Fixed Fixation - by TonyP

I was going to write a quick blog about my ride on Friday last week but having explained several times over the last few days what this fixed thing is all about I thought it might be interesting to put it down in words.

Warning: Unless you are a little bit geeky, even obsessive, about cycling and bikes I would bin this now. Reading it will require ten minutes of your precious life that you will never get back again.

So what is it about this fixed malarkey? Nearly every cyclist you meet wants to know, what’s the point? Are there any real advantages or is it just a fad? Well it’s a bit of both really.

Once upon a time there were bicycles but there most certainly weren’t gears, or even freewheels. Then there were a few gears, think Sturmey Archer, and then more recently there were many many gears. Some thought maybe too many. “The purity of the bicycle has been despoiled by these gears” they cried, “we should return to the pure and simple form that is true to the original machine”, said a courier in London, and so a fad was born. The couriers of London and New York converted classic old bikes to fixed, chopped off most of the handle bars and learned to leg brake. And they were cool.

As is always the case, manufacturers soon spotted a gap in the market and began to make bicycles the way their Grandfathers did but with a bit more bling. Nearly every major bicycle maker now has a fixed or two in their range and the trend is no longer restricted to couriers and the mean streets of the city.

So, back to the question, are there really any advantages to riding fixed? Well yes, there are actually.

The first and most obvious one is a lack of surplus steel and aluminium. If you remove the second and possibly third chain ring, the rear 7, 8, 9 or even 10 cog block, front and rear derailleur’s, the cables and the shifters and place them on your mum’s best baking scales you will find that they probably weigh in at about two or three kilograms. So, advantage number one, you get the equivalent weight of an all carbon bike for a few hundred quid. If you learn to leg break, you can even dispense with one brake as the law simply requires there to be two methods of braking on a bicycle and your legs count as one of them.

Secondly, so long as you keep your chain nice and tight there is really nothing to go wrong and nothing to think about. Well almost nothing to think about, we’ll come to that in the disadvantages bit later. You just get on the bike and ride, end of.

Now it starts to get a bit more complicated. I once rode with a guy who is a very highly respected research engineer and rides fixed most of the time. He is the kind of guy that ends up on the telly trying to explain the technology behind the Olympic swimsuits that all the top athletes use these days. (Yes, he invented the technology). I asked him what, from an engineering/physics point of view was the advantage of fixed. He couldn’t explain it. So I’ll have a go.

There is definitely some sort of mechanical advantage going on that you don’t get on a bike with a freewheel. Even when the freewheel rider is constantly pedalling it isn’t 100% efficient. There are moments during the pedal cycle where pressure is taken off and momentum is lost. It’s almost impossible to do this on fixed because if you try to ease the pressure the momentum of the bike pushes the pedals against your feet and reminds you to keep pedalling. It’s weird. Hard to explain but obvious when you try it. The other surprise is riding up hills. It is much, much easier that you might imagine. Not that it is actually easy of course, just not as hard as everybody thinks. Hence the common exclamation, “how on earth do you get up the hills on it?” Admittedly, there are limitations and I for one will not be attempting the Trough of Bowland on fixed any time soon. There are plenty who would though, I can assure you.

Getting back to something more easily explained we come to fitness. There is no doubt at all that riding fixed will make you fitter. Not just because of the obvious business of having to ride harder to get up the hills without low gears but because riding down hills requires a surprising degree of aerobic fitness. It came as a bit of a shock to me the first time I hurtled down Bryning Hill spinning my legs as fast as possible, only to arrive at the bottom almost as out of breath as I had been at the top. You never stop working on fixed from one end of a ride to the other, which may or may not be a good thing depending on how masochistic you are.

So finally back to that disadvantage alluded to earlier. The one big draw back, and for me it is the only one, is that every now and again you either forget to keep pedalling or more dangerously, consciously try to stop pedalling whilst moving. It doesn’t work. You tend to get thrown out of the saddle as the bike reminds you that these pedals will only stop turning when the bike stops. It can be a bit frightening but the learning curve is very steep and very short.

There is another worry but I’ve never experienced it, although I have witnessed it. Going down hills there is a type of terminal velocity, beyond which life gets very exciting and rather dangerous. Most fixed riders have a limit on how fast they can spin the pedals and beyond that limit it becomes impossible to control, or stop, the bike. The solution, as demonstrated by a friend on a ride in hilly Wales, is a controlled dismount. This involves a hedge, many thorns and a considerable loss of dignity. I haven’t tried it yet.

So there you go. If you want to give it a try my fixed will fit persons between about 5’ 6” and 6’ at a push. Just be prepared to get hooked and start making room in the garage.