There is a school of thought that says if you want to get good at something, get in over your head, try to do what the experts do, and try to blow through your limits. That way lies excellence, rapid growth, and performance beyond your wildest imagination.
In mountain biking, that way also lies regrettable line choices, pants-pissing dropoff-inspired scares, and a guy on the side of the trail who appears to have a broken collarbone.
It's just not responsible to try to do what really accomplished mountain bikers do.
Nobody ever accused me of being responsible.
So with light heart I bought EBae's 19 tooth Velo Solo bolt-on fixie cog, removed the disc from my crummy old WTB wheel - crummy because it weighs about 7 pounds and is basically egg-shaped - and I converted the wheel to fixed gear. The Tommy Cog and Velo Solo fit onto a 6 bolt disc brake mount. According to this degenerate, if you want to spend a few fun hours with your drill press, several carbide bits and some machine oil, you can even drill out a regular singlespeed cog to fit the disc brake mount - though I question why anybody would burn $25 in drill bits, $3 in machine oil and $5 in wear and tear on the drill press to avoid spending $30.
Anyhow, installation was a snap, and the wheel fit on fine, the chainline was straight without goofing around with spacing the cog, converting the Redline Monocog Flight into a rigid fixie.
A cognizant (so to speak) person might ask, "what about the rear brake? You won't have a rear brake? Holy cripes you won't have a rear brake!!!" That last sentence isn't a question but that's what a smart person might say. I'm not that smart so I didn't worry about it. Fools do burpees where angels fear to tread & etc.
So pretty blithely, I headed out and rode fixed at Rosaryville on Friday morning.
In retrospect, I don't see what's so hard about it.
In retrospect, I don't see what's so hard about it.
Other than most everything.
Actually it wasn't bad, not *hard* per se, but comprehensively disorienting, like watching a David Lynch film while you're drunk and sleepy and distracted by what your dog is doing, and you're clocking the film at a half-unaware level. Normal sensory feedback - the kind you expect from a mountain bike - isn't there, but you're riding, and going along just fine, you're 'getting it' alright, but it feels completely different from what you're used to.
It is also much more physical. It takes a lot less physical finesse, and a hell of a lot more brute physicality than a freewheeled bike. You don't bump the bike up and over and around obstacles; you kind of ass the bike over them - as in, "that rusted bolt didn't break? Then put some more assss in it, boy!"
It is also much more physical. It takes a lot less physical finesse, and a hell of a lot more brute physicality than a freewheeled bike. You don't bump the bike up and over and around obstacles; you kind of ass the bike over them - as in, "that rusted bolt didn't break? Then put some more assss in it, boy!"
It was a very refreshing change, but I was feeling it for sure Saturday morning, and that's with circulating around the perimeter trail about 20% slower than usual, which moves me from Slow to Impressively Slow.
If I go hard at Rosey it takes around 50 minutes; if I cruise at The Pace - you know, brisk, pushing it reasonably hard on the hills, working to get some flow - it takes about an hour. It took 1:15 Friday. Part of that was due to gear limiting - a fixie really slows me down on downhills, where I rip pretty hard and make up gaps; but part of it was do to me being cautious in a few places because I just didn't know what to expect from the bike, even on Rosaryville's minimally technical features. I suspect I could get the time down to 1:05 if I hustled a bit, not killing myself but pushing a little harder and riding more bravely on the downhills.
Slowing on downhills was a bitter pill, one of many in my life like loving beer, an ability to eat like a horse and put on weight (muscle or fat) in a heartbeat, and an urge to write blog entries when I could be doing something more productive. The one place where I'm half quick, on downhills, wasn't there due to the possiblity of pedal strike and the fact that I can spin real fast, but couldn't simultaneously handle the instability of a 140 RPM spin plus turning and bumping over roots & stuff. Where you use proper pedal attitude when you cross logs or rocks, it's not possible on a fixie, and a couple times I did something I never imagined possible, which was grounding a pedal on the *upstroke* after my bottom bracket was already past the obstacle. That was unsettling.
One problem I noticed right away is that the fixie forces hyper-awareness of little trail obstacles; it's hard to keep eyes up the trail 25 feet when things that are 5 feet away have a good potential for pedal strike.
