Meath / Kildare: Why bother with gears?

rollingscone

Come children,

Come forth to the church of the Singlespeed!

Ok. The title is a little bit facetious and obviously even a pancake flat route can benefit from being able to modulate.

But having covered 150km of Meath / Kildare roads on my singlespeed 46×16 (full disclosure it's a nice light alloy frame from the late 90s on decent wheels - not your typical city clunker) I found myself wondering why it's not more popular, because:

1. There's no wrong gear. Only stop and Go. Which means it's all about how you use your body.

2. As someone too fat and cowardly to race it gives me some variety to my onroad leisure cycling.

I know that their are people doing Audax on fixed etc and I've but heard of a group using s/s for wintertime hill training but is this type of singlespeeding as rare as it seems?

I'd definitely recommend it as a way to mix up your leisure cycling and that "quick what base haven't I covered" N+1 purchase.

Lumen

There is one wrong gear and you're always in it

boardbeer

rollingscone wrote: »

I know that their are people doing Audax on fixed etc and I've but heard of a group using s/s for wintertime hill training but is this type of singlespeeding as rare as it seems?

Back about ten years ago, I used to ride out with ACC Contern in Lux, and the pros there were on fixed for quite a lot of the winter.
Agree about Kildare anyway, fixed is great, as long as you are not trying to beat people or worried about efficiency. My commute only has a 100m of climbs each way (Maynooth -> Tallaght), and the 70:20 handles those climbs and spins up above 50kph handy enough.

rollingscone

Just for clarity: Singlespeed means you still have a freewheel.

A surprising number of people still seem to think of fixed and singlespeed as Synonymous.

Chuchote

Dunno about this. Maybe it depends on your basic strength. All I know is that since I got the gears fixed on my old elephant of a bike my average speed (mostly at a Mr Magoo level anyway) has risen from around 9kp/h to 14kp/h.

Carawaystick

rollingscone wrote: »

Come children,

Come forth to the church of the Singlespeed!

Ok. The title is a little bit facetious and obviously even a pancake flat route can benefit from being able to modulate.

But having covered 150km of Meath / Kildare roads on my singlespeed 46×16 (full disclosure it's a nice light alloy frame from the late 90s on decent wheels - not your typical city clunker) I found myself wondering why it's not more popular, because:

Can you post segment times for Snowtown, Slane and Loughcrew? Just so I'm sure Meath is flat.

smacl

rollingscone wrote: »

I'd definitely recommend it as a way to mix up your leisure cycling and that "quick what base haven't I covered" N+1 purchase.

Two reasons why not for me;

- Most of the places that I enjoy cycling in involving either going up Cruagh, Stocking lane, Ballinascorney, or Kilmacanoge first. No way could I get my fat ass up any of those hills single-speed. While I'm not in my lowest gear, I'm not far off, and my knees thank me for this.

- I enjoy exploring rural l-roads, which tend to include some serious unexpected ramps, and off-road sections, which contain some even more serious ramps. I struggle enough on these even in my very low lowest gear. Nearly feckin' died going up Clara bridge a couple of weeks back and that was in 34/32.

What I would fancy would be a single chain ring set-up with an ultra-wide cassette at the back, like the SRAM 10-42. Still overpriced at the moment, but Shimano are due to have one out soon and I reckon prices will drop. If I ever move near to the mid-lands I might reconsider....

magicbastarder

rollingscone wrote: »

But having covered 150km of Meath / Kildare roads on my singlespeed 46×16

hmm; my standard 'flat' gearings i use on the bike are 39x15 (or 39x16 if a slight headwind or a bit tired), so your gear ratio would be noticeably stiffer than what i'm used to.

rollingscone

Carawaystick wrote: »

Can you post segment times for Snowtown, Slane and Loughcrew? Just so I'm sure Meath is flat.

https://www.strava.com/segments/753321 — snowtown northbound

As I noted in the OP the title was tongue in cheek. However there are a lot of flat miles o' fun in Meath-Kildare

Never been to Slane on a bike but it looks tasty!

OleRodrigo

Why would you choose single speed over fixed ?

rollingscone

OleRodrigo wrote: »

Why would you choose single speed over fixed ?

1. I have a singlespeed (conversion to save an old Road frame with a snapped braze on derailleur mount)

2. I don't have the skillz to ride fixed and am a big fat chicken.

3. I understand that fixed can be great for healthy knees but mine are knackered (I'm pretty careful on the singlespeed to be Cadence and pull centric and stick to my a little pain is alright a lot is not mantra).

4. Descending. Skidding sounds like NOPE to me.

boardbeer

OleRodrigo wrote: »

Why would you choose single speed over fixed ?

Couldn't find a fixed 9-spline rear hub to accept a Gates rear sprocket.
Since then, Gates have upgraded their rear sprockets to 'fat foot' widths, so the Halo ally fixed hub would be an option.

Mr. Grieves

OleRodrigo wrote: »

Why would you choose single speed over fixed ?

Because descending gets tiresome without being able to freewheel.

NiallBoo

Mr. Grieves wrote: »

Because descending gets tiresome without being able to freewheel.

Ah, just pop your feet out and shove them in your bottle-cage.

It's good to be scared sometimes.