On May 10, 1:15 pm, James Dinneen <jfxdinn...@yahoo.com> wrote: > If you do decide to experiment with a single speed on the trek, you might > want to start with a single speed, instead of a fixed gear. I found that it > the downside of the hills that were killers. You either brake and go slow or > you spin like a mad man. Jim D. Massachusetts >
This is part of what has dissuaded me from going fixie in the past. I've attempted to simulate a single speed by putting my bike into a "compromise" gear, intended to be doable on both uphill and down, and then trying to ride without shifting. That kind of works OK because I can coast the downhills. But if I try to ride without coasting (to simulate a fixie) then I find that I can just barely make it up some of the steepest hills, and am impossibly spun out on the downhills. I guess with a true fixie, my legs will be doing some braking on the downhills, so my speed will stay a little lower. I've seen some bad fixie riders on the bike trail, who aren't really strong enough to ride fixie. Because they don't want to lose inertia before hills, they refuse to slow down and instead will pass slower riders on blind corners to maintain their speed. Last summer, one of these fixie guys passed someone at the bottom of the hill, moving directly into the path of a downhill rider, causing them to veer into a fence, which they bounced off and then came crashing down on the ground. Ouch. At least the fixie rider stopped to help, as I and another rider stopped to call an ambulance. Needless to say, I don't want to be a "bad" fixie rider :-) Nick --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
