Ooh I missed this thread since I’ve been out having fun… There’s a picture of me up there 🙂 Although Sam did age me by a year 😉
A ride with Richpips inspired me to give it a go – when I first met him he was on his bespoke ScandAl 29er fixie, when he ripped down into The Roych on it, and then made a superb job of The Beast later on in the ride.
To be honest, it’s just like riding a bike… But it adds an extra challenge to regular trails. OK you can’t go so fast, but you can still jump, drop-off, and get down most stuff. For really steep stuff I do need to drop the saddle which feels really odd with the fixed gear. It tends to make climbing a lot easier too as the forward momentum of the bike carries you through the dead spots on your cranks – I’ve cleared the Twrch climb (Cwmcarn) on the fixed Pompino (39:16) which I have never achieved on 2:1 freewheeling MTBs.