akmal's bike park

akmal's bike park

Sunday 15 February 2009

Single Speed-ing

Yesterday evening while riding back home from work, something suddenly came to mind:
  • to ride casually
  • use a fixed gear
Thus I rode in a very relaxed way, and at the same time emulated a Single Speed bike. With a freewheel, still.

Heart not pumping as hard, not much sweat, and I enjoyed the route (albeit being the same old route). The bigger plus: I felt really relaxed when I'm home. I mean, mentally and physically.
It felt great! I felt as if I could do anything else. No need to take some time to relax or anything like that. To my surprise, I reached home 40 minutes after I started from the office. That's about the same time I would take if I rode 'aggressively'. With the high feeling and having some time before daylight ends, I intended to clean the RTW bike. A chat with the neighbour and the missus asking to go to the pasar malam with her, I was short of time. Managed to only clean the chain.

On second thought, it felt like being a Bangla riding on the road to and from work. I don't care much, anyway. I felt very good. That's the revelation I had yesterday, on riding casually.

On the SS, it was a surprise for me. I used a combo of middle ring for front, and 14T for the rear (that's the 3rd smallest on the cassette). I could climb the hill up the crossroad traffic light from Taman Mawar to Masjid Jamek Pasir Gudang. Either I'm getting fitter, or it's just simply the matter of fact that I hit the right combo of gearing.

Today on the way to work (yes, on a Sunday morning), I used the same SS setting and rode casually too. The mission is to gauge the time and exhaustion (if any) that I would reach. Same results - not that tiring, and about 40 minutes ride.

Elated.

Considering a proper SS bike? Not yet. I love the extra gearing options that I have for now. The weight saving really is interesting, though...
Hmmphh... perhaps there are 5 speed cogs available for sale? Cheap?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm running 42:16 ratio on my SS with slick tyre. Your case, I guess 32:14?

Running 5 speed maybe an option if you can source out hub that take 5 cogs and able to secure your lock ring on the cassette. Other option is to use spacers to made up those cogs that you can make do without.

Joe was using Hope's SS freehub and fit it with only 6 cogs on his Maverick. Maybe that would give some idea ;)

Man CIOCC said...

Salam Akmal,

I have learned my lesson too. Riding aggressively will only cut short your time by only 10 mins ++ or so, unless you're really in a hurry but it makes the ride even more dangerous.

Hei, we're not going after a trophy!

Going at a "steady Bangla's pace" is definately more enjoyable. Once in a while "pelesit/merempit" best jugak!