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.
Wednesday March 1st
Rode fixie into work (Stroud → Gloucester). Cold, frosty morning, but a lovely ride. Rode fixie home again. Crapped my pants down a few hills. Failed to make it up another hill, resorted to walking. Cranks coming loose again, so tightened them up en route with the spanner, part of a reasonably comprehensive toolkit that I was now taking everwhere with me as I was starting to become paranoid about mechanical failures.
Thursday March 2nd
Rode fixie halfway into work, until got double puncture on rear tyre. Spent two hours trying to fix punctures without success (I have always been hopeless at puncture repair). Left bike locked up and got bus into city centre. Quite late for work by now. Wandered around city centre looking for a bike shop. Asked friendly-looking cyclist chappie where is bike shop in city. No bike shop in city centre. Nice kind bikie chappie fishes out his spare inner tube from his pannier and gives it to me. Walked to nearest bike shop in dodgy corner of town. Bought new puncture repair kit to replace the one I had finished up with my botched attempts that morning. Got bus to work. Left work early to get bike and replace inner tube. Donated inner tube was wrong size. Fixed puncture. Bloody cold. Puncture seemingly fixed. Rode home. Tightened cranks on way home.
Friday March 3rd
Rode halfway to work, until hit pothole and got puncture in rear tyre. Same as yesterday. I hardly ever got punctures before. Attempted to fix puncture. Twice. Gave up. Noticed two broken spokes in rear wheel. Removed wheel and walked into city to a traditional local bike shop (LBS). Explained my worries about punctures and broken spokes vis a vis my weight. They said not to worry, they would sort the wheel out so that the spokes should not break. Quite late for work.
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.
Saturday March 4th
Drove into city to collect mended rear wheel from LBS.
Monday March 6th - Thursday March 9th
Got the bus or rode, no problems except for getting soaking wet when it rained as I had no mudguards! Must get some…
Friday March 9th
Left home down the hill to go to work and after about 200m nearly crashed big time as my rear sprocket had unscrewed as I resist-braked and thrown the chain off too. Way to ruin your spokes and tyre wall. Having no joy in trying to screw the sprocket back on firmly enough, I called into work to say I couldn't make it in. I was really cross with my bike for being so unreliable. It was supposed to be the opposite. This time it nearly had me in hospital.
Monday March 13th
Took the bike in the car to another LBS in Gloucester and asked them to have a look at it.
Tuesday March 14th
Guy from the bike shop phones up to say there is a problem, the chain is too long, not taut enough, and that's why it keeps slipping off. Makes sense. I need to replace a link with a half-link, but he says these aren't readily available. I say I'll look online for one. I find a half-link at Charlie the Bike Monger's eBay shop, it arrives next day along with some fruit pastilles (Charlie is a nice bloke).
Thursday March 16th
Go to the shop to pick up the bike. The guy says that apart from the Stronglight cranks, the bike is a bit shit in his opinion. They have had a look at the rear wheel and the sprocket, and assure me that it should be all right to ride now. I have brought the half-link with me, and I attempt to install it in the shop just before closing time, get nervous and bodge it and am too embarrassed to admit it. Ride off across Gloucester - mmm, this is nice - then on Southgate St on my way home… CRASH! the chain falls apart.
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.
Sunday 26th March
Eventually have a chance to go to Gloucester in the car and collect my bike from my mates' house. Had tried during the week but not found them in.
Monday 27th March
In the evening, at home in the dry, I install my new KMC chain including another half-link from Charlie (the previous one had actually cracked through to the edge from the hole where the pin goes through). Give the bike a clean-up.
Tuesday 28th - Wednesday 29th March
Two days of trouble-free commuting on the fixie.
Thursday 30th March
Got in OK in the morning. Enjoying a nice evening ride home, when I pull up sharply at a red light. As I pull off again on green, CRACK CRACK, two spokes go like bullets, and the rear wheel jams against the left chainstay (if you can call it that on the left?)
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.
Saturday 1st April
Picked up mended wheel from Halfords.
Monday 3rd April - Monday 10th April
As far as I can remember, no problems. Can't remember how much I rode. Certainly to work and back once or twice.
