So, that’s not a fixie. A fixie is more of a single speed road bike with a fixed cog on the rear wheel; there’s no coasting, you can actually pedal backwards and the bike will go backwards. That’s a single-speed BMX bike, albeit much larger (i.e. 29"/700C wheels instead of 20" wheels).
I rode fixed for a long time. There’s a simplicity about it, and for me… I feel more connected to the bike. It responds to your every ebb and flow. But I digress. I just wanted to get something that I could cruise around on, and maybe jump a curb now and again. You know, be a big kid.
I rode my first century on a fixed gear. Over 6k of elevation gain. Which was nothing compared to the 6k of descent at 69.7 gear inches. Not the, but one of, the hardest things I’ve ever done. I still recall it with a grin. It’s not something you can explain to someone who hasn’t tried it. There’s an easier way to do most things. But if you’ve ever played a gig in a crap little bar that made you feel like the Blues Brothers playing at Bob’s Country Bunker… it’s that same extreme of victory and failure, sullied by knee pain and sunblock.
From that perspective… I think BMX guys are crazy.
Happy New Bike Day @JustTim
All the dedicated, start-out-with-the-intent-of-doing-one century rides I’ve done have been geared. But I have had days where horsing around with buddies on fixed have wound up around 100 miles.
Over 6k of elevation gain, fixed, is killer.
Current BMX guys are, in fact, crazy. They are doing shit on bikes we only fantasized about back in the day. Of course, in my BMX heyday, BMX was racing. “BMX Freestyle” had only started to catch on. Now, of course, that’s flipped… BMX is dirt jumps and parks and street, and racing is the outlier. There are only three racing tracks that I know of in SoCal these days… Whittier Narrows, Lake Perris, and Yucca Valley. The last of my “local” tracks - Orange Y BMX - closed for good a few years back. That was a sad day for me.
Edit:
Just found this picture of me riding one of my old 24s at the Orange Y a year or so before it closed:
I used to race Track, in a Velodrome, with a fixed gear bike. It transfers the energy from the rider to the wheel more efficiently and allows you to do track stands.
I really enjoy riding this bike, had a permanent grin in the face. This is the first road bike that I bought in over 20 years, too. May need a bit of setup (gears and the front brake), and that’s it. The helmet and the bottle are just coincidentally red - I bought them for my old black bike, trying to spice up the look.
The views are from the two local sweetspots where I like to ride, both of them show you the Rhine valley near Königswinter, Germany. This time, a few people actually stopped me to ask about the bike and riding up those hills. I felt like everybody loves my new bike, hehehe!
Man, all these road bike posts make me kinda wish I hadn’t given up cycling. But I don’t have any cool mountain roads to ride near me, so it’s all traffic traffic traffic. And I don’t regret the decision to not ride in traffic.
New ride just bought today, replacing my Pilot (wife wanted that for kid carting). I wanted better gas mileage for going back and forth to Rochester (300 miles) every other week (long term gig now), so…
2024 Honda CRV Hybrid Sport
I saw it in this color a few months ago and couldn’t believe it was a CRV!
Congrats! These are really nice! We bought a 2023 for my wife last December. She wanted the burgundy but it only came with cream seats so she got the white. Looks like it comes whit dark seats in 2024.