The fixie also revealed little flaws in my skillset. For instance, I discovered that I need to keep pedaling when I bunny hop a log or root instead of putting the front over, coasting the rear wheel into the log then pedaling/hopping, as I do on a freewheeled bike.
As one the road, you spend a lot of time in the seat with your ass glued to it, pedaling. You can do a standing effort, but it's either all standing, or all sitting. This means that there's no way to slide or body english the rear end a bit and slop back into your cornering line when a rut kicks the rear wheel out - you just keep pedaling and bounce forward and ride it out.
The low gearing of the SS MTB means that you really don't need a brake in moderate terrain; you just give a little backward pressure and sow right down. Nothing to it. Skid turns are fun, and sometimes the only way to turn sharply, but they are utterly unpredictable compared to using a hand brake to do the same thing, the "delicate touch" of my quads doesn't match up to the delicate touch of index finger-braking. You also have to ride over the middle of roots and rocks instead of going around them, otherwise it's pedal strike city.
I also noticed that the rear wheel bottoms out more (that coulda been the 700x45 tire...or it coulda been the harder sitting) while cruising. The little dipsy-doodle extra credits - the little gravity cavities - were easy on the fixed gear, and maybe the shock at the bottom of each was lessened compared to a geared bike because my legs were under tension at the bottom rather than paused, as they'd be on a freewheeled bike. Logs were definitely harder and I wasn't about to try to touch the big (>12") logs. Climbing starts out easier because the fixed drivetrain is locked down, but it seems to become harder because there's no recovery period between... well, between any one thing and any other thing. So the legs get toasty much quicker. I stretched the chain a ton - and this on a chain I've used for probably 20 singlespeed rides so far. The chainring bolts all loosened up too. I threw the chain once bouncing down a rooty hill where I was practicing my skidding.
But wait, there's more. The hands get tired faster because you're always pedaling and reluctant to take the hands off the grips (need some trackie skillz here). Lifting the butt a half inch off the seat is a constant occurrence because repeat hits get really uncomfortable pretty quick if you leave the butt locked down, so you might intuitively start doing this pedaling-with-your-butt-1/2" off the seat thing. Oh yeah, this gives your quads had frickin' knots and even today - Sunday evening - I still have a knot in each butt cheek, though my upper back stopped hurting (just a little) within 24 hours. My ankles were also a little beat up, it felt like I was using stabilizing muscles a bit more than on other bikes.
Pedaling up the little hill to the parking lot, my legs were *done*.
If I go hard at Rosey it takes around 50 minutes; if I cruise at The Pace - you know, brisk, pushing it reasonably hard on the hills, working to get some flow - it takes about an hour. It took 1:15 Friday. Part of that was due to gear limiting - a fixie really slows me down on downhills, where I rip pretty hard and make up gaps; but part of it was do to me being cautious in a few places because I just didn't know what to expect from the bike, even on Rosaryville's minimally technical features. I suspect I could get the time down to 1:05 if I hustled a bit, not killing myself but pushing a little harder and riding more bravely on the downhills.
Slowing on downhills was a bitter pill, one of many in my life like loving beer, an ability to eat like a horse and put on weight (muscle or fat) in a heartbeat, and an urge to write blog entries when I could be doing something more productive. The one place where I'm half quick, on downhills, wasn't there due to the possiblity of pedal strike and the fact that I can spin real fast, but couldn't simultaneously handle the instability of a 140 RPM spin plus turning and bumping over roots & stuff. Where you use proper pedal attitude when you cross logs or rocks, it's not possible on a fixie, and a couple times I did something I never imagined possible, which was grounding a pedal on the *upstroke* after my bottom bracket was already past the obstacle. That was unsettling.
One problem I noticed right away is that the fixie forces hyper-awareness of little trail obstacles; it's hard to keep eyes up the trail 25 feet when things that are 5 feet away have a good potential for pedal strike.
The fixie also revealed little flaws in my skillset. For instance, I discovered that I need to keep pedaling when I bunny hop a log or root instead of putting the front over, coasting the rear wheel into the log then pedaling/hopping, as I do on a freewheeled bike.
