Any fellow fixed-gear bicyclists out there?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

[sub]–Henri Desgrange, L’Équipe article of 1902[/sub]

Today I joined the club. The few, the proud, the completely nuts, people who ride skimpy little bikes with no gears that won’t even coast. Yes, today I bough a Bianchi Pista track bike (with front brake).

My six year old mountain bike has held up well, and will continue to see service when I can afford to rebuild the rear wheel, and replace the entire drivetrain and upgrade to v-brakes. But as my daily ride, and work bike (I’m a bike messenger) it has been replaced.

A fixed gear bike is different than the bikes most of us are used to. There are no different gears. You have just one ratio to fit all your needs. That one gear is also a fixed relationship between pedal speed and wheel movement. If the wheel’s moving, the pedals are as well, and vice versa. None of that coasting, no moving the pedals backwards to a more desirable spot.

Honestly, this whole fixed-gear thing is kind of scary. I mean, I can’t stop pedalling on it. I can try, but it just yanks my feet around. This is taking some getting used to. Whenever I see a bump on the ground, my natural reaction is to try to coast over it. When I use the brake, I try to stop pedalling. If I’m next to a curb, I try to keep a pedal above it and coast along to eke out that much more space.

I’ll admit, I was, not too long ago, opposed to the idea of such a bike, but have yielded to peer pressure. Many, probably most, of my fellow bike messengers use these sort of bikes. Many even forgo the brake, having perfected the track skid (stop pedalling, thus making the wheel stop, far easier said than done), but this is not for beginners. When it came time to retire or repair my old bike (Tuesday, due to a broken spoke), I had made up my mind. I took the day off work, which nicely coincided with a mildly twisted ankle I wanted to give a day to feel better, and found my new love.

Tomorrow I suppose is the trial by fire on the mean streets of Boston. I’m all tingly with excitement at the prospect. There is such a fine line between being “in the zone” and being “scared shitless”. Aside from the North Washington Street Bridge, I’m pretty constantly in the former condition, but this changes things. Hopefully for the better.

After all, fixed-gear riding is supposed to offer a better feel than regular biking. The bike becomes more of an extension of the rider, not insulating him from the terrain, allowing him to shift his weight more precisely to maintain balance, using pain to remind him of the slope. Also, there’s the sheer simplicity of it, no derailleurs to break. And, most appealing to me, is the way a track bike embodies minimalism. I love minimalism.

So, before I bore everyone to death, is there anyone else that does this sort of thing? Come, share stories, advice, etc. etc. Beer’s on me.

2

all i can think of when i see those things is ‘my god, my poor knees!’ masochists, all of you. three cheers for the derailleur!

3

Uh, yeah, how is progress on artificial knees coming? I figure I’ll be in the market in another 20 years…

4

What! No Campagnolo? At least the Pista logo is in the Bianchi team color, called Celeste. This color is also known as cat-puke green amongst Bianchi enthusiasts.

Does riding your bike in tenth gear all of the time count? That is how my 1961 Bianchi Specialissimo spent most of its latter years. I’m trying to save up the bucks to have it restored by Cycle Art in Vista, CA.

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Where do you live? I can understand them being nice in relatively flat places, but I have known people in SF and Seattle who swore by them-- THAT is macho and silly. A bike messenger kind of thing. I do like the clean-ness of everything (husband keeps one built up, but I haven’t done it much). He has presently a bizarre thing built up out of a ‘Herse’-style demontable his friend built up, and he used to use a Razessa, a crappy old lilac-colored Lotus, oh God, etc. It varies. It’s a sort of on-going experiment. I ride a one-speed a lot (right now a swank old 50’s raleigh with the crooked top tube and hub brakes) but just can’t get into the fixie thing. I like coasting down hills. I’m a wuss. I know, I know, “you’ll develop such a smoother spin, etc”. It just. . . I don’t know. Maybe it’s a boy thing?

6

Oh, sorry, I see you’re in Boston. You have a front brake, right? Just keep your mind on things well. There’s always the old Ordinary method of throwing your feet up over the bars. . . I’d be terrified of skipping a pedal on a turn. . . high bottom bracket? Maybe a cross frame would be good for this?

7

I said I’m a bike messenger. Not a dot-com millionaire. Maybe later I’ll have the money to get filings left over at the Campy factory. :wink:

Today I saw a woman wearing pants the same color. It didn’t work nearly as well on her as it does on my bike.

