An ode to fixed gearing

As I listen to the hip hop/urban channel on Pandora radio (which fuckin rocks btw,) blowing off studying which i've gotten in a habit of doing looking for something to focus my mind on, the first thing tht comes tomy mind is cycling. My main bike is a fixed gear so naturally that's what I thought of first. I was going to do an entry about the thing about fixed gear products and riders that pissed me off but there's enough of that out there. Instead, I will focus on the positives. 

Firstly, it's easier to turn short trips into workouts. You can do this with geared bikes, but for me, it's too tempting for me to switch into a lower gear and take it easy. I have a cadence computer on the bike so I make it a game to try to beat my previous highest cadence. Currently it's ~160 at 35 mph. Living in a college town, every thing is pretty close to campus so the furthest I will have to go is around 5/6 miles, if that. it's also pretty flat so I can really work on my cadence. I usually try to do around 100 rpm which yeilds a pace around 20 mph. If i'm riding at the right time, traffic is going around 20/25 mph so I can keep up with traffic which makes me feel like Lucas Brunelle or one of those messengers in NYC or SF that I see in videos on youtube. I don't care how ridiculous it is to watch those videos, but they make me want to go out and ride, breaking some traffic laws while i'm at it. However, I have yet to imitate the heroics, or stupidity, of those riders which may actually be a good thing. Those videos have gotten me into the habit of running reds and stop signs. As i've learned the police here could care less about. One of those occasions would've lead to charges other than running a stop sign...I don't think I have to say what that other charge would've been.

Another reason why fixed gears are good is because they get some people into other forms of cycling, sort of a gateway drug. I know it brings a lot of people into the sport that are doing it because it's what the cool kids are doing, but the fad will die out, prices of parts will drop, and the people that got into cycling when the fixed fad came about will continue to cycle for the love of it. For me, it even got me int cycling a little more than I was before. I'm actually willing to throw on the spandex and walk in front of people to do rides and not be ashamed. Having a body doesn't hurt either.

Finally, fixed gears in shitty weather, like snow or rain, make me feel like a kid again. Skids on roads with less than ideal grip make me reminisce about when i had a kids bike with a coaster brake. The only difference is that I look 5x more redicuolous. This especially holds true when I over estimate my abilities and do moon walk skids on snow and end up on my ass in front of a group of people at 12:30 at night. Fun times.

AYHSYB