Fixed Gear Photos

I went on Trixie the Fixie into Walker today via a bit of a magical mystery tour up around Killingworth & Forrest Hall (this Gmaps Pedometer map shows the route, but is ~10% light on the mileage). We’ve been living in these parts for nine years now, and even though these places are less than ten miles away, I’d never been down these roads before. Isn’t cycling an education!

I’m starting to get a lot more confident with fixed wheel riding, although pride often does come before a fall, although not today. I can’t put my finger on why it’s ‘better’ than riding with all those gears; it just is. I’m not saying it’s faster, just somehow more fun, more connected to the bike, and with less stuff to worry about, more able to sink into that Zen state of flow that comes so easily in running.

When I got home, I found that at some point one of the crank nuts had worked lose - the left pedal had a little play in it. It’s tightened now. Hopefully it hasn’t rounded the shaft or (more likely) the crank arm itself - I had this happen on a bike when I was a student - it was our landlady’s grandma-special shopper bike that I borrowed while Trixie was under police guard.

So that was my day.

Oh - I almost forgot. The photos, like it says in this post’s title. I came across this Fixie photos site while doing my research about how to do a fixed gear conversion. I should warn you that this really is the geek edge of fixing - Wife, and the wives of contributors have described this as ‘bike pr0n’. I mean it’s nothing smutty - just kinda hard to take your eyes off it . . . I’m not sure if I’ll be posting a photo of Trixie to the site either - it’d feel just a little too much like pimping . . .

. . . but I do have one other photo, especially for Phil - it must be terrible being over forty . . . when your eyesight starts to go . . . maybe