As one the road, you spend a lot of time in the seat with your ass glued to it, pedaling. You can do a standing effort, but it's either all standing, or all sitting. This means that there's no way to slide or body english the rear end a bit and slop back into your cornering line when a rut kicks the rear wheel out - you just keep pedaling and bounce forward and ride it out.
The low gearing of the SS MTB means that you really don't need a brake in moderate terrain; you just give a little backward pressure and sow right down. Nothing to it. Skid turns are fun, and sometimes the only way to turn sharply, but they are utterly unpredictable compared to using a hand brake to do the same thing, the "delicate touch" of my quads doesn't match up to the delicate touch of index finger-braking. You also have to ride over the middle of roots and rocks instead of going around them, otherwise it's pedal strike city.
I also noticed that the rear wheel bottoms out more (that coulda been the 700x45 tire...or it coulda been the harder sitting) while cruising. The little dipsy-doodle extra credits - the little gravity cavities - were easy on the fixed gear, and maybe the shock at the bottom of each was lessened compared to a geared bike because my legs were under tension at the bottom rather than paused, as they'd be on a freewheeled bike. Logs were definitely harder and I wasn't about to try to touch the big (>12") logs. Climbing starts out easier because the fixed drivetrain is locked down, but it seems to become harder because there's no recovery period between... well, between any one thing and any other thing. So the legs get toasty much quicker. I stretched the chain a ton - and this on a chain I've used for probably 20 singlespeed rides so far. The chainring bolts all loosened up too. I threw the chain once bouncing down a rooty hill where I was practicing my skidding.
But wait, there's more. The hands get tired faster because you're always pedaling and reluctant to take the hands off the grips (need some trackie skillz here). Lifting the butt a half inch off the seat is a constant occurrence because repeat hits get really uncomfortable pretty quick if you leave the butt locked down, so you might intuitively start doing this pedaling-with-your-butt-1/2" off the seat thing. Oh yeah, this gives your quads had frickin' knots and even today - Sunday evening - I still have a knot in each butt cheek, though my upper back stopped hurting (just a little) within 24 hours. My ankles were also a little beat up, it felt like I was using stabilizing muscles a bit more than on other bikes.
Pedaling up the little hill to the parking lot, my legs were *done*.
The bottom line about riding a fixed MTB is that *everything* - every single thing - about the bike is different on the fixie, in the way that *everything* is different between a fully sprung geared bike and a rigid single. But it's more different than that; although the geared boinger and rigid single free wheeled bikes are distant from each other - say by 30% - the fixie feels different from both of those bikes by maybe 50%.
That is really cool. It makes a familiar old trail seem fresh.
That is really cool. It makes a familiar old trail seem fresh.
Chapeaux to Seibold and Sven and Baler and BB and RickyD - and all the other guys who are fast on fixed MTB. I'll be riding fixed more, but only at mellow places like Rosey, or if we do a wicked slow Rockburn-focused ride. It would *kill* me, possibly literally, to add the increased technical challenges and to lose my momentum on trails like Ridge or the rocky section of Cascade.
If you're curious about it... try it. It's different in a good way, and not as perilous as I'd expected.
4 comments:
Nice write-up, Jim. funny as hell. Suggest a fatter tire next time, since the rear tire takes a lot more of a pounding when fixed.
I put on a 700x2.l on Sunday. That should, um, fix it. I'm going to start working it into the rotation - it seems like a road fixie that crams 90 minutes of work into 60 minutes of riding, only moreso.
Welcome. You could have come out a few weeks back for my SSOFTeam ride, the Scorched Earth Scurry. Of course, that would mean you'd have had to read my blog, something that doesn't seem to happen as often as it used to for whatever pitiful audience I've managed to garner over the years. Maybe next time, yeah? Hope you are well (well, better than your bike, ha).
Ha, BED. I check your blog about 5 times as often as you post. Which means once every couple of weeks. The real beef I have with you and that blog is that although you stack the bullshit both high and artistically, you do not do so often enough.
Yeah, I'm one to talk.
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