Riding in this morning on my fixie, Quiet road, nobody else about, a few hours worth of rain on the ground. I entered a (recently resurfaced) roundabout turning right a bit fast and tight and Wham! down like a sack of proverbial, sliding across the tarmac…

I’m fine but annoyed with myself, a couple of MPH slower or a wider line (both of which I had time and space for) and I’d probably have been fine I reckon, I think the recent nice weather, and having gotten pretty used to riding fixed mostly in dry grippy conditions means I’m perhaps exceeding the bounds of wise judgement in the wet, like I did this morning.
with winter on the way I’d like to keep riding the fixie to work, any tips for moderating myself (Mind tricks?) when the weather gets worse?

I don’t fancy becoming one of those dead fixie riders plastered across the front of a Bin lorry…

Oh and does anyone know of any sort of comfy but abrasion resistant bar tape? Looks like I might need some….

slow down a bit?

I’d imagine it’d be quite a natural reaction to a small slide to tense up, you’d ride it out on a freewheel, but make a fall certain on a fixie?

if it’s been dry for a while and then rains the road surface can become a friction-free mix of water and petrol/diesel lifted from the road so it could be that

or you could just slow down a bit if conditions suggest that might be the common sense thing to do

Like I say I think I’ve just gotten a bit over confident on the fixie having been a bit tentative with the corners when I started using it a couple of months ago, I’ve not ridden it much in damp conditions dispite originally buying it as a “Winter commuter” it’s become my “All weather commuter” This morning has made me wonder if I’m trying to conserve a bit too much momentum through some corners perhaps, and forgetting that you can’t get away with some things that a FW bike might let you…

I did slow down on the approach, but clearly not enough I am maybe a bit too used to lovely dry roads… The road was clearly much greasier than I expected, it was early and very few cars will have been by to displace the rain water, plus the round about was resurfaced a few months ago so there’s probably still plenty oily shite leeching out of it along with the material left by the cars… 20/20 retrospect of course.

Dunno about tensing up actually, the slide was pretty sudden, no real time to correct or react, rear wheel broke away and the front followed very quickly after, not sure I can hold a two wheel drift on a fixie just yet…

I’ve generally gotten used to letting my legs “Idle” as well as using them to slow the bike in a straight line with a bit of resistance rather than apply the brake so often, I think it was just a shade too much speed, tighter line, leaned over a fraction too much, there’s quite a bit of inertia in that wheel / chainset / pair of legs arrangement as well, even without any effort going in it’s like a flywheel.. The bike went down and I was left sort of sat up sliding on my right leg/arse cheek for a meter or so… beautiful!

My reaction was totally different to what I think it would have been like on a FW equiped bike, I felt relatively relaxed both during and afterwards, I think my legs were still turning over as I hit the deck, my Right knee and Right wrist seem to have taken the brunt of the fall, wrist feels a bit stiff and sprained, grazed knee and hole in my knee warmer…

I might end up fitting a rear brake now come September just to be a bit more certain I can slow the bike in crappy weather…

Bugger it’s raining again! And my missus will probably bollock me for falling off tonight as well! I’m not having a good day…