Tuesday 11th April
In the evening after work I went for my first ride with Gloucester City CC. I had arranged to meet Toby from the club in Longlevens. I had been riding around here and there for a couple of hours since I left the office, and on my way to meet the group I was buoyant and really enjoying riding my fixie around the city. About 20 yards before the junction where I was meeting Toby, I went over a speed bump in the road and CRACK I lost another spoke. The rear wheel was wobbly but the bike was rideable so I carried on quite happily. We went out to a country pub near Cheltenham and enjoyed a cider, and then I left the group to make my way home to Stroud. By this time I had 2 broken spokes but, really warmed up, I bowled along the A46 and climbed up to Cranham with no trouble at all. This is the life, I thought.
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.
Thursday 13th April
Jenny knew nothing about my problems with the bike on Tuesday. Everything had been fine since Halfords, and I was desperate to keep up the illusion that my bike was fine, that I had not wasted our money.
So I pretended to set out for work on the bike. But instead, I walked it down the hill, left it locked up in town, removed the rear wheel and got on the bus to Gloucester. I took the wheel into the recommended LBS, and asked the guy to have a look at it. He straight away said that the wheel wasn't up to it, I would need a new one built with a decent hub. He said he would look into which hub to get and give me a quote for a new wheel. I thought that sounded expensive. He patched up the wheel as a temporary measure, and I took it back to Stroud with me on the bus that afternoon, and walked the bike back up the hill to home.
Tuesday 25th April
I call up the LBS to ask if there's any news on the replacement rear wheel. We discuss options, and later on I call him back to agree to him ordering in a SystemEX hub. I'm not riding the bike. Jenny is 8 1/2 months pregnant at this point, and I am taking the car to work so that I can get home quickly if needed.
Saturday 6th May
Went to bed the previous night feeling the need to ride in my blood. Up early, on the fixie and set off up the hill and round to Bisley, Oakridge (steep!), Frampton Mansell, Minchinhampton, Avening, Tetbury and back via Nailsworth. Routemap. Cracked a spoke on the way out, at Minch after 5 miles. 'Twas a lovely ride though. Cracked another spoke on the way in between Nailsworth and Stroud. Really wobbly in the stern now. Stopped off in Stroud, and got talking to a guy who used to ride fixed, who commented on the bike. His son rides frequently at Newport track. Nice to be noticed with the fixie!
Monday 8th May
Our daughter Rosy Ella was born.
Tuesday 23rd May
I give the LBS a call to see what's happ'nin' with the hub. He's still waiting. "It's due in 3 weeks." I'm still waiting too. I'm bikeless here.
Saturday 3rd June
Dug out my old gearie bike, which is too small for me, and tuned it up. At least I have something to ride. It is weird after riding fixed for 4 months. It just feels wrong, everything feels too disconnected.
This one guy Raymond captures it quite well in this old forum post Observations of a fixed gear newbie.
Thursday 15th June
I pop into the LBS to see what gives. Still waiting. We have a nice chat anyway. He'll give me a call when it's in.
Thursday 20th July
I pop into the LBS to see what gives. He calls them up. Mirabile dictu, the suppliers assure him over the phone that the hub is in stock and is on its way.
We chat some more. He explains to me that the way some wheels are built means that the trailing spokes are not very robust. This doesn't matter with a freewheel bike, because you can't really stress them. But when you resist-brake with a fixie, it stresses the trailing spokes instead of the usual leading spokes. So if the wheel is not well made then fixed riding can cause spokes to break. This explains the incident on 30th March with the mystery spoke breaks, I believe. And possibly all the rest.
To be continued...
Francis Barton
June 4, 2006 (eventually started writing this up!)
