You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
@kerley You know you've spent too long in lockdown when this seems a good idea...
I’m not sure “good idea” was ever on the cards...
“Barely possible” might possibly cover it.
Did you see Phil Gaimon’s 7:52 Everesting record earlier this week?
someone had already everest a fixie... on like a 12m elevation hill...!
DrP
DrP
someone had already everest a fixie… on like a 12m elevation hill…!
That must have been mind-numbingly boring. 🙂
I Googled it because I'm trying to come up with something that makes cycling close to home interesting.
I'm planning a target of doing an Everest height over a number of days without exceeding a reasonable time for exercise each day.
I would fit a front brake if I was doing that because of two things;
- I would go through too may rear tyres maintain speed going down hill
- I would make my legs more tired (from skidding) than they already were from the climbing
The reason I don't run brakes if because I very rarely need to stop. I need to slow down a bit now and again but rarely actually stop.
The going uphill bit of fixed makes sense as I find it better than going up hill on geared as long as you find the best gear for that particular hill.
I'd do it on a tandem with a Sherpa doing the actual work of getting the bike up to the top
Kerley
What gearing do you run to be able to brake on your fixie? I have an old road fixie and there is no way I could stop in a hurry on a decent down hill without a brake?
@robbie about 65in works.
First time I did the local fixed gear "red hook" crit here, I ran 48*17 but the course has three hairpins and after thirty odd laps of going from 30-5-30mph three times per lap my legs were jelly and I went straight on at a corner and got tangled up in the barriers. The "pros" were mostly on 44t.
I still use the bike for flitting around town, with lockdown I've been using it in the local hills to spice them up - great fun going up but slow and annoying coming down.
When you see couriers riding, they massively shift their weight forwards to unweight the rear to initiate a skid. I am terrified of my fixie, so i jave a proper front brake too...
Kerley
What gearing do you run to be able to brake on your fixie? I have an old road fixie and there is no way I could stop in a hurry on a decent down hill without a brake?
The gearing helps but so does technique and experience (I haven't used brakes for 10+ years)
You need to maintain a lower speed when going downhill rather than getting up to 35mph and then expect to be able to stop quickly.
At the moment I am on 60 gear inches as I am mostly riding off road and admittedly that does make stopping a lot easier, combined the the fact I am never actually going fast as even maintaining 18mph is spinning at a high cadence. It is also a lot easier to slow down off road due to rolling resistance so very rarely have to skid stop and can just slow down fairly quickly with back pressure alone.
Those of you who've done this Everesting thing, what distance did you do it over?
I've done a few Everest weeks running and a K2 day but never on the bike!
There is a calculator online somewhere - you paste in the URL of your chosen segment and it tells you repeats required, total distance etc.
There's a local nutter who's done a few to raise money for his road club. He did a Mt Olympus on a local steep climb which most cyclists begrudge riding up once.
Then everested the cobbled high street.
Just looked up the record by Phil G, only to find it's already been broken...
https://www.velonews.com/news/keegan-swenson-takes-everesting-record-on-pine-canyon-road-utah/
Looks like it's the new hour!