how many gears?

[Peter Cole]

Rik O'Shea wrote:
> Yes,
> you need to be careful with the terrain that you ride a fixed gear
on.
> A few years back a really strong member of our club was riding a
39X17
> fixie on a hilly winter group ride. He lost control of the bike at
the base of
> a really fast decent which required free-wheeling. Luckily for him
> he landed in a ditch - a relatively soft landing, although he ended
up with
> a face full of muck. On this short decent, you easily reach speeds of
57 km/h -
> I calculated that before he crashed his leggs were spinning at > 198
RPM,
> now that's what I call fast spinning!
>
> Incidently I never saw him ride a fixed gear on the winter group
spins again

We have a couple of spots on our weekly ride loop where that kind of
speed (35 mph) is reached. My fixer is a 39/15, so at that speed I'm
*only* spinning at 170 rpm or so. That's right about at my limit, so I
sometimes feather my brakes a little to keep my feet on the pedals. I
have never crashed from over-spinning, but on my first ride my feet
came off a few times, I just held them out to the side while I braked.

We had a rider show up for her *first* fixed gear ride. I highly
recommend learning to ride fixed before attempting to ride in a group.
There is a tendency to stop pedaling in a quick stop situation which
can cause loss of control. That's what happened to this rider.

 

[dvt]

Ken Marcet wrote:
> This sounds silly, but I have 10 gears and I use about 6 or 7 all the time.
> I ride on very flat roads, but it is almost always windy, am I using too
> many gears? And it seems as though I am always shifting gears should I just
> toughen up and use less gears and shift less, or do others do this too? I
> think I am using the gears properly.
>
> Ken

I have 3 bikes. One has 7 speeds, and I use every gear every time I ride
the bike. The other bikes have 16 and 18 speeds, and I'm sure I use at
least 7 or 8 (probably more) every time I get on those bikes. I live on
a hill, so I descend at 30-35 mph and climb at ~10-12 mph at the
beginning and end of *every* ride. Your conditions may be different.

I used to ride a fixed gear bike frequently, but as I got older, my
knees decided that this wasn't such a good idea. Fixed-gear riding sure
is fun, but it isn't worth the pain.

Summary: if you like to ride a single speed and it doesn't cause you
problems, go for it. If you like to use your gears, more power to ya.
Don't worry about anyone else's opinion of the proper number of gears to
use in a ride.

--
Dave