Well, I’ve now had half a week with my new bike, Aurore Astrid Macaroni, a beautiful Marinoni Sportivo Express.  After some initial shakiness, related to my toe clip technique and slowing down, I’m used to riding non-fixed again.  Last night, after getting home on Aurore, I switched to Carrera, my beautiful fixed-gear Soma Delancey, and went for a spin to directly compare the riding experience.

And it’s a total toss-up.  They’re both amazing.  They’re completely different.

Aurore is fast.  I’d blow past people on Carrera, but this is something else entirely.  Aurore’s top gear is 53/12, four and a half tire revolutions per pedal revolution, and Carerra’s 46/17 is just over two and a half.  While I would hit the limit of my spinning ability on a straightaway with Carerra, I’m not powerful enough to use Aurore’s top gear at a proper cadence unless I’m going slightly downhill.  Apparently this isn’t at all abnormal.  Additionally, having gears means that the thought of going up a big hill is only mildly disgusting.

Aurore is also smooth.  The carbon fork and stays absorb a lot of the (irritatingly frequent and large) bumps that I encounter on Edmonton’s (shitty) roads.  Sections of road that were bone-rattling on Carrera are only uncomfortable on Aurore, and going over them more quickly feels less stupid.

Aurore is an amazing machine.  But she doesn’t win, because Carerra is so much goddamn fun to ride, for almost completely different reasons.

The fixie versus freewheel thing has probably been done to death, and I don’t think it’s fair to compare them¹.  With a freewheel bike, the core mechanic is “pedal means go, brake means stop.”  When you ride one, you’re driving.  Riding a fixie feels more like skating: every motion of your feet has significance, and it feels more like a different interface to the ground than a vehicle.  It’s really no surprise that people who have been riding other kinds of bikes have trouble with fixies, at least at first.  The idea of brakes being only semi-useful is understandably strange, because vehicles have to stop.  It’s the same with the idea of not being able to coast: what’s the point of driving a vehicle if you can’t just sit and let it carry you a bit?  But once you accept this conceptual shift, the reasons for loving your fixie are just too clear.

For me, the biggest one is probably speed control.  I accelerate as hard as I pedal, I slow down as hard as I resist.  Another one is feedback.  Based on what’s coming to me through the pedals, I can feel the ground I’m going over.  I find that these two things combine to make the ride almost meditative, because any time my mind wanders the pedals bring me right back.  I also find that my cycling style changes, because I never want to touch my brakes.  On one hand, I’m more aggressive in taking safe openings that I see; on the other, I’m way more cautious of everything that can move.  It’s a wonderful experience.

So I guess that puts the whole fixie debate to bed for me.  They’re awesome, but so are other bikes.  I’m now bicyclically polyamorous.

1. In my defence, I’m only going to contrast them.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Bikes, General Rambling, Smart-Sounding Babble. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.