thread)

2 Attachments

This is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen on this forum. So rad.

Figure on a ‘+1’ from here.

Great pic! Is that the CB bike you used for your paper round?

She’s swapped the side of the bell. Aero advantage depending on clockwise / anti-clockwise course and/or wind direction?

Thanks to everyone for positive comments, shame I'm not cool like my mum!

@HarmanMogul the veiw from the side is definitely the Claud, it was yellow with red box lining and chrome ends and I also wore her leather cycling shoes with slippery leather soles.

@Hefty I'd always thought both these pics were of the Claud, but I also noticed that bell changing sides and now I'm not sure they're the same bike. Look at the side view and notice the interesting rear drop outs with the down turn, now zoom in on the front view and hmm I don't know. It had the cyclometer on the front fork when I used it though!
I'll have to dig out the original photos and ask my mum if she remembers (she's 95 now and a bit forgetfull).

Great photos, great story!

Looking at the two pictures, I notice more differences than the position of the bell.

In the side view the brake cables are light in colour and go over and behind the bars, in the front on pic they are dark and go under the bars. Also in the side view the chainset is clearly a Williams C34, but in the other pic, although only part of the inside is visible, it does not look C34ish - could be BSA perhaps.

Removing the cyclometer to race would be a natural thing to do -quick and easy, and the race organiser won't be accepting your opinion that the course was long according to your cyclometer! It would also save that irritating clicking.

So I'm inclined to think these are two different bikes.

Good to hear your mum's still with us. It's always cheering to hear that ancient bike riders are still going - and it does seem to be reassuringly normal.

1st I just want to say sorry to @Rastapopoulos for kind of hijacking your thread here, regardless do you feel your op was answered?
@clubman I have now had a look at the original photos and found a few more that appear to be the CB. I also quizzed my mum today, but she didn’t remember what bike she used before she bought it or when she got it either. Not surprising really as it was a while ago and as she said, she’s been to bed since then!
More phone pics from the original album, with the notes form the reverse for two of them. It's possible there are more photos lurking, but I've yet to find them and there's no one left to ask about it now!

5 Attachments

Interesting to see how the subject moving across the camera lens distorts the perspective in this pic

This is great. How recently was your mum cycling?

@HarmanMogul isn't it though? Of course in the days of real cameras shutter speed, focal length and available light made such a huge difference. On top of that I may not have held the pic straight when I snapped it on my phone!
@si_mon628 thanks, I'm not sure when she stopped cycling. First she was finding it hard to get on a diamond frame, so I got her a step thru. Unfortunately it wasn't racey enough for her so she didn't really like it and she used it less and less until she didn't use it sometime in her 80s

Not at all! I love how this thread developed. Thanks for posting these amazing photos

@Hefty I don’t want a repeat of having to ride back to Hackney to not find the couple who decided to take what they thought was a short cut - it was a couple of days before I heard they were OK. But the sunshine through Epping…

1 Attachment

I'm 65 grossly obese and have two arthritic knees. Riding fixed (albeit with two brakes) is my source of mobility. Much nicer than walking.

! I’d totally forgotten that. Probably because I wasn’t the lovely selfless one who went back for them.