First fixie ride stories

mf5
mf5 Posts: 207
edited April 2010 in Road general
Is it just me that on my first ride with a fixed wheel kept forgetting and nearly ending up over the bars?
Like to hear any stories you have of your first fixed ride!

Comments

  • majormantra
    majormantra Posts: 2,094
    Mine was a very slow pootle up and down by a bike shop, but it was enough to hook me. No getting flung but I remember finding it a totally bizarre but rather pleasurable experience.

    These days I switch between fixed and free without even thinking about it.
  • hosiescott
    hosiescott Posts: 77
    my first ride was in surbiton, i cycled out of my office carpark, turned sharply, pedal hit the floor (obviously, as i couldn't freewheel) and bam, i did a full "tank slapper" as they say in motocycle racing! went down like a sack of spuds.... :oops:

    blimey, that was ages ago, on this old fixed gear gallery bike
    http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/2005/feb/robertson.htm
  • mf5
    mf5 Posts: 207
    Your bike looks great- just happened to notice your cranks are slightly bent :D
  • lae
    lae Posts: 555
    Mine whas when I was about 12 and I was reading about track bikes. I had a singlespeed mountain bike (derailler got destroyed so I took it all off and substituted a BMX freewheel) and persuaded my neighbour, who was a mechanic, to weld up the freewheel while he was doing some welding on my mum's Cortina, which was just a cheap old car back then and not regarded as a classic car like it is now. We used an old canvas belt as toe clips. I am the original hipster!

    I still ride that bike as my daily hack, it's since got a new freewheel though.
  • GarethPJ
    GarethPJ Posts: 295
    The difference between fixed and free is just about what you're used to. Like your first drive in a manual when you're used to auto and you forget to disengage the clutch when you stop. Plenty of us rode fixed before we ever rode freewheel. So for us it was freewheel that was weird. I don't recall my first ride on a freewheel because I would have been about seven or eight at the time, but my son was (and indeed is) four. His first bike was a little fixie and when he moved onto freewheel a few months ago I got to see his reaction.

    As usual I chose to point him slightly donhill for his first ride on his "big" bike. I then asked him to ride towards me. A few strokes of the pedals to get up to speed and he tried to control his speed against the slope. Nothing happened. The look of confusion was obvious, then he realised he was going to run me over and the look changed to panic. I shouted "brake, brake, brake" but it just didn't compute. When you're four years old with stabilisers and only ride up and down the street outside the house that lever on the handlebars is more or less decoration. What I'd taught him about the brake on his first bike had been forgotten.

    I'd like to build him a fixie before too long (one more project) if I don't then maybe one day in a few years time he'll be discussing his "first" ride on fixed wheel and how he nearly went over the bars.

    GJ

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