With several people interested in single speeding I thought I’d start this thread for tips and lessons we’ve learned single speeding (and fixed too, as I’ll soon be diving in). What have you learned, or are learning?
I cover a lot of bits I learned here, in my review of the Quickbeam: https://thegrid.ai/withabandon/quickbeam-sightings As I’ve been riding exclusively single speed now the last few weeks (and my Hunqapillar is single speed, just using the 60” gear in the cassette as that was the one that worked), I’ve again been impressed with how different the mind/body/heart/soul set is with zero options but pedaling. With gears, the mind is always watchful and mindful of cadence and asking the question “is it time to shift?” and “will this hill necessitate a shift?” None of that nonsense. Me legs are me gears. I was good at being relaxed pedaling in a certain RPM range, and I shifted to stay in that. I “needed” more gear range when the terrain became steeper because otherwise I was out of that range. Single speeding has taught me to relax from extremely slow cadence pedaling to extremely high cadence. I’ve learned to climb with an unweighted seated position, doing repeated one-legged squats, my weight pushing down on the pedals to assist, my arms pulling on the bars to assist. Yet it is soft and easy. Anaerobic work at an aerobic pace. It feels amazing. Fast cadences feel a lot like running barefoot (and I expect fixed with increase this in many ways) — floating along, limpid and lithe, riding a rail as circles turn beneath me (this feeling is true all the time, actually, but more so at higher cadences for me). Ride till you can’t, walk till you can. Obey this and the amount of time you spend walking will decrease steadily and surprisingly as your aerobic fitness increases. What is “can’t”? For me, it is when I am no longer breathing fairly relaxed through my nose (I make exceptions to this when I want to push myself, or for short, steep climbs). Intentionally ride the wrong of your two gears, both too high and too low. You will learn a lot. The one geared bike is an amazing teacher, but it requires humility to learn from it. A deraileur gets in the way of this learning. Most of all, enjoy and ride with abandon! Grin. With abandon, Patrick www.CredoFamily.org www.MindYourHeadCoop.org -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