I was talking with one of my coworkers today, who has the same type of bike as I do, and he used to be a messenger in SF with it. He likes Boston better.
[/quote]

Hard to find a cross frame with horizontal dropouts, I’d imagine. I know Independent Fabrication will set up any bike you order from for fixed gear, but they’re pretty high end. Certainly not something you’re going to find lying around in most bike shops.

Anyways, after only one day, I’m hooked. I never want to use multiple gears again. I’m amazed that I get paid for having that much fun.

8

Wow, blast from the past. I haven’t ridden on a velodrome since I lived in San Diego in the early eighties. I never owned a track bike myself but got to borrow and ride a few match sprint bikes there. Even on a track where you don’t have to worry about brakes - in fact they aren’t allowed - it’s a novel experience to ride one. The first time I tried to slow myself by retarding the pedals it felt bizarre to use muscles that never came into play before on a bike. The San Diego velodrom has 29º banking, not extreme by track standards but it’s a legal UCI 333.3 meter track. I got to see the preliminary trials for the '84 olympics there and rainbow jersey (world champion) Connie Paraskevin (sp?) was a frequent racer there.

Can you do a track stand? I can :smiley: A very important skill if you have double toe straps and cleated shoes but even with quick release Look or SPD pedals it’s very handy in traffic.

FWIW Campy makes components, not bicycles. A Bianchi Pista may very well indeed have campy parts. Campy does, at least once did, make a less expensive line of parts. My old road bike was a Univega frame with a Campagnolo Gran Sport Gruppo. They were much in the design of the orignal Record components but without replacable bushings and as nice a finish. It was a mass produced frame but all Tange double butted tubing and quite stiff in the bottom bracket for sprints. I still have the frame and most of the components in storage. Maybe someday I’ll be skinny enough again to ride 25mm tires.

9

Hey, is it easier to track-stand on a fixie, given the back-and-forth possibilities? I can hardly do it on a regular bike-- I have to be on a bit of a slope or wedged against a bump or pot hole.
True about the dropouts. Hadn’t thought of that.

10

Well, it’s called a track-stand because it originated on a track, with track bikes, which are fixed gear. The ability to roll backwards would seem to make it possible to do it without any slope. I, however, have not yet gotten the hang of it. I have been practicing stopping without using the brakes, and have been getting better at it.

I think Zenster actually read the link, and saw that there are indeed no Campy components on the bike (mine is outfitted exactly as advertised, from that same store).

11

[bike snob]

Well, yes, I actually did read to see if any of the current Bianchis still sport any of the Campagnolo gruppo components. Sigh. I trust your Pista was built in Japan like most of the Bianchis these days?

The Bianchi name is one of the more illustrious in Italian bicycle making. Slightly behind Cinelli, Masi and perhaps Poliagghi, my Bianchi was built in Milan by a total of three people. One person brazed the Columbus double-butted tubing into the cutaway lugs. Another painted and detailed the frame with its decals and a third hung all of the equipment on it. Bianchis are named for Eduardo Bianchi and Sons, a famous Italian bicycle racing family.

If you tap my downtube with a pocket comb, it rings like a bell.

[/bike snob]

12

For many years riding fixed wheel in cyclo-cross events was de rigeur as you can be far more subtle when trying to slow down into a corner on surfaces with uncertain grip, plus the bike itself is very light as it doesn’t have all the paraphanalia associated with gears, which is an awfully useful quality when you’re carrying the thing up a steep muddy slope.

Most hillclimb specialists use fixed wheel for their events which generally last less than two miles, the light weight and the direct drive, coupled with the extremely short wheelbase such a machine allows makes lack of gears an advantage.(gears need a reasonable amount of chainlength to avoid chain deflection problems)
For hillclimb events the gearing is usually around 48 teeth on the chainring to around 22 or 24 teeth on the sprocket, though I have seen lower.
Fixed wheel is absolutely the greatest for riding in hilly areas, even if this seems counter intuitive.

I used to ride fixed through winter, again on a low gear of 48teeth driving 20teeth and I’ve managed to keep up on the downhill runs but the legs really have to whip around to achieve 35 mph.

