Fixed off-road

i just got back from my first off-road ride on my fixed gear bike. and i can certainly confirm it was ace. a really nice way to break up the routine of my samey south-of-birmingham countryside routes.

if you're into mountain biking but can't always manage the two hour-plus journey times to something fun in wales, riding fixed transforms the too-easy local trails into an interesting challenge.

i hereby encourage everyone to but surly dingle cogs, additional chainrings, knobbly tyres and probably a longer chain and join me in what is certain to become the newest, trendiest form of fixed gear riding.

in other news, i just won a road bike on ebay (love how ebay lets you 'win' things, even though you have to pay for them) so i'll also probably be doing some longer mid-week rides soon (60-100 miles, maybe)

I did a bit of off road on mine, it was fun, but I was scared of mashing the bike up

I might do it on my polo bike

yeah, i don't think aluminium track frames are really up to it. an easier gear (i've got 42-20) and knobbly tyres make it far more doable. interestingly, i reckon with a gear like that, brakeless could be viable. i hardly used my brake at all, when the trails got a bit more difficult, the bike just naturally slowed down.

my frames a road frame! it was ok for the rolling bits, but yeah, yuh want the springiness of a flexy steel frame if you wanna ride over bumps and roots and that.

as for the brakeless ting, i hardly ever use front brake on an mtb off road anyway - only for straight, steep descents that rear braking alone would cause skidmentation on. i dont think many people would go fast enough off road on a fixed, to require a front brake. i cant imagine bombing the follow the dog section at cannock at the speed i did would on my mtb... i'd get pedal strike for a start!

yeah, pedal strike is an issue. i came a cropper trying to clear a fallen tree. by the time the front wheel clears, you've whacked the front wheel into the log.

do you have a mtb? i may start going up to cannock semi-regularly on a weekday evening once it gets a bit lighter if you fancy joining. need to get stu to show me around the non-dog trails though.

My MTB is bruk up. The freehub is broken so I need a new hub or wheel. It's converted to singlespeed, but the chain is too tight, so I need a sprocket or chainring that is one tooth smaller than the current one (if I remove one link from the chain, it goes too slack even for the chain tensioner to work on it)

heres a photo of the best trail i've done at cannock, its got everything on it jumps, berms, a few bits of mini north shore and its quite long and can be combined with other off-piste trails.

its a fair way from follow the dog mind, pm me if you want more details though its a bit hard to explain where it is

I found quite a lot of really good bits that were off the signed bits, it's just a matter of exploring.