![[Home]](http://epfarms.org/~fbarton/images/oddmuse-logo.png){kind=logo}
I bought my first fixed gear bicycle off ebay.co.uk in early February 2006. Up until this point I had been riding a well-loved (read: battered and filthy) but pretty reliable 54cm 2x5-speed Raleigh Granada which had been my only bike since I got it from my Dad for my 15th (?) birthday. I had read on the web about the smooth rhythms of fixed-gear riding, drooled over some of the sweet units on fixedgeargallery.com, and wondered if what they said about fixies was true.
So I browsed ebay and found what I was looking for - a cheap road-bike conversion, with smart new chainset and front caliper brake, newly polished up and sprayed in my favourite colour (green), a nice big frame size (24" - I had started to wonder if my Granada was a little on the small side for me) and - that most gorgeous feature of all - the fixie chainline making its smooth curve round chainring and sprocket without all the mess of rear derailleur, jockey wheels and cables.
I entertained lust in my heart and asked Mrs B if that fixie could be my birthday present. "I'll ride it to work - it'll be really reliable - and think of the money we'll save on petrol! It'll pay for itself in a couple of months." So I shelled out £155, drove up to Derby to collect it and came back excited but quite nervous too. I don't often spend that much money in one go - what if I couldn't ride it? What if every little hill proved too much and I was reduced to humiliation of walking while geared riders went past sniggering? And what about those scary pictures on Sheldon Brown's fixed page of people getting their fingertips chopped off?
First I had to source some pedals - the bike, as is conventional, came without any as they are such a personal choice for cyclists. The guy who had converted the fixie from an old Raleigh racer (a Raleigh Lenton? Reynolds 501 tubing) recommended I look into getting some Crank Bros egg beater pedals from ebay, as clipping in helps with fixed riding and egg beaters are small which helps to avoid pedal strike[1].
However I didn't have any suitable cycling shoes, and I was unsure of the different types of clipless pedals, and I was aware that riding clipless takes some getting used to. So I left that for the time being and bought some flat pedals and attachable plastic toeclips which is what I was used to from my other bike.
On getting the bike home I was eager to install the pedals (even this elementary bit of cycle assembly and maintenance was exciting for me as I had hardly done any - a subsidiary reason for getting the fixie was that it would give me a spare bike on which to practise taking things apart and cleaning them without risking losing my means of transport) and give it a try.
Installed pedals. Checked quick release tightness on wheels (never done this before - looked up on the web to see how to do QRs properly - I'm really learning advanced stuff now!). The bike seller had advised me to make sure that the rear wheel was really tightly cranked on as riding fixed puts a lot of strain on the rear wheel and could pull it forward out of the dropouts if not fully secured.
The bike had chopped-off horizontal "bullhorn" handlebars - so new, so exciting. I gave the bike the once over, and thought it should be ready to ride, so I made sure my laces were tucked into my shoes and finally set off out of the garden gate and up our hill. It was lovely, so smooth, so light. I was making good progress up the hill when suddenly my saddle went loose - the seatpost had slipped and I was swinging from side to side. I had to stop and walk back home.
I needed the seatpost lowered, so while it was loose I twisted the saddle to lower it, which disconcertingly caused shavings of metal to be removed from the alloy seatpost, by the edge of the steel seat tube.
Once the saddle was lowered, I tried to tighten up the seatpost bolt with an Allen key like I used to on my other bike but the bolt just spun in its slot without tightening. It was a different sort of bolt, one that needed two Allen keys the same size, one in each end. Well I only had one set of Allen keys, so I tried various methods of tightening the bolt, which sort of worked.
