Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

Is there a connection between peak burst speed and preferred speed on a fixed gear bike? Peak speed is for a handful of seconds. Preferred speed would be over longer distances e.g. 10km, not necessarily racing. Just wondering if everyone cycles to about the same percentages.

I'm assuming you mean "power", not speed. I would have thought that the answer is an obvious NO, although your terminology makes this a weird question. What if someone "prefers" to go flat out for 10km?

I also think this has nothing to do with riding a fixed gear and everything to do with fitness and physiology.
As you get fitter, peak power and endurance will generally increase but by different amounts in different people doing different training.

Hills have to be considered unless you like the walk of shame.

There's two very near me that are losing the battle a foot at a time on a hefty 76 GI Reid Harrier. One day

KGB and Mulger have probably answered your question, however its a little unclear as to the nature of the question.

Are you referring to cadence (gearing)?

KGB makes a good point; one may prefer to cycle at a higher cadence. Assuming uniform conditions and flat ground I am guessing that maximum cadence/power/speed over a short unsustainable burst is an indicator of a cadence that can be sustained for the furthest pedal strokes. Call this preferred cadence. I am interested if cyclists on fixies prefer a cadence that takes them the furthest.

I run a gear on my fixie that can be ridden over all terrain

I don't really think you can relate peak burst speed with long distance speed per se. It depends on your fitness, how ride and your gearing. With 74GI I can give a pretty good burst of speed from lights if its flat, but then I commute ~18km each way and deal with stiff headwinds etc so obviously this is more of a grind along sometimes. I guess if you are able to do sustained bursts of high speed over and over then you're basically doing interval training and are probably pretty fit. As a result you could ride pretty quick for a long time, but if it was windy or hilly etc perhaps you'd slow more than someone who commutes a lot but doesn't 'sprint' much? Then again probably all depends how much and how you ride.

I have been wanting to get around to buying some sort of bike GPS and cadence sensor so I can measure my cadence. I'd like to see what a good 'general' cadence feels like with my gearing ~74GI and what speed this translates to. Then I could try to keep a 'good' cadence and decent speed basically all the time, outside of bursts of speed if needed. Obvious as it seems, I find the more often I commute, the better generally my legs get at reacting & bouncing back. So this helps with both short bursts and longer rides.

I also run 74

I can spin and I can grind, I find with 74 I feel comfortable on the flat, can spin out downhill and can climb upto 10%. Not saying it doesn't hurt, it does.

That doesn't mean that 74 is the right gear for you, it depends on what you are good at and what you are challenged at

I use a 68" gear. I find it pretty handy around where I live. It's good enough for a 30 kmhr average on my 25km each way commute, I have averaged 34kmhr on it with a tailwind, you just need to spin faster to go faster. The lower GI is also handy when I have to face a headwind home after a 12hr shift.

I'm having a gearing problem with a single speed I just put together. I had been riding my big green Madison with 68 gear inches and it gets me to work nice and fast without feeling like I'm ever spinning too fast, it feels great and I can ride it up a 13% hill which is as steep as any hill it'll ever see around here (My commute is flat but very windy at times). The other day I converted an old Apollo Vitese road bike to single speed using the heavy Reid deep dish wheels, same gearing as the Madison. The Apollo bike _feels_ slower (Its almost 2kg heavier) yet it has me spinning uncomfortably fast, it's the strangest thing. I'm not sure if the upright position on the Madison lets me spin faster comfortably or the Apollo is actually going faster.. But its a night and day difference, I guess its gps time.

elfoam wrote:I'm having a gearing problem with a single speed I just put together. I had been riding my big green Madison with 68 gear inches and it gets me to work nice and fast without feeling like I'm ever spinning too fast, it feels great and I can ride it up a 13% hill which is as steep as any hill it'll ever see around here (My commute is flat but very windy at times). The other day I converted an old Apollo Vitese road bike to single speed using the heavy Reid deep dish wheels, same gearing as the Madison. The Apollo bike _feels_ slower (Its almost 2kg heavier) yet it has me spinning uncomfortably fast, it's the strangest thing. I'm not sure if the upright position on the Madison lets me spin faster comfortably or the Apollo is actually going faster.. But its a night and day difference, I guess its gps time.

You see the largest relative gains in speed for aerodynamic improvements in the low 30km/hr range. Weight means almost nothing when travelling along a flat road. Its pretty obvious that my old fixie with its very low bars is actually more efficient than my roadbike at riding along a flat surface.

Other things that can affect the perception, my old bike has 27x1in tires and 165mm cranks, both of which raise effective gearing vs footspeed compared to the current defaults which are 700c, and 175mm cranks.