I would recommend doing a few 1/2 hour sessions on the rollers pedalling at 80 pedal revolutions and, having warmed up slowly working up to around 120 revolutions with the occasional one minute sprint thrown in, best I have managed is 180 revs and that is going some. This will really help on the road as it develops the smooth style that is a must for riding fixed wheel

Unfortnately the difficulty in obtaining half decent sprockets nowadays means that gearing can be less flexible.
The best way to run fixed is to have as large chainrings and sprokets as possible, but I believe that the biggest good quality sprockets available are 16 tooth, which means a chainring size maybe 40 through to 46 teeth, but to get a single chainring chainset (rather than try to convert a double chainset which doesn’t line the chain up very well) means you also end up having to pay quite a lot to get the right item.

I’m fortunate in that I’ve got a few large good quality sprockets so I can use the 48 tooth chainring, and calculating gear ratios is easy since 48 is divisible by lots of numbers.

One problem riding fixed through rough terrain, if anything like a twig gets pulled in by the chain one tends to stop rather rapidly, as I have discovered, the bike stops the rider does not, until they hit the floor that is, some yards ahead of the bike, and if you are particularly unlucky you can have the bike land on you too, I am particularly unlucky in that regard.

13

What’s wrong with just not taking your Murray out of fifth gaer?

14

<beats you to within an inch of your life with a chunk of fire hose>
Murray!!?? Pfff!

A good stoplight trackstand is one of the best skills to wow your friends I can think of. I managed to embarass much faster riders by leaving my toe straps tight while they fumbled to get out and fumbled to get back in while I was accross the intersestion. Mind you California law requires you to put a foot down at a stop even in a race held on public roads :frowning: is that still the case?

Don’t knock the Japanese, they make some terrific bikes and components. I’d put Tange tubing up against any made by Columbus or Reynolds. Campy is the gold standard in components but Shimano doesn’t give away much. Does Suntour make the Superbe line any more?

Zenster, I had my Univega frame painted by cycle arts when I lived in San Diego. IIRC an economy paint job was $60 back in the early eighties, what do they charge now?

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About Suntour; I had thought that they went the way of the dodo-- they filed chapter 11 in '94 (and we have been hoarding bar-end shifters), but it looks like they still exist and are making a few things, some cranks among them (and a superbe crank!: http://www.srsuntour.com.tw/).

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BTW, I agree. MURRAY?!?!?

::reaches for truncheon::

The restoration of my 1961 Bianchi Specialissimo is going to be an involved affair. Besides knocking down the entire frame, they will have to strip off all of the paint and the underchrome. You see, Bianchis were made with a complete undercoat of chrome so that if you scratched the paint you only arrived at chrome and therefore the frame would not rust. That chrome out on the tips goes all over the frame. So, we are looking at:

[li] Remove all components[/li]
[li] Photographically capture all decals and markings[/li]
[li] Strip off the paint[/li]
[li] Etch off the chrome[/li]
[li] Resurface the frame to remove any dings[/li]
[li] Replate the frame with chrome[/li]
[li] Repaint the original rare rootbeer color finish[/li]
[li] Reproduce and apply all decals[/li]
[li] Repack all hubs and bearing races[/li]
[li] Remount all components[/li]
[li] Reconnect all cables[/li]
[li] Secretly mark the frame as restored[/li]
[li] Keep the owner of Cycle Art from misplacing my finished bicycle as he has already expressed an intense interest in purchasing it.[/li]
All this for the mere price of:

$1,000 !!!
Sigh, in 1961 the entire bicycle cost all of $250.[sup]oo[/sup], and that was with the Campagnolo components! Considering that 250.[sup]oo[/sup] of 1961 money is more like 2-3K of today’s cash, I suppose I should be more understanding. But I’m not. The worst thing of all is that once it is restored, I won’t want to ride it for fear of getting hit or wiping out!

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capybara sez he thought that Suntour went the way of the dodo–

Thanks for the link. the srsuntour.com URL I got from another place is dead. When I was getting out of the navy in '85 I had put a deposit on a custom made track frame but had to abandon my investment :frowning: I think I stil have a set of laced but not tightened wheels, suntour hubs with threads on both sides of the hub. One for a freewheel single sprocket and one with a locknut for a fixed sprocket. That and a 165mm Superbe track crankset. It was really just the blocky SR/Sugino crank made for a single chainring.

Anyone who knows me knows I absolutely do not belong on a skinny tire bike now but I’m getting really nostalgic for those days. I should probably find some SPD compatible shoes and start riding my non-supsension Stumpjumper again.

Zenster, sounds like a way cool restoration. Get some photos of that gem when it’s done.