July 21st, 2006 (eventually finished writing this up!)
ip: 82.152.144.135 summary: About my initial experiences of riding a fixed wheel bike. diff-major: 1 text: ==Intro== 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 [http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/ 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 [http://sheldonbrown.com/fixed.html Sheldon Brown's fixed page] of people getting their fingertips chopped off? ==Getting on the bike== 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== 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. ==March== *Wednesday March 1st* Rode fixie into work (Stroud -> Gloucester). Cold, frosty morning, but a lovely ride. Rode fixie home again. Crapped my pants down a few hills. Failed to make it up another hill, resorted to walking. Cranks coming loose again, so tightened them up en route with the spanner, part of a reasonably comprehensive toolkit that I was now taking everwhere with me as I was starting to become paranoid about mechanical failures. *Thursday March 2nd* Rode fixie halfway into work, until got double puncture on rear tyre. Spent two hours trying to fix punctures without success (I have always been hopeless at puncture repair). Left bike locked up and got bus into city centre. Quite late for work by now. Wandered around city centre looking for a bike shop. Asked friendly-looking cyclist chappie where is bike shop in city. No bike shop in city centre. Nice kind bikie chappie fishes out his spare inner tube from his pannier and gives it to me. Walked to nearest bike shop in dodgy corner of town. Bought new puncture repair kit to replace the one I had finished up with my botched attempts that morning. Got bus to work. Left work early to get bike and replace inner tube. Donated inner tube was wrong size. Fixed puncture. Bloody cold. Puncture seemingly fixed. Rode home. Tightened cranks on way home. *Friday March 3rd* Rode halfway to work, until hit pothole and got puncture in rear tyre. Same as yesterday. I hardly ever got punctures before. Attempted to fix puncture. Twice. Gave up. Noticed two broken spokes in rear wheel. Removed wheel and walked into city to a traditional local bike shop (LBS). Explained my worries about punctures and broken spokes vis a vis my weight. They said not to worry, they would sort the wheel out so that the spokes should not break. Quite late for work. 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. *Saturday March 4th* Drove into city to collect mended rear wheel from LBS. *Monday March 6th - Thursday March 9th* Got the bus or rode, no problems except for getting soaking wet when it rained as I had no mudguards! Must get some... *Friday March 9th* Left home down the hill to go to work and after about 200m nearly crashed big time as my rear sprocket had unscrewed as I resist-braked and thrown the chain off too. Way to ruin your spokes and tyre wall. Having no joy in trying to screw the sprocket back on firmly enough, I called into work to say I couldn't make it in. I was really cross with my bike for being so unreliable. It was supposed to be the opposite. This time it nearly had me in hospital. *Monday March 13th* Took the bike in the car to another LBS in Gloucester and asked them to have a look at it. *Tuesday March 14th* Guy from the bike shop phones up to say there is a problem, the chain is too long, not taut enough, and that's why it keeps slipping off. Makes sense. I need to replace a link with a half-link, but he says these aren't readily available. I say I'll look online for one. I find a half-link at Charlie the Bike Monger's eBay shop, it arrives next day along with some fruit pastilles (Charlie is a nice bloke). *Thursday March 16th* Go to the shop to pick up the bike. The guy says that apart from the Stronglight cranks, the bike is a bit shit in his opinion. They have had a look at the rear wheel and the sprocket, and assure me that it should be all right to ride now. I have brought the half-link with me, and I attempt to install it in the shop just before closing time, get nervous and bodge it and am too embarrassed to admit it. Ride off across Gloucester - mmm, this is nice - then on Southgate St on my way home... CRASH! the chain falls apart. 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. *Sunday 26th March* Eventually have a chance to go to Gloucester in the car and collect my bike from my mates' house. Had tried during the week but not found them in. *Monday 27th March* In the evening, at home in the dry, I install my new KMC chain including another half-link from Charlie (the previous one had actually cracked through to the edge from the hole where the pin goes through). Give the bike a clean-up. *Tuesday 28th - Wednesday 29th March* Two days of trouble-free commuting on the fixie. *Thursday 30th March* Got in OK in the morning. Enjoying a nice evening ride home, when I pull up sharply at a red light. As I pull off again on green, CRACK CRACK, two spokes go like bullets, and the rear wheel jams against the left chainstay (if you can call it that on the left?) 