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Fixed
Fixed-wheel, or fixed-gear, riding is as close as you will get to perpetual motion. It’s cycling at its purest.
Freewheels are so common that we hardly notice their existence. Until recently the freewheel-free bicycle was the preserve of a small band of hardened souls - track racers and winter road riders. Speak to a fixed-wheel rider about why they ride fixed and they’ll struggle to find the words. They’ll talk of feeling ‘more connected’ with their machine. They might even use words and phrases like ‘pure’ and ‘at one’, and they’ll be frustrated that words alone can’t ever really explain what riding fixed feels like. One of the much quoted benefits is that fixed-wheel bicycles have fewer moving parts than multi-speed bikes and so require less maintenance. No one ever rode a fixed because it was easier to maintain.
On a bicycle the free-wheel is a component within the transmission incorporating a series of ratchets which allows drivetrain ‘over-run’. In other words it allows the pedaller to stop pedalling while the machine is in motion. In years gone by a few high-end car manufacturers used them to disengage the engine from the drive wheels, notably Rolls Royce and Cord whose customers demanded quieter transmissions.
A freewheel can be thought of as an automatic clutch which allows your legs to turn slower than the driven wheel. It’s the bit which makes the ticking noise when you are coasting down a hill. Because it ‘unlocks’ the pedals from the drivetrain a free-wheel mechanism makes a bike easier to use, it allows for multi-speed derailleur gear systems and lets us corner safer/harder/faster because we can raise the inside pedal to stop it striking the ground.
The earliest - front wheel drive - pedal powered machines were fixed, all the way up to the high-wheeled penny farthings. So too were the first chain drive ‘safeties’. Ernst Sachs (the soul of whose company still lives on in the SRAM Corporation) was the first to produce freewheels in commercial quantities in 1898. Though William van Anden had patented the freewheel many years earlier in 1868 it wasn’t until the widespread adoption of the safety bike with its chain and sprockets that it really came into its own.
Hop on the saddle and the first thing you notice is the difficulty of getting your feet on/in the pedals when the cranks cannot be spun backwards. It feels, somehow, broken. Underway the first few timid turns of the pedal feel OK. You pedal. It moves. You trundle around. Just like a regular bike… And then, just when you thought everything was under control – comes the first dawning of just what you’ve let yourself in for – when, just for a fraction of a second, you stop pedalling. The very last thing you want to do on a fixed-wheel is stop pedalling. The momentum of the bike is still driving that back wheel around, which continues to feed the chain over the sprocket, which drives the cranks and promptly gives you an almighty kick through the pedals. The very least that happens at this point is a kind of primordial shiver up the spine.
Riding fixed is certainly more difficult. It demands 100% concentration and total respect, because if you’re hurtling along and forget – even for a moment – to keep your legs turning, a fixed-wheel will dash you to the ground in the blink of an eye. Catch a pedal in a corner and you’ll be hurled in the air. Fixed knows no mercy. As a many an unsuspecting bike thief has found out!
But all this talk of pain and danger hides a truth – there is nothing like riding fixed.
If the bike is moving so are your legs. This allows you to control speed, and even stop completely, without using the brake(s). It’s easy to make subtle changes of speed and pace according to the conditions and it is partly this connectedness with the rear wheel which made fixed-wheel bikes popular winter hacks. Fixed riders can feel the tyre contact point in a way freewheel equipped riders cannot and in slippery/icy conditions this ability to feel the limit of traction can make the difference between road-rash and staying in the saddle.
In practice (and, in many territories, in law) this ability to brake the rear wheel through back pressure on the pedals means that a fixed bike built for the road may dispense with the rear caliper and run only a front brake. Though it has something of a hard-core cult following, riding fixed with no front brake is a step too far for most – outside of a velodrome.
As you cycle along your momentum propels the pedals over the dead spot. There is no derailleur tension, there are no jockey wheels, no superfluous chain and no extra sprockets and rings to haul around so transmission drag is minimised.
There is only one gear and its ratio is determined by the relationship of the chainring to the sprocket multiplied by the size of the rear wheel. The ratio must be chosen carefully on the basis of the steepness of the local terrain. Bikes in hilly cities have different ratios from those in flatter areas. A bike must be geared just low enough to get up the steepest hill around without popping a patella, but this needs to be traded against the challenge of descending the same hill. Downhill - legs must spin like an egg-whisk or you risk losing control.
Fixed encourages high revs over high torque and this, combined with the constant pedalling, promotes excellent cardio vascular fitness. To go faster you cannot shift up a gear, the only option, the only option, is to pedal faster.
But when you get it - When you’ve enough miles in your legs to make them strong and lean and supple. When you can rush that hill like a March hare and, over the top, spin out down the other side at 150+ rpm without missing a beat. When you can track stand until the cows come home without dabbing a foot....
When you get it, there is no experience like it in the world.
...from a not yet published book.
