I've done a fair amount of hilly fixed gear and SS riding around the SF Bay Area, including climbing Mt. Tamalpais and Mt. Diablo numerous times as well as regular riding in the Berkeley Hills and Marin Headlands (which would be called "Mountains" back where I'm from in massachusetts). As others have said, gear choice is critical, and has to be determined based on your own ability and local terrain. When I was doing the most hilly riding, I found that a ~60" fixed gear did the best for me (40x19 or so with 700c wheels). However, as others have hinted, this comes as the expense of fast descending and even brisk riding on the flats. Part of the fixed gear experience is accepting these limitations.
Also, yes, some type of foot retention is de rigueur for hilly fixed gear riding. If you're using flat pedals for barefoot riding now the best option might be Power Grips, which are simple and highly effective. These days I have my Quickbeam setup with a higher geared fixed gear (42x17, 67" with 700x35c) for its main purpose of townie riding, and a low-geared singlespeed freewheel (42x22, 52") for longer hilly rambles. Also, check out the now-defunct 63xc webzine, whose archives are still up at 63xc.com. It was a website dedicated to riding fixed gears for off-road adventuring, with a lot of how-to, tech, and philosophy articles. The stuff by framebuilder Matt Chester in particular is really good, and a lot of it is informed by his experience riding fixed gears in mountains of Colorado and Idaho. On Monday, March 11, 2013 12:06:21 PM UTC-7, Deacon Patrick wrote: > > The concurrent thread on fixed bikes triggered a question I've long had -- > how feasible is a fixed gear for living in an area with long, steep > climbs/descents? What gearing would make sense? In general the climbs range > from 4-7 mph, descents up to 45mph or more. > > There are a lot of other wants and needs before I'd consider purchasing a > fixed bike, but curiosity reigns. Grin. > > With abandon, > Patrick > > *www.MindYourHeadCoop.org* > *www.OurHolyConception.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 rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en-US. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
