Do I carry on like this, or go back to what I know?

[rogerzilla]

48 x 18 is a fairly standard fixed gear - about 70" on narrow 700c tyres. Anything lower makes downhills difficult and anything higher gets miserable into a headwind. You can get uphill on most gears, though - I used to ride to the start of a TT on a 91" fixed and it was ok, even with steep bridge approaches.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

My favourite for fixed is 44x18, about 65 inch, suites my legs and Warwickshire's rolling countryside.

 

[rogerzilla]

Something else to bear in mind is the different feel of larger or smaller sprockets that give the same gear inches. 48 x 18 is pretty smooth but I used to run 39 x 14 on an MTB conversion (1 inch MTB slicks have a rolling diameter of about 25", so it's still a 70" gear) and it wasn't as nice. Smaller sprockets also accentuate any out-of-roundness in the system and wear is more rapid.

I run 52 x 20 on the Fuji Track now and it's very smooth indeed - an ideal rouleur's gear. There's a small trade-off for weight, but nothing significant. :Larger sprockets are a bit less "snappy" when accelerating, but one man's snappiness is another man's harshness.

 

[Sharky]

Think you just need to experiment with gear sizes. Try taking out the gear bike up the steeper hills on your regular route, but don't change down until it becomes really unbearable. Make a note of the ring/sprocket sizes. Similarly, find the descents, but keep to the lowest gear you can manage and still be adding a bit of "umph" into the downstroke. Likewise make a note of the sizes and then refer to the gear tables in "inches".

Then you need to have your SS/fixed gearing somewhere within the min/max range you worked out from the geared bike. However there is something magic or mystical about both a SS and a Fixed that increases your cadence ability and you find yourself capable of riding a slightly bigger gear up the hills than you would on the geared bike and similarly a lower gear on the flat and descents.

After a while you will have a toolbox with every combination of sprocket sizes from a 13 to 22, to cover leisure/time trials and hill climbing and you will become a master of sprocket changing and chain splitting.

Enjoy.

 

[rogerzilla]

Make your own massive chainwhip. It's not that hard and you will never fear changing a sprocket again. The optimum length is a hand's width longer than the radius of a 700c wheel.

 

[steveindenmark]

Has Devon grown more hills since you bought it. Or were they there beforehand ?

Like everyone has said. Change the gearing.