Across Asia on a fixie? Silly?

We have no experience on fixed gears but are planning to go on a long distance ride across Asia for about five thousand miles on fixies. Is this a good idea? Any suggestions?

I've done it on a motorcycle and thought the guys doing it on normal pushbikes were mental, but fixed?! Anything is possible of course, but you will need balls of steel! Road conditions can be appalling to non-existent in some places.

Very Silly. If you've had no experience with fixed gear why try it now? Seems like you\re pointlessly trying to make a challenge harder than it already is.

Silly but I met a guy outside my flat who was just coming home from a round the world ride on a penny farthing. So it would be possible. Checkout the touring on fixed thread. Personally I'd run a rear brake (as well as front) to help with descents and buy some very nice light weight gear.

Also check out this book by the Crane cousins on traveling through Asia light and fast to get an idea of what sacrifices they had to make to be light. Also consider the experience they had before hand.

Richard and Nicholas Crane: Journey to the Centre of the Earth

2 couriers used to have a great website up about them doing this, its down now but here's an interview with one of them on another website
http://www.63xc.com/2bikes/2bikes.htm
they did it on track bikes with no brakes but were used to riding these bikes. I think the key to this would be to travel as light as possible, have solid wheels with touring tyres if they will fit in your frame and you will probably want a flip flop hub so that you can change your gear for long hills and stuff. Plan your route so your not out in the wilderness for days so you only need to carry minimal food and water and no camping stuff.
Good Luck!

ii would take a 39-23 gearing for mount everest otherwise you'll never get to the top

lol. They are all out today aren't they? Must be the sun

he posted at 3 am must have been drunk !! having come in from the pub with bravado coursing through his veins !!

We have no experience on fixed gears but are planning to go on a long distance ride across Asia for about five thousand miles on fixies. Is this a good idea? Any suggestions?

Choose Big tyres, strong steel frames, lightweight kit and Brooks saddles. Choose a fucking big tool kit. Choose Sudocrem, Germoline, Terra Nova tents and Thermarests. Choose lugs, 531 and cantilever brakes. Choose a fixed-free double sided hub. Choose flat pedals and powergrips. Choose your riding partners. Choose Ortlieb and Carradice luggage. Choose not to buy your bike on hire purchase in a range of fucking enamel finishes. Choose building your own wheels and wondering what the hell you're doing at the side of the road with a Spokey. Choose sitting on your saddle hour after mind-numbing hour, watching the miles crawl by, stuffing cheap shite food into your mouth at every opportunity. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable airport, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up trustafarian gap year students they've spawned to replace you.

Choose your future. Choose fixed.

^ amen to that.

he's going cycling not trainspotting

fixedspotting

Check this book out if you can, it's about two guys who rode from Moscow to Beijing on recumbents. Particularly interesting is the one who had never properly ridden a recumbent before the trip had started. Also worth watching some Long Way Round if you haven't before, as it gives a good idea about the kind of roads you are likely to have to ride.

i'll try and find links of a friend of mine who did this journey

saakje hazenburg a friend of mine from canada did this journey with her sister and brother

http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/08-08/cycling-in-shangri-la-bicycle-misadventures-on.html

report here

pakistan to china

Good to know, thank you. Nevertheless I have to tell you that I have been doing trans continental bicycle rides for more than fifteen years. I pedalled fully loaded expedition bikes all over the world. Himalayas and Andes have been crossed many times and in fact are being done so right at this very moment in Peru. But next year I will, as I understand, experience a new pain. I am very interested in fixies and although I was not drunk when I posted this thread (as was suggested because time difference with Peru made it look that way, I see) this plan was born, as all the plans for my life, in a pub. Good thing is that I don't forget about them when I am sober and so here I go into my new adventure on a fixed through Asia.

Good luck.

you'll need it.

www.osmosno.com

"The fixed gear or fixed wheel bicycle is slowly emerging from a subculture."

um...

Oh, wait. It's okay:

Awesome.

Make sure you go across bangladesh, the whole country is a completely flat delta. Ripe for 'fixie' riding. Go in winter though, otherwise youll be spending most of the time in a boat.

Actually, doing this on a fixed or SS is just taking cycle touring back to basics. Probably all the first generation of long distance cycle rides were done on a fixed by virtue of their being ridden on an ordinary.

LEJOG was first done on an ordinary.

Reliable variable gears don't appear until the 1900s. The Tour, due to Desgrange's romantic notions of the what the race should be , remained done on a fixed or single speed till the late 20s.

Good luck to you.

a Taiwanese ride the bike across the Asia to France
not fixed bike, but still quite cool
he have the English translate, so no problem to read

http://btp.deray.org/en_index.html

good luck man

Hi Osmosno!
Seems like you got loadz of experience travelling across the globe on 2 wheels already.

Asia on a fixie..?
Its silly, but that's why you *should *do it.