Road fixed / fixed road

A couple from a grimy spin this morning. Mulo has just had some muddy g's fitted, perfect fixie weather 👌

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That's a banger

I'm threatening myself with a fixed gear 200k this winter. It will be about 2x my longest fixed ride. The route is ~7,800ft elevation gain.

I know folks do much bigger rides fixed, but I'm curious about experience from people who do big rides fixed. Any thoughts or experience to share?

Ha, I'm wondering this too! Hard Day in January is about 90 miles (although @youramericanlover is saying it might be 100 miles this year, eek).

I'm out this weekend to get some longer fixed rides in. Frankly I'm worried, lol

Honestly there is little difference, in fact I find it easier in some respects as less mech worries and more evenly paced.
It is more difficult to group ride, but I just let everyone know that I'll be rear gunner and yo-yo on and off.

My last post on this thread as it's not cp and I don't have drops...

Came out alrigh doe. (In teenage pleasure)

Braze on next!?

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Braze on would look much better! I'm sure this works well but it looks a cheap Halfords D lock holder.

Ha! It does ay! 😁👌

Braze on would look much better!

Wouldn't be easy on an aluminium frame though 😉

It's not that I disagree with @Daithetooth but more that I differently agree. I would say that overall it's probably harder. Difficult to get around the fact there is no real rest compared to bikes that coast. But with long distance stuff like D says there's fewer worries and it's more evenly paced, especially when you're not really getting much rest anyway (200km+). But I'd say that riding fixed encourages/forces you to ride more conservatively. If I'm on like 66gi and aiming for 80rpm and all the sudden the group hits 35kph on the flat is going to feel a little silly when I have another 130km to go, and I think 'well this is a dumb spinny idea' so I ease off. Many many times I see that faster group that pulled away still in the Dismounting Futzing Phase at the next audax control and they've burned through some energy and not really saved any time.. Obviously most people are fucked at the end of a good audax, but I'm not sure people who ride fixed are like waaay more fucked at the end than everyone else.

My main concern is just running out of power completely on the hills. There comes I point when the torque just isn’t there but I guess the solution is just more miles and more hills on a fixed gear.

If you can do it geared you can do it fixed! Just a little more slowly but you get to talk about it on the internet way more.

I’m going to side with @Daithetooth I always find it easier fixed. I’m also faster fixed as I have to attack hills. I run 72” on drop bar bikes. In fact I’ve only completed on SR series and it was all on fixed.

When you ride dumb fixed, it's really dumb

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Is that a BLT.

Love a BLT.

I rode the Dunwich Dynamo fixed a couple of years back, we finished in Manningtree which was about an extra 40 miles, plus an added 7 or 8 getting to London Fields.

It's not as hilly at 5500ft elevation gained, I rode an average 12.1 mph - So quite slowly.

I bonked cause I got sick of gels but other than that it was a good experience. 164 miles over 17 hours total and 13 1/2 moving.

I totally agree with @youramericanlover, you can definitely do it, it just may be slower / more conservative on the fast bits.

(edited: I cmd+entered prematurely)

This is an amazing patch. Where can I get one?

Was a one off batch a few months ago, inspired by a @youramericanlover post in the audax thread, perfectly executed by @jaeyukdapbap

Ha, I'd missed that part.

I’m a bit of a lightweight and have only ridden 4 💯mile + road rides.
Fixed 16x48 in 5hrs39mins
SS 16x42 (Pashley Guv’nor) 8hrs 0mins
Full roadie 1x 50x11/28 4hrs 54mins
Grav grav 1x 42x11/42 6hrs 27mins

Fixed was by far the hardest, as when your legs are gone they are gone. At around 80miles I wished I’d gone on my own and not in a group trying to take turns and not fall out the back or go too far out on the climbs was an arse! If I’d gone with other fixed riders we may have found a pace that worked for us all. I know they were all slower because I was there, that’s not a good feeling, even though I told them to leave me at the 85miles mark which they didn’t :0
The other rides rides were with people on similar bikes so were much much easier.
So my takeaway is it’s not the bike, it’s the way you ride that matters.

i think the HDIJ should spin off a HDIS dunwich ride
@youramericanlover

Well I can see how November 4th goes first. Haven’t booked my tickets for HDIJ yet. So plenty time to bail, lol.

As for doing it geared/fixed. I’ve only ever ridden a ton once, over a decade ago, on a lo-pro. Lol.

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I find riding fixed my arse and shoulders suffer way more than anything else when compared to riding gears. This is probably because it’s tricker to stand and relieve pressure when fixed and you tend to pull on the bars a lot harder when climbing.

This years PBP was the longest fixed gear ride I’ve done and, in all honestly, I don’t think I would want to ride much further without gears.

This long distance riding people make me envious. Very much in awe of the dedication to set yourself these sort of goals and commit to taking the days off. i think i need a stable-ish job, but that's an aside.

I used to have strong neck and shoulder pains riding road bikes. Since taking up fixed gear riding i seem to have improved in core strength and it takes more time to appear.

Thanks all for the thoughts. Seems experience mirrors mine for fixed vs geared for similar length rides. Fixed maybe a bit harder, but mostly just different hard.

For me it seems I end similarly tired, geared riding is just faster and I push harder, fixed is a bit slower and I tire more from climbing rather than pushing on flats.