Bicycle Fans - official thread for people who love riding th

Following the lead, to lead with my bike as the profile pic. It's my Madison fixie, not a single piece of carbon on her, love it. I have a couple other bike pics on my profile...my road bike, a Trek 5000, GF Erwin I built into a monster cross with 29er wheels. It's 100% badass. I use the GF for long bouts of gravel and rough terrain, plenty of that in the midwest. I have 2 other bikes.... but they are my secret weapons against tyranny and oppression, to be revealed when appropriate.

Does a Fixie take much getting used too?

Years ago my exhole and his friend rode from Syracuse, NY to Rising Sun, MD. That sounded like an amazing ride! The Pennsylvania mountains had to be interesting.

OH YES it does! I got my fixie in Feb this year, and starting riding her in the April time frame. I was very intimidated at first, it was unnatural. After a few short rides in town I finally got confident to venture out a bit, and now it is one of my favorite rides.

The main things.....
> Hard to clip in, pedals are in motion
> Corners suck, you have to pedal and don't realize you coast on corners
> Down hill sucks the worst, spin-fest..... and often can feel almost out of control
> When you forget you are on a fixie, and that leg whips around....hehe.

BUT, it the simplicity and feel of the bike is hard to explain, but worth it.

:noway: Sign me up - NOT! :laugh:

I'll stick with gears for the foreseeable future

Hi everyone! Glad to see this thread since I love cycling too! I am unable to ride a regular bike because of health issues, but have been very active riding a tandem recumbent with my husband. We have a Barcroft Columbia, and ride it daily. We are lucky to have a lot of rails-to-trails in our area, and they are great for riding on. We do from 5-20 miles a day, depending on how much time we have. We actually put the tandem on a trainer last winter, and we both used it to try to keep in shape when it was too snowy and icy to ride.

My husband rides a Burley recumbent when he is on his own. We just picked up a Thunderbolt recumbent at a yard sale, and I've ridden that a bit, but find it difficult - I have balance issues. We plan to go try out some recumbent trikes, and if that works out, I will be able to ride on my own soon.

We travel a lot in our work (beekeeping), and the bike goes with us! We always try to find good rides everywhere we go. Last week we were in Mobile, Alabama, and had a hard time finding a safe place to ride. But even the tremendous heat didn't keep us off the bike!
We're in Michigan now, and enjoying the cooler weather while biking!

I need some glove recommendations. Since I'm riding in a different position now my hands are getting a little sore, especially the top of my hand right at the base of my fingers. I don't like full gloves though. What do you all use?

I am wearing Pearl Izumi with the gel inserts in the palm areas right now but seem to change brands every year. My biggest challenge is finding gloves that fi! I have found the best way to deal with my hands and arms getting tired and sore is just to keep changing up my positions on the handle bars. I move around from the hoods to the drops all the time so they don't bother as much. When I rode a flat bar road bike them bothered more.

Does a Fixie take much getting used too?

OH YES it does! I got my fixie in Feb this year, and starting riding her in the April time frame. I was very intimidated at first, it was unnatural. After a few short rides in town I finally got confident to venture out a bit, and now it is one of my favorite rides.

The main things.....
> Hard to clip in, pedals are in motion
> Corners suck, you have to pedal and don't realize you coast on corners
> Down hill sucks the worst, spin-fest..... and often can feel almost out of control
> When you forget you are on a fixie, and that leg whips around....hehe.

BUT, it the simplicity and feel of the bike is hard to explain, but worth it.

This about sums it up, got my fixie about 2 months ago, really takes some getting used to....BUT I do like it....I will also double as a single speed cross bike this fall.

I need some glove recommendations. Since I'm riding in a different position now my hands are getting a little sore, especially the top of my hand right at the base of my fingers. I don't like full gloves though. What do you all use?

I am wearing Pearl Izumi with the gel inserts in the palm areas right now but seem to change brands every year. My biggest challenge is finding gloves that fi! I have found the best way to deal with my hands and arms getting tired and sore is just to keep changing up my positions on the handle bars. I move around from the hoods to the drops all the time so they don't bother as much. When I rode a flat bar road bike them bothered more.

I second all of this. I adore Pearl Izumi Pittards Leather Carbon gloves (long crazy name and I think there is a P.R.O. in there too, but they are great!) And drop bars offer so many advantages over flat bars, and with a stem adjustment you can position drop bars at the same level as flat bars so you gain hand position variety and lose nothing compared to flat bars. (My two cents) Additionally, my wife was having problems with hand pain and we found it was actually lack of core strength which led her to put too much weight on her hands. (For what its worth.)

Hope it helps L.

My DH & I just started riding & are LOVING it! We ride 10-15 miles on hilly terrain 3 or 4 days/week. I have also recently started back runnng, and was amazed to see that I was burning almost as many calories biking as I was running as it doesn't seem as awful... I guess because I actually enjoy it, it doesn't feel as if I'm working as hard... other than when I'm huffing up the 2 biggest hills... then my thigs are sceaming! Glad to see ther are so many people who share our enhusiasm for cycling!

Ahhh, that could be part of my problem too, lack of core strength. I'm definitely putting way too much weight on my hands when I'm on the hoods. The drops feel a lot better but I just don't ride there a lot. I'm working on the core strength though. It'll be interesting to see if it helps. Thanks for all the suggestions!

also a good thing to check is saddle position: if it's too much forward, the saddle won't give you maximum support, which causes you to use your arms and hands to support you on the bike.