Every now and then I see individuals riding around town on road bicycles that appears to have a single gear ratio - no front/rear derailleurs, no chain tensioner.
A single-speed bicycle is generally standard for little kids who are just learning to ride: not only are they going to be crashing a lot (and risking damage to that oh-so-exposed rear derailleur), but learning to ride is difficult enough without also having to learn about how/when to change gears. But once you’ve mastered the art of not-crashing, the utility of adjustable drive ratios is so great that I’m at a loss to understand why someone would deliberately eschew that capability.
Minimal maintenance. Simple repair. Some don’t even have brakes. Ideal for riding around flat city streets, or a large college campus, theoretically. I’m certain we’ve all seen plenty of very non-flat cities and college campuses, but that’s the idea.
Very different setups. The kids bike usually has a coaster brake, allowing you to stop by reversing direction of your peddling. Great for doing slides at the end of the driveway.
Single speed bike typically have two modes. The first allows free wheeling, so you can coast without peddling. For that you need a hand brake of some sort. The other mode is fixed gear, where there’s a direct connection from the crank to the rear wheel. If the peddles go forward the bike goes forward; if they go backwards so does the bike. That way you can brake by resisting the peddles to slow yourself down, and you can do a track stand much easier. Most (?) single speed wheels are flip-flop hubs, which can be used in either mode depending on which way you put it on the frame.
Fixie is a great way to strengthen you legs. Having to brake with you legs gives you big workout. It’s already been mentioned, but simplicity, reliability, lower cost, and style points are also big draws.
If you’re into cycling as a sport then fixed gear is just part of the landscape - ridden on the track, cadence training in the winter, smooths out the pedal stroke, time trialling etc. My club’s ten mile TT course is good for fixed, with the cognoscenti reckoning it’s slightly faster - you get a bit of a flywheel effect and can sort of muscle the bike over undulations if you’re strong enough [momentum is everything in timetrialling]. I find it slower myself, but I’ve never worked on my position on the fixed gear, just give it a whirl now and again. They’re actually more of a big deal in hill climb time trials, where a lot of the top boys will be on fixed. Then you have the heritage of them, which is pretty fundamental to bike racing - I guess because of the track more than anything else.
If you’re talking about cycling for leisure then things are a bit more intangible. Certainly singlespeed is easy to see the appeal of, as DCnDC says the simplicity and maintenance when commuting is a big deal, esp if you live somewhere with some weather. Making it fixed, though, rather than with a single freewheel, is just about how it feels to ride. I commute fixed every day and all I can say is I would never go back to anything else for where I’m living at the moment [flattish blast of a commute]. It’s a nice way to roll.
No brakes at all? They don’t have caliper brakes, but when I was a kid my bike had a coaster brake. You rotated the pedals backwards slightly to brake the rear wheel.
Some people ride fixed with no brakes, relying on their legs to stop the bike. You need a fair amount of youthful stupidity / mature arsehole-ness on your side to do this on the street - the reaction time is nothing like as good as a proper rim brake and you’re booked for an accident sooner or later. It’s also quite hard to emergency stop a fixed gear bike with any sort of serious ratio on it [although can be done with practice].
Sometimes used by road racers to improve cadence.
Sometimes used by messengers to reduce the costs of doing business.
Sometimes used by hipsters to appear cool.
Sometimes used by people who unwittingly ask hipsters for bicycle advice.
Always used by track racers when racing on a track.
You could probably use one to slice bread, but I’ve never seen that done.
It works a little like that, but not exactly. it’s a direct drive; the best analogy that most people seem to be able to relate to in my experience is riding a big wheel when you were a kid.
Mine worked exactly that way. I moved the pedals backward and it engaged what I assumed was some kind of drum in the rear hub that stopped the wheel by friction. The trick is to apply gentle force to it and not wear a hole in the tire by stopping suddenly (as I did once).
Fixies are somehow seen by their riders as being more “authentic”.
Personally I don’t think they should be used anywhere except on a track, and in any place that has laws regarding bicycles they’re probably illegal for street use since they don’t have brakes.
Flat city streets with no cross streets, maybe, and how often do you see that? Put in any cross streets, though, and even assuming you put on some reliable brakes, you still need to start from a standstill often enough that the fixed gears are a real pain.
As for lower maintenance… I put on about 4000 km per year, and I’ve had to fix a lot of things on my bikes, but you know what’s never given me any trouble at all? The deraileur. I mean, yeah, I’m sure they must break down occasionally, but it’s insignificant compared to the flat tires. Heck, I’ve had to replace pedals more often.
Single speed = bike has a sprocket and a rear gear
Fixed gear = “fixie” = direct drive, as described above
Fixed gear bikes are dumb but OP seems to be complaining about single speed bikes in general. I bought a road bike many years ago, a normal 21 speed affair. I rarely used it and it seemed like every time I did, I had to fiddle with the derailleur adjustments to get it to stop making noise and missing shifts. Maybe I’m just incompetent but I finally got sick fiddling with it and bought a used single speed bike with a coaster brake, and for my needs it’s perfect. It was way cheaper than an equivalent road bike, I paid all of $100 for it. I can do 12 miles on it over light hills and the lack of gears doesn’t bother me much, if I was going on longer rides it wouldn’t be my weapon of choice but I don’t go on longer rides. It’s worked every time I’ve pulled it out of the garage and there’s absolutely no cables to adjust. I love it.
A bike with a coaster brake is different than a fixed gear bike. It can be difficult to understand without actually riding one, but the differences are substantive.
On a fixed gear bike you can not coast. It you pick the rear wheel off the ground and spin it the pedals spin. If you spin the wheel forward the pedals go forward if you spin the wheel backward the pedals go backward - you can ride a fixed gear in reverse. Your speed is controlled entirely by your cadence. Some people particularly like this last aspect, they feel more nimble having this ability. You can also do track stands - you don’t have to put your feet on the ground when you stop. Fixed gear trick riding is pretty interesting to watch btw. You can see in this video how the pedal are always moving.
Don’t go to a party and drink so much you shouldn’t drive home.
But if you do, don’t take up a friend’s offer to borrow a bike to ride home.
But if you do, don’t take the fixie.
But if you do, don’t try to ride it at tempo pace.
But if you do, don’t for one minute forget that you are on fixie.
But you will, because you are drunk. And you will stop pedalling for a microseond, which is just enough time for the bike to slam you into the pavement like you are Joseba Beloki. And you will go into work the next day and explain that you got in a fight rather than tell everyone what really happened.
I’m going with this idea. I have a two speed (3 positions but one is a neutral for maximum coasting downhills) that has been mine since I was like 14 such as described in post #6 and even that needs some attention now and then. I’ve actually looked at some straight fixed-gear models for the odd day killing time along one of our many riverside bike trails.