Next time I got on the bike, the saddle stayed put, and I went up the hill, turned round and started to descend on a fixie for the first time. It was one of the scariest things I have ever done. If you are used to freewheeling then the shock you get when a fixie doesn't let you coast is horrible. I was bouncing up and down in the pedals, totally out of control - I hadn't realised how strongly the motion of the bike would push my feet round - clinging on to the brake and trying not to go over the horizontal bullhorns which gave me nothing much to lean forward against. I eventually managed to stop and I went home, went inside, had a strong cup of tea and felt so sad that I had been foolish enough to spend money on a stupid fixed gear bike that I wouldn't be able to ride. I left the bike alone for the rest of the day while I thought about my experiences and cursed. That night I lay awake thinking about my out of control descent.
The next couple of weeks I did not get a chance to go back to my fixie. The seatpost was actually still loose and I had not succeeded in tightening it properly even with a borrowed second hex key. We went away for a week's holiday. We came back. I still hadn't sorted out my new bike and had a proper ride on it. I tried the seatpost bolt again. It sheared into two pieces. I was not pleased.
I transferred my old seatpost bolt over to the fixie, and it worked fine. I went for a ride at last. After a mile or so, I had a familiar feeling - a strange bump in my pedalling stroke. This had happened once before when I went on my first and only group ride with Stroud CTC and after a couple of miles my left pedal crank fell off. Quite embarrassing, to say the least. My pedals were coming loose. I had forgotten to check them for tightness, but then I had only ridden a mile or two. I walked the bike home.
Next day I got to a bike shop and bought a crank spanner. With newly tightened cranks I was ready to ride. For the previous month I had been on a very special break without work - in between jobs. I had spent practically none of it riding. The following day was my first day at my new job. I rode the fixie.
Got bus out in the evening to where I had left the rest of the bike locked up, Mrs B collected me and bike by car.
I sit under some scaffolding in the darkening gloom and rain trying to assemble chain links with my increasingly filthy and slippery chain tool. I fail. I take the bike to my mates' house and leave it there. I get the bus home in my wet cycling gear. The bus breaks down half way home. The replacement service eventually comes and takes me to Stroud. I walk up the hill, freezing. It is 9.30pm, nearly 5 hours since I left my office to collect my bike.
I hadn't hit a pothole, I hadn't seemingly done anything except stop and start, and here I was again with a busted back wheel.
I walk a couple of miles back past all the traffic I had just overtaken, feeling a bit of a prat with my wonky back wheel, back to Halfords on Eastern Avenue. The sun was shining. I went into Halfords and asked if they could possibly fit in replacing a couple of spokes before closing time as I needed to get home. They couldn't. They said I could buy some spokes, or a new wheel. I thought about it. I asked how much the spokes were. They told me, and then asked me what length I wanted. I didn't have the first clue.
I bought a spoke key from them and went outside in the car park with my bike and tried to rescue the wheel by blind guesswork and the full force of my common sense (not a lot). It started to rain. Teenagers on BMXs rode around, giving the fixie some respect, but not the poor sap next to it who didn't have the first clue what to do with his wheel. I decided to leave the wheel with Halfords, and call Jenny to come and get me, which she had said she wouldn't do anymore - she was getting a bit fed up with it. "You spent a lot of money on that bike and you said it would be ok and reliable but it keeps breaking. This is the last time I come and pick you up."
We drove home. Despite what I had read on the web about standards at Halfords, the guy there seemed to know what he was doing, and I was hopeful that when I got my wheel back this time, everything would be ok. He had told me that the guy at the first place I had been to to get my spokes sorted was a complete cowboy. Silly me. I should have gone to Halfords in the first place.
In the pub I had discussed with the others my mechanical problems with the bike, and told them where I had been to to get it sorted. The one place in Gloucester I hadn't yet been to was the one they recommended - it is run by a club member and they assured me was a good wrench and would give me a club discount. Also he rides fixed on the track so he would know what he was doing with a fixie wheel.
On my descent into Stroud, having had a real blast of a ride home, a third spoke went, and the rear wheel was shot. I walked the rest of the way home.
This one guy Raymond captures it quite well in this old forum post Observations of a fixed gear newbie.
Francis Barton
June 4, 2006 (eventually started writing this up!)
July 21st, 2006 (eventually finished writing this up!)
