Cycle Sportives

Riding across cobbles is probably a pretty awful idea on any bike. My question is more, does riding cobbles fixed cause significantly more discomfort than riding them geared?

Plus you have to do it on a bike mis-suited to the task for the full effect. Cross bike is blates cheating.

I would almost certainly be cheating and apparently it's 'only' 40% cobbles but I still don't fancy the idea of being battered about the barse for 40+ miles.

There were a few old timey revival types / mentals we saw far too much of who were doing it fixed and seemed to be having a very good time. That might have just been for the cameras though.

Being able to get out of the saddle on the longer pave'd descents made them more tolerable- whilst freewheeling.

The route we did must have been about 130 miles? That's a long way to ride fixed before you even consider the cobbles.

132, mainly flat miles.

Riding across cobbles is probably a pretty awful idea on any bike. My question is more, does riding cobbles fixed cause significantly more discomfort than riding them geared?

You'll be sound, get it done. If you do it geared you may aswell do it in a car.

I've ridden 200+, mostly flat miles, fixed previously so the distance doesn't daunt me. Just the cobbles, which do.

There were a few old timey revival types / mentals we saw far too much of who were doing it fixed and seemed to be having a very good time. That might have just been for the cameras though.

They had awesome tyres:

I've ridden 200+, mostly flat miles, fixed previously so the distance doesn't daunt me. Just the cobbles, which do.

You'll be sound, get it done. If you do it geared you may aswell do it in a car.

Surely you want to keep pedalling as much as possible over cobbles though? Drive through them? That picture is scary, with gears or without.

most of the fixed riders I've seen on P_R have used wooden rims

Surely you want to keep pedalling as much as possible over cobbles though? Drive through them? That picture is scary, with gears or without.

I found that pushing a bigger gear than normal helped- old MTB'ing habit for dealing with broken ground as you very slightly push yourself off the saddle, but not enough to be out of the saddle, as it were.

That said I used the wrong tyres, on the wrong wheels, with the wrong bike- so don't listen to me whatever you do.

I had the most fun chasing a pair of Germans over the cobbles at 25-30mph. Anything slower was painful, but fuck keeping that up for the length of it. Plus I had to behave.

Riding across cobbles is probably a pretty awful idea on any bike. My question is more, does riding cobbles fixed cause significantly more discomfort than riding them geared?

The best way to ride cobbles is to power over them in the big ring so not being able to coast, to me at least, isn't a disadvantage. Saying that, I'd not ride it again, unless someone was buying me a LOT of beer at the end.

It was fucking horrifying, to be honest.

Being able to get out of the saddle on the longer pave'd descents made them more tolerable- whilst freewheeling.

I can only remember one (very mild) downhill.

freewheeling over cobbles >>>

Marginal gains

Moriau gueuze

Not sportives as such but the Chiltern Reliability ride series:
http://www.hemelcycling.org.uk/events/chiltern-classics

^ Harp Hilly Hundred is a great route, and really well organised. Ride the course a lot for 'training'. Not massively hilly, but certainly a challenge

Views on how doable the Harp Hilly course is fixed?

I've done it geared a few times. Usually get lost although have Garmin now so maybe not. Hardest climb would be the Buffalo hill or whatever it's called up to the zoo thing.

Cheers