- cross-posted to:
- fahrrad@feddit.org
- cross-posted to:
- fahrrad@feddit.org
Today I revived My Summer Bike!
This one’s a bit of a beast — a fixed gear touring gravel bike (?)
Cinelli Tutto frame, bought online in size M (I’m 5’8/172cm), and it needed a seat post with setback, a saddle with long rails scooted all the way back, and all the spacers to make it fit.
I guess I’m tall for Italian standards.
Mounted the widest tires it would take, the lightest rack I could find, and the bare minimum in accessories to make it kinda street legal.
It’s the silliest bike I ever built, and it makes me smile every single time I ride it.
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A fixie gravel-touring bike?! You’re the best kind of insane. I absolutely love everything about this two-wheeled beast.
You wouldn’t wanna see how smug I can look, when other riders arrive at the top of the highest hill around with their E-MTBs and notice my bike, while I’m sitting next to it drinking beer.
I’ll never stop loving steel frames <3
That’s a beauty + points for single speed
I’m a bit obsessed with steel frames, horizontal top tubes and single speed.
Which limits the options for bikes somewhat.It’s easy if you’re fine riding 80s and 90s chromoly
Yeah, unless you want to mount wide tires.
Then you’d be limited to extremely rare (expensive) 80’s MTB frames and 26" wheels.Yeah, that part sucks. I think most frames from that era can fit 26x2.2 ish though, which is something
Oh btw, that Ukraine-EU flag is nice touch. Meaningful, and happens to fit the color scheme just perfectly
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I’m from Southern Germany.
And yes, I do tour with it. The longest was about 800km in a week through the Black Forest. It’s important to remember that every fixed gear bike has three gears: sitting, standing and walking.
But I also noticed that when I start to walk on a steep hill, my riding partner with 30 gears usually follows soon after.I admit I wasn’t smiling on some of those miles.
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Trust me, he isn’t too nice to say something.
But we had an agreement that worked: I get to set the pace, and he gets to sit in my slipstream all day long.
I went bike camping with some friends last fall. The campground had a bunch of MTB trails around it and we had to ride them to get groceries. 2 of the guys were riding Surly Steamroller fixed steel bikes. We rode black diamond trails with groceries. The dudes with eMTBs that they brought on the back of a truck must have been confused.
♨️🌡️💦
That said I’ll never get fixed gear drivetrains. I’d always go with a basic 1x derailleur setup. Shimano Cues is super abuse-resistant.
The only good reason to ride fixed gear is if you enjoy riding fixed gear.
It isn’t objectively better in any way.
But it gives me 10x more smiles per mile.
The fact that I can pull it out of the shed after a year, pump up the tires, and start riding is just a bonus.How quiet they are is a nice bonus too! At least until I put the studded tires on for the winter.
Bonus for winter riding with a fixie is that you can still stop when your brakes ice up
Yes! And no gears to worry about when you need to punch through a snow bank.
Yeah, I guess the feel is very different from any sort of freewheeling drivetrain. ☺️
When you stop pushing down on the pedals, the bike starts to push your legs, like “Come on, I wanna keep going!”
It’s impossible to go slow on this thing, it wants to move.Ah gosh, I’ve actually never even ridden a fixie and this thread is really making me itch and want to buy one.
I did John O’ Groats to Land’s End on a steel frame bike! There’s something reassuring about knowing you could plow into a wall at 20 miles an hour and the bike will not give a single shit. Here it is just before setting off:
That’s very similar to my last touring bike.
I ran over a fist-sized, cube-shaped rock with it on a descent (on 23mm tires), and it did nothing.
But those old school brake hoods are NOT comfortable on long tours, and with those brakes, you better schedule descents for a day when it doesn’t rain.Aw man, totally. They were the sole reason I built a more modern bike: those brakes became the bane of my existence. The extremely hilly section at the end of the trip was arse-clenchingly terrifying. The noise they made was like a cat going down a waterslide.
Fun in an ordeal sort of way though!
like a cat going down a waterslide
I’m owned by 2 cats, and I can’t stop giggling at this.
What a beauty!
Fixed or single speed? Fixed can’t be good for your knees on an extended ride.
It’s only bad for your knees if your gear ratio is too big, you try to push up too steep hills, or if you ride brakeless.
On tour I ride with a 39/17 ratio and two brakes, and when it’s too steep, I walk.
I do bring a spare freewheel cog with 18 teeth to limp home when I’m absolutely done, but I haven’t needed it yet.Sound like coriander salad and pub trivia nights, not my idea of a good time but I’m happy for others to enjoy themselves.
I’m used to the fact that neither “normal” cyclists nor fixie riders agree with my idea of fun.
What bags you got?
https://hilosports.de/products/fahrrad-hinterradtasche-wasserdicht-25l-doppel-set
Hilo Sports is a small and pretty new Austrian brand.
The bags are cheaper than Ortlieb, have similar features, less durability and less weight.They look pretty nice
They have 2 issues, though:
Too many straps. You can roll them shut, then clip both ends down with a strap. There’s another strap going over the top.
You have to secure them all every time you close the bag, or they’ll just fly around. Eventually I just cut the 2 on the sides off, cause it was too much hassle.
And they have little plastic latches that lock the position of the rack mount in place.
But sometimes they pop open when you remove the bag and the mounting point moves a little.
Then when you try to pop them back into place, the plastic latch breaks off.
After 3 years now both latches on both bags are gone and the mounting points can move around as long as the bags aren’t on the rack.
Which isn’t really an issue, anyway.My helmet bag is the same way: Straps all over the place! I just let them flap in the wind mostly.
