Eric Olthwaite
Guest
Not identical to SS I know, but I've ridden fixed quite a bit, and it was very instructive to try that on a small number of club rides. In my experience:
On flattish terrain, there's no real difference, assuming sensible gearing.
Uphill, you're a bit slower, but not by all that much. When it gets really steep, the time lost isn't huge because the pace is so slow, even for those on gears.
The big difference comes on big sweeping downhills. On fixed, I would spin out at say 25mph, and if the rest are going at 32mph+, that is a huge difference. The gaps created were far far bigger than on the uphills (and ultimately put an end to my attempts to join club rides on fixed). Sure on SS your max speed is a bit higher, but still well down.
So for me at least, fixed/SS is slower overall, but mainly because of the downhills.
On flattish terrain, there's no real difference, assuming sensible gearing.
Uphill, you're a bit slower, but not by all that much. When it gets really steep, the time lost isn't huge because the pace is so slow, even for those on gears.
The big difference comes on big sweeping downhills. On fixed, I would spin out at say 25mph, and if the rest are going at 32mph+, that is a huge difference. The gaps created were far far bigger than on the uphills (and ultimately put an end to my attempts to join club rides on fixed). Sure on SS your max speed is a bit higher, but still well down.
So for me at least, fixed/SS is slower overall, but mainly because of the downhills.
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