The uGlY fIxIe thread is back!
- Thread starter Grant
- Start date
Help Support Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum:
MattiThundrrr
Rattus All Terrainus
Can anyone provide one benefit to a fixed gear? I can't think of a single reason why someone would want to have the pedals locked to the back wheel.
It's a more responsive feel—there's a connection with the bike and an immediacy that freewheels and freehubs don't have (but you probably wouldn't notice was lacking) and it feels faster with the momentum of the pedals kind of helping out your legs. If I was younger with better knees, I'd probably have built one (with brakes, though). I would never want one as an only bike, but they have their charm.
MattiThundrrr
Rattus All Terrainus
K. I get the "connection" bit. Similar to single speed hardtail, right? But further? I thought that the lack of function, or at least reduced function, was akin to its lack of style, or at least reduced style. Sort of a "Look how awful and useless a bike I have". Hipsters posing and what have you.
I think the hipster adoption might have gone along with their appropriation of old things, old aesthetics, and old ways as the earliest bikes were fixed gears as well as the track racing bikes that they emulated (For their simplicity? For their former popularity at the turn of the last century?), but I don't really know where it started.
I know what you mean Grant . We use to be a producer country , now we are a consumer country . Buy it use it to it breaks and throw it away , because they don't know how to fix it . It's also hard to find a bike worth fixing anymore .
They are an ounce or two lighter
.Sandman, I think, has the source for the hipster adoption...I assume that for bike Messengers it was just an evolution for practical purposes. Light, low maintenance, reliable, narrow, undesirable for thieves (until hipsters made them a thing, at least).
For me - none. Fixed bikes were designed to be used on closed tracks, where you just sit on it & ride a few laps before stopping. In traffic they're super dangerous, since they don't brake that good, and are fatal to you're knees - that's why most of the hipsters ditched them. They're not as light as they seem (especially the cheap ones), and not much simpler than single speed freewheel bikes with or without a coaster brake hub.
Also, since the breaking power is worst than in normal bikes with brakes they were forbiden to ride in traffic in many countries of the EU (Including Poland - since our traffic rules state that bikes must have at least one working brake). I remember when the Policeman in Warsaw started noticing the difference between fixies & single speed bikes and people riding on them were given large tickets for riding bikes that were not suited to use in traffic. It even came to it that if you had a flip-flop rear hub the only way to avoid a ticket like that was to remove the fixed gear cog, so that you couldn't do a quick change & use the bike as a fixie.
There are still people who don't respect that law, and ride their fixies, but it lasts only for a season or two and they get back to "normal" bikes. (Mostly because of their knees failing)
There even was a Romet bicycle that was a factory fixie - The Romet Wicher.
It was basically a Romet Huragan frame with a special shortened fork & track steeringbar, but like the Jaguar Specjal racing bikes they were only selled to bicycle clubs, so right now they're very hard to find.
Last edited:
MattiThundrrr
Rattus All Terrainus
Funny that you say that... The only person I know who rides a fixie is a bike courier in Vancouver. That's right, fixed gear, in the mountains, in horrible traffic. His thighs are bigger than mine.
Well actually this is the state of almost 50% of 30+ year old bikes that come to my shop
Sometimes I don't even tell people what needs to be changed or repaired, I just reply "This bike deserves a retirement... in a cemetary... 6 feet underground."
MattiThundrrr
Rattus All Terrainus
I guess they were being honest with the "not your mom's surly" sticker!
I could use that fork... And maybe the stem.
Same here! There is one dutch fabricator left (Gazelle) and I don't know for sure if they build their own frames.
In Belgium there is a brand called "Achielle", these bikes are affordable and handmade. They look retro. A bit more on topic: They don't sell fixies, but they have a "Pathracer" called "Sam".