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. ==April== *Saturday 1st April* Picked up mended wheel from Halfords. *Monday 3rd April - Monday 10th April* As far as I can remember, no problems. Can't remember how much I rode. Certainly to work and back once or twice. *Tuesday 11th April* In the evening after work I went for my first ride with Gloucester City CC. I had arranged to meet Toby from the club in Longlevens. I had been riding around here and there for a couple of hours since I left the office, and on my way to meet the group I was buoyant and really enjoying riding my fixie around the city. About 20 yards before the junction where I was meeting Toby, I went over a speed bump in the road and CRACK I lost another spoke. The rear wheel was wobbly but the bike was rideable so I carried on quite happily. We went out to a country pub near Cheltenham and enjoyed a cider, and then I left the group to make my way home to Stroud. By this time I had 2 broken spokes but, really warmed up, I bowled along the A46 and climbed up to Cranham with no trouble at all. This is the life, I thought. 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. *Thursday 13th April* Jenny knew nothing about my problems with the bike on Tuesday. Everything had been fine since Halfords, and I was desperate to keep up the illusion that my bike was fine, that I had not wasted our money. So I pretended to set out for work on the bike. But instead, I walked it down the hill, left it locked up in town, removed the rear wheel and got on the bus to Gloucester. I took the wheel into the recommended LBS, and asked the guy to have a look at it. He straight away said that the wheel wasn't up to it, I would need a new one built with a decent hub. He said he would look into which hub to get and give me a quote for a new wheel. I thought that sounded expensive. He patched up the wheel as a temporary measure, and I took it back to Stroud with me on the bus that afternoon, and walked the bike back up the hill to home. *Tuesday 25th April* I call up the LBS to ask if there's any news on the replacement rear wheel. We discuss options, and later on I call him back to agree to him ordering in a !SystemEX hub. I'm not riding the bike. Jenny is 8 1/2 months pregnant at this point, and I am taking the car to work so that I can get home quickly if needed. ==May== *Saturday 6th May* Went to bed the previous night feeling the need to ride in my blood. Up early, on the fixie and set off up the hill and round to Bisley, Oakridge (steep!), Frampton Mansell, Minchinhampton, Avening, Tetbury and back via Nailsworth. [http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=166429 Routemap]. Cracked a spoke on the way out, at Minch after 5 miles. 'Twas a lovely ride though. Cracked another spoke on the way in between Nailsworth and Stroud. Really wobbly in the stern now. Stopped off in Stroud, and got talking to a guy who used to ride fixed, who commented on the bike. His son rides frequently at Newport track. Nice to be noticed with the fixie! *Monday 8th May* Our daughter Rosy Ella was born. *Tuesday 23rd May* I give the LBS a call to see what's happ'nin' with the hub. He's still waiting. "It's due in 3 weeks." I'm still waiting too. I'm bikeless here. ==June== *Saturday 3rd June* Dug out my old gearie bike, which is too small for me, and tuned it up. At least I have something to ride. It is weird after riding fixed for 4 months. It just feels wrong, everything feels too disconnected. This one guy Raymond captures it quite well in this old forum post [http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-5447.html Observations of a fixed gear newbie]. *Thursday 15th June* I pop into the LBS to see what gives. Still waiting. We have a nice chat anyway. He'll give me a call when it's in. ==July== *Thursday 20th July* I pop into the LBS to see what gives. He calls them up. /Mirabile dictu/, the suppliers assure him over the phone that the hub is in stock and is on its way. We chat some more. He explains to me that the way some wheels are built means that the trailing spokes are not very robust. This doesn't matter with a freewheel bike, because you can't really stress them. But when you resist-brake with a fixie, it stresses the trailing spokes instead of the usual leading spokes. So if the wheel is not well made then fixed riding can cause spokes to break. This explains the incident on 30th March with the mystery spoke breaks, I believe. And possibly all the rest. *To be continued...* Francis Barton June 4, 2006 (eventually started writing this up!) July 21st, 2006 (eventually finished writing this up!) languages: lastmajor: 14 oldmajor: 13 diff-minor:Changed: 75c75
< This one guy Raymond captures it quite well in this old forum post [http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-5447.html /Observations of a fixed gear newbie/].
to
> This one guy Raymond captures it quite well in this old forum post [http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-5447.html Observations of a fixed gear newbie].