Fixed-wheel, or fixed-gear, riding is as close as you will get to perpetual motion. It’s cycling at its purest.
Freewheels are so common that we hardly notice their existence. Until recently the freewheel-free bicycle was the preserve of a small band of hardened souls - track racers and winter road riders. Speak to a fixed-wheel rider about why they ride fixed and they’ll struggle to find the words. They’ll talk of feeling ‘more connected’ with their machine. They might even use words and phrases like ‘pure’ and ‘at one’, and they’ll be frustrated that words alone can’t ever really explain what riding fixed feels like. One of the much quoted benefits is that fixed-wheel bicycles have fewer moving parts than multi-speed bikes and so require less maintenance. No one ever rode a fixed because it was easier to maintain.
On a bicycle the free-wheel is a component within the transmission incorporating a series of ratchets which allows drivetrain ‘over-run’. In other words it allows the pedaller to stop pedalling while the machine is in motion. In years gone by a few high-end car manufacturers used them to disengage the engine from the drive wheels, notably Rolls Royce and Cord whose customers demanded quieter transmissions.
A freewheel can be thought of as an automatic clutch which allows your legs to turn slower than the driven wheel. It’s the bit which makes the ticking noise when you are coasting down a hill. Because it ‘unlocks’ the pedals from the drivetrain a free-wheel mechanism makes a bike easier to use, it allows for multi-speed derailleur gear systems and lets us corner safer/harder/faster because we can raise the inside pedal to stop it striking the ground.
The earliest - front wheel drive - pedal powered machines were fixed, all the way up to the high-wheeled penny farthings. So too were the first chain drive ‘safeties’. Ernst Sachs (the soul of whose company still lives on in the SRAM Corporation) was the first to produce freewheels in commercial quantities in 1898. Though William van Anden had patented the freewheel many years earlier in 1868 it wasn’t until the widespread adoption of the safety bike with its chain and sprockets that it really came into its own.
Hop on the saddle and the first thing you notice is the difficulty of getting your feet on/in the pedals when the cranks cannot be spun backwards. It feels, somehow, broken. Underway the first few timid turns of the pedal feel OK. You pedal. It moves. You trundle around. Just like a regular bike… And then, just when you thought everything was under control – comes the first dawning of just what you’ve let yourself in for – when, just for a fraction of a second, you stop pedalling. The very last thing you want to do on a fixed-wheel is stop pedalling. The momentum of the bike is still driving that back wheel around, which continues to feed the chain over the sprocket, which drives the cranks and promptly gives you an almighty kick through the pedals. The very least that happens at this point is a kind of primordial shiver up the spine.
Riding fixed is certainly more difficult. It demands 100% concentration and total respect, because if you’re hurtling along and forget – even for a moment – to keep your legs turning, a fixed-wheel will dash you to the ground in the blink of an eye. Catch a pedal in a corner and you’ll be hurled in the air. Fixed knows no mercy. As a many an unsuspecting bike thief has found out!
But all this talk of pain and danger hides a truth – there is nothing like riding fixed.
If the bike is moving so are your legs. This allows you to control speed, and even stop completely, without using the brake(s). It’s easy to make subtle changes of speed and pace according to the conditions and it is partly this connectedness with the rear wheel which made fixed-wheel bikes popular winter hacks. Fixed riders can feel the tyre contact point in a way freewheel equipped riders cannot and in slippery/icy conditions this ability to feel the limit of traction can make the difference between road-rash and staying in the saddle.
In practice (and, in many territories, in law) this ability to brake the rear wheel through back pressure on the pedals means that a fixed bike built for the road may dispense with the rear caliper and run only a front brake. Though it has something of a hard-core cult following, riding fixed with no front brake is a step too far for most – outside of a velodrome.
As you cycle along your momentum propels the pedals over the dead spot. There is no derailleur tension, there are no jockey wheels, no superfluous chain and no extra sprockets and rings to haul around so transmission drag is minimised.
There is only one gear and its ratio is determined by the relationship of the chainring to the sprocket multiplied by the size of the rear wheel. The ratio must be chosen carefully on the basis of the steepness of the local terrain. Bikes in hilly cities have different ratios from those in flatter areas. A bike must be geared just low enough to get up the steepest hill around without popping a patella, but this needs to be traded against the challenge of descending the same hill. Downhill - legs must spin like an egg-whisk or you risk losing control.
Fixed encourages high revs over high torque and this, combined with the constant pedalling, promotes excellent cardio vascular fitness. To go faster you cannot shift up a gear, the only option, the only option, is to pedal faster.
But when you get it - When you’ve enough miles in your legs to make them strong and lean and supple. When you can rush that hill like a March hare and, over the top, spin out down the other side at 150+ rpm without missing a beat. When you can track stand until the cows come home without dabbing a foot....
When you get it, there is no experience like it in the world.
...from a not yet published book.
I want to read the book, and I want to read it now 
