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Riding rigid SS and riding gears require 2 completely different techniques for me.
To ride my full suspension geared bike I have to sit in the saddle and try to keep a high cadence on hills to limit suspension bob. (Yes, I know about lockouts, but what's the point of suspension if you cripple it)
On my rigid SS bike, I have it setup so my weight is on my feet and my arms carry virtually no load. This allows my legs to work as suspension (10" travel?) and I do not get much impact through my hands. The knee business is a myth - if it was true I should have been in a wheelchair 20 years ago.
Adding the bike and rider weight to come up with a total is nonsense. Perhaps a ratio of rider weight to bike weight may be a fairer comparison. I have had 2 bikes set up exactly the same, one steel and one alloy, and the heavier steel bike was harder work on the hills (but more comfortable). The difference in weight between them was only 3 lbs. This is not guess work. I timed myself on long climbs before deciding which one to use for races.
I just started singlespeeding this winter out of curiosity and to see if it makes me fitter. Most of the points have been covered already. I started on 32:16 which was maybe a bit ambitious on my local trails but I have persevered. It certainly makes you work harder than on a geared bike. Ok, so you can select 32:16 on your geared bike and get out the saddle and mash until it hurts your legs and lungs but this takes far more mental hardness than I have. SSing, once out, you have no choice; work or walk. This is often anaerobic or borderline anaerobic. Whether this helps in the greater scheme of things depends on what you want out of your cycling, but if it includes wanting to be able to bust your guts up hills a bit faster than normal than yes - it makes you fitter. It probably doesn't help with endurance training as much, so flatter rides or geared rides for longer periods would be required too. I certainly feel a lot fitter and when it comes to an uphill race now on a club run there are very few who can pip me. When you consider I'm touching 17st I am flabbergasted that I can do so well. Before SS I was tail end charlie grinding up in granny.
aye endurance is shit if you only ride SS that much is true........;)
There's a lot of BS on this thread but this is the high-point for me:[b]A single gear is only effective when training under controlled, unvarying conditions, A.K.A a velodrome![/b]
There are no other circumstances where using a singlespeed is effective training?
Absolutely. For any specific training objective, given a particular combination of gradient, conditions and fitness, there will be an ideal gear or range of gears. If your objective is always the same, and the conditions never vary, you can use one gear. As soon as things start changing, you need a range of gears to train [b]effectively[/b].
Of course you can "train" on a singlespeed, but it won't be [b]effective[/b] training. So, bypassing the discussion about the merits of singlespeed cycling, and returning again to the original poster's question - a geared bike is more effective for training than a singlespeed bike.
It depends what you're training for, surely?
If you are going to race geared bikes, then using geared bikes for training makes sense because you will tend to operate in a narrower range of cadence. You have also got to master all those extra controls. Getting the timing right is critical - a bad gear change can cost you metres - so that needs practise too.
If you want to increase leg strength over a wide range of cadence, going SS is a simple way to do it - no easy option except dismount.