Saw this bike somewhere. Lack of Gears and Brakes is by design or choice? What purpose would this serve? (Curious)
by patrick_thementalist
Saw this bike somewhere. Lack of Gears and Brakes is by design or choice? What purpose would this serve? (Curious)
by patrick_thementalist
12 Comments
also whats it cost?
Usually these bikes have no freehub. So the pedals keep spinning. Cycle messengers use bikes like this. You can google cycle messengers world championship. This is where they compete in things like breaking with these bikes etc
Its a fun bike to ride.
Check out r/fixedGearBicycle for more from people who love fixed gear bikes
By design, the flat bars are a choice… its a track bike intended for a veledrome. Its a fixed gear bike, you can slow it down by resisting the pedals.
Fixed gear, you stop by back pedaling. Ideally you riding this kind of bike on a track / velodrome.
It’s a track bike aka fixed gear. The rear wheel will turn with the pedals. Both forward and backward. Some add a front brake some don’t. Pedal harder go faster pedal slower go slower and if you manage to jam the pedals then you will skid. In my opinion is a very good machine as there is no loss of momentum and once you build up your speed it’s easy to maintain.
It’s a fixie – fixed gear bike.
The pedals move whenever the wheels do. The pedals are how you brake too, basically using the pedals in reverse.
Low cost, low maintenance, not much to go wrong.
Often used by couriers or just people who like that style of bike.
It doesn’t look like any [track bike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_bicycle) I’ve seen. The chainring is a lot smaller for one thing.
It’s a fixie / track bike and those things are back in trend now for some reason with the hip urban crowd. That being said, in some countries, like Germany, these bikes are not allowed to be ridden on public streets – and for a good reason. Fun to ride though
Non-street/track bike.
That’s a fixed gear track bike, you stop by skidding or resisting the crank’s rotation. They’re fantastic
As others have said, it’s a fixed gear bike/fixie (they also get called track bikes, but technically it’s only a track bike if it was actually designed to race on a velodrome, and some peeps get a bit huffy about the misuse of the word). The idea of the lack of gears is the same as with a single speed; simplicity. There’s less to maintain and less to go wrong, but it’s a step further as there’s not even a freewheel/hub (having a freewheel slip is not fun). The lack of brakes is a step further for simplicity, and is possible because you can modulate your speed by resisting the pedals as they’re always directly connected to the rear cog. It’s recommended to start riding fixed with at least a front brake and learn how to control the bike and danger can be reduced a lot by not being a sketchy rider.
Riding fixed is not for everyone, but I reckon everyone should at least give it a try. It’s a subtle but very distinct difference to riding a regular bike.
Brakeless fixed gear rider when their chain fails:
Oops I’ll just die I guess