I did the Birmingham to Oxford cycle ride yesterday with my dad who has recently had a knee replacement. It was meant to be a nice, pleasant 75 mile blast through the Warwickshire and Oxfordshire country side taking in a pub of two on the way, ridden at a reasonably sedate pace. All went well for the first 30 miles until just after Brailes where ‘crunch’, my rear mech decides to wrap itself around my cassette taking my mech hanger with it. After a brief swearing fit I decided the best course of action was to remove the mech, single speed the bike and see how far I could get.

Oh. My. God. Why would you do this for fun?!?! I was always in the wrong gear! To higher gear to climb (not helped by the fact that I didn’t trust the chain not to jump if I added brute force to the pedals), to lower gear to gain any momentum before the hills, to “spinny” on anything even vaguely downhill. It was truly horrible, my legs felt constantly full of lactic acid, my lungs were burning, I felt sick, horrible stuff. I’ll concede the last 5 miles into Oxford on the flat was quite pleasant but not pleasant enough to make up for the previous 40 miles.

I am left with 2 questions:
1. Why does anyone ride single speed on the road, it just seemed ridiculous, surely this can’t be considered in anyway enjoyable?
2. Why am I now looking at steel single speed road bikes on the internet and thinking “maybe that would be quite good fun”?

Oh. My. God. Why would you do this for fun?!?!

Its not about fun, you fool!!!! Just as falling off the edge of the world in your sailing ship isn’t meant to be fun!!!!

Haha excellent.

I have been a ss’er on a MTB for about 12 years. The I started to commute and picked up a SS CX bike – perfectly fine for a 12 x2 mile commute.

I then decided to do some distance on it (100 miles) on roads…..never again!!!!!

It makes much more sense off road I think, and in either case it’s not about making it easy.

1. Why does anyone ride single speed on the road, it just seemed ridiculous, surely this can’t be considered in anyway enjoyable?

give yourself a nice 42:16 ratio on a light bike with narrow tyres and you’ll get up most ‘southern’ hills and maintain a comfy 17mph on the flat

2. Why am I now looking at steel single speed road bikes on the internet and thinking “maybe that would be quite good fun”?

becauase you’ve had a taste, and you subconscious mind knows it makes sense

It does depend to a certain extent what gear you run on your SS. ON road, 42:18 is a good start but it’d be horrendous off road, 32:16 might be better, for instance

my legs felt constantly full of lactic acid, my lungs were burning, I felt sick, horrible stuff.

MTFU has never seemed so appropriate.

Duno much about SS on road but it works off road as long as you time the pedaling for the climbs and never, ever, brake, you start to worship momentum like some cultish relgion.

I didn’t trust the chain not to jump if I added brute force to the pedals

This is a big issue, you need to be able to lay down the power on SS, and also spin.

I think it works best if you’re a strong rider, so can push a gear that gives you a decent pace up most stuff. If you prefer to sit and spin I don’t think it works so well.

But then I think this is just a matter of training, if you’re not used to pushing yourself that hard, SS will be hard work. I.e. if on gears when it gets a bit tricky you’re used to dropping a gear and slowing down. The correct approach is to man up and see that hill off, keep the pace up.

Why does anyone ride single speed on the road, it just seemed ridiculous, surely this can’t be considered in anyway enjoyable?

I prefer it on road to off road as the terrain is more predictable and you can carry your momentum far easier! 48-16 is good for round here (east midlands). I miss my singlespeed langster, geared road bikes just aren’t as fun.

Love the simplicity, reliability and clean looks.

I suspect one of the problems I had, and would continue to have, is cadence. When I start a ride I always push big gears at a low cadence and grind up hills, I think subconsciously I feel faster doing this. However, once I start to tire I spin much more, higher cadence, lower gears. This meant that at the start of my SS experience I was OK as I could just grind a gear but when I wanted to sit and spin as I tired I couldn’t. Hence cramp, swearing and generally grumpiness…and a general need to MTFU.

Anyway, why have Planet-X stopped doing cheap SS road bikes?

I think it works best if you’re a strong rider, so can push a gear that gives you a decent pace up most stuff. If you prefer to sit and spin I don’t think it works so well.

But then I think this is just a matter of training, if you’re not used to pushing yourself that hard, SS will be hard work.

First bit I don’t agree with, I reckon it works for the light or strong, you either need to be light enough that gradients don’t affect you so much so you’d be changeing gear less anyway, or else strong enough to push a big weight up the hill, the downside of the latter is you spin on the flats ocne that resistance is removed.

Second is 100% true, SS means no opt out on the climbs, it’s like doing a strava run on every slight incline, 100% effort and a much bigger gear than you’re comfortable with and line choices have to be perfect as you can’t drop a gear to accelerate from corners or spin round them uphill.

binners – you do know that you shift with your fingers on most road bikes 😉

First bit I don’t agree with, I reckon it works for the light or strong, you either need to be light enough that gradients don’t affect you so much so you’d be changeing gear less anyway, or else strong enough to push a big weight up the hill, the downside of the latter is you spin on the flats ocne that resistance is removed

Well, it’s really “light enough relative to your strength”, so I guess it’s mostly that you need good power-to-weight? But then I know riders that can get up hills fairly quick (so decent power/weight), but tend to spin smaller gears and just can’t push a big gear over going up stuff.

In 3 years of ownership and 1000s of miles – I replaced the brake blocks and tyres once.

I miss my SS Langster, but the hills up here in Lancashire are slightly bigger than the ones in London.

I find you just get totally used to it – ride SS on and off road and never really want gears. The only exception is for seriously hilly road rides eg La Marmotte, Fred Whitton etc when I’ll use gears.

I’d say fixed is better for the road if you’re going to one gear.