jerry moos:
hey jerry,
the term fixed gear is as you thought. just like a track bike.
and yes, they, we, i, ride a fixed gear (direct drive) bike, as opposed to a single speed (free wheel) which i also have one of in my stable of ponies. there are a number of reasons 'fixies' have become so popular.
for the most part, they were adopted for their simplicity. less parts mean less money to ride, less to money repair. period.
now, that's changed though. people are building milllion dollar fixies because trend has surpassed functionality. not that i'm opposed to it. in my eyes all bikes are cool.
another reason is strength. with no mechanical advantage, like that of a geared bike, if you want to get up the hill, you have to pedal harder. it also helps develop cadence.
for what ever reason, boorish pig headedness, elitism, whatever, there is still a divide between "roadies" and "fixies", which i think is comical.
i find crossing over compliments my training perfectly. i do my city riding on a fixed gear, and train on a geared bike.
the strongest riders i see are the ones who adopt and adapt to all styles.
proof is last years tour de france. cavendish the english kid who won four stages and left to track race in the olympics.
lance armstrong started as a triathlete. took up road racing, does cyclocross in his off season, and you can go on youtube and see lance tear ass-ing around texas on a fixed gear with the mash kids from san francisco.
oh yeah if you wan to see some hot fixie clips type in MASH on you tube.
well this turned out to be a rather verbose response so i'll end it here.
hope i didn't bore you jerry.
cheers! jaik freeman los angeles
p.s. i almost forgot, yes the hardcore ride brakeless! once you've learned to skid stop, you can stop just as fast as with mechanical brakes.
On Mar 23, 2009, at 1:28 PM, Jerome & Elizabeth Moos wrote:
>
> Since I have lived in rural areas most of the last 5 years, I'm not
> really very familiar with the young fixie scene, of which I take it
> bike messengers are the most visible but not the only element. I've
> been meaning to ask whether most of these riders actually ride Fixed
> Gear in the sense we speak of it in regard to track bikes. That is,
> is the cog directly threaded onto the hub, with no freewheel? Or do
> some significant percentage of the so-called Fixie crowd actually
> use a single-speed freewheel? I suppose that would still be Fixed
> Gear in the sense that one has only a single fixed gear ratio, but
> that's not what I generally understand the term to mean.
>
> Of couse, unless one is truly crazy, the use of a single-speed FW
> will then require one to have at least one brake, as one can no
> longer brake with ones legs as it were. Not sure if the typical
> setup is no brake, fixed gear, no FW, or front brake with or without
> FW. Hard for me to learn this first hand, as there aren't a lot of
> bike messengers to hang with in Big Spring, Texas.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jerry Moos
> Big Spring, Texas, USA