Blakey is being too generous to a fairly average rider and my helmet is plenty big enough already. Most of you should probably just ignore the following but for the couple of people who might be interested:
Check out some of my threads here for more recent fixed gear stuff, including riding up to 600 km in under 40 hours on a small wheeled, dual suspension fixed in SEQld.
Going back to ancient history, I commuted on a fixed with front and rear racks and dynamo back in the '80s and '90s, till it got stolen. I won a few state championships on the velodrome about 20 years ago, along with a National Penny Farthing Championship medal (a real fixed wheel). Raced tandems on velodromes in Australia and Belgium, on gears did tandem racing in Oz, Belgium and Switzerland, all with a blind bloke on the back.
On gears, I’ve medaled in state championships on the road and have done time trials from 50 miles to 24 hours in the UK (unsupported). I got bored with training on the same old roads and would often ride my racing bike on dirt roads in the Lochyer Valley instead. I’ve ridden long brevets in France (one of the three was on a 1965 bike with coaster brake) and Oz (all 1200 km in under 90 hours, usually well under) plus a 1400 km London-Edinburgh-London brevet. A fair bit of touring over the years in the UK, France and Oz on solo and tandem. Raced in the third Australian MTB championships back in the mid or late-1980s, was riding singlespeed MTB in 1990s.
I can ride a unicycle (badly!) but the thought of doing more than 200 km in a day on a Coker is way too much for this little black duck.
“I can cruise at around 20 kph on the uni, max is about 25 kph. I just have a single speed, with a geared hub the fast guys can get up to 48 kph.”
I would not be comfortable on a bike without handle bars travelling at that speed!
I mean that on those long rides I really appreciate being able to find just the right gear to give me the right spin for the speed I am doing/want to be doing… If I did a long ride on a fixed (and I havent yet) I would hate to get to the 100km mark and then start to feel the cog was too high spin/too high resistance.
Although I guess If you were experienced you were doing you would just chose the right cog from the get go - but thats kinda my point.
yeah, i guess that would be bad. i’d never really thought of it like that. if only you’d been there when i was riding from sydney to melbourne along the coast in six days - on one gear. you could’ve really helped me out.
Sometimes (bus shelters and space blankets can be useful) but generally organisers arrange sleeping accommodation of some sort for long (600 km or longer) brevets. Just ask when you enter, along with what other support is provided. Tasmania’s organisers tend towards the minimalist option for most brevets though. Given the lumps you’ve got to deal with, I’d be packing gears most of the time. Mind you, I rode a 600 km brevet on the weekend with over 8000 m of climb (riding Severn bridge to Menai Bridge and back) and most of the fixed riders finished in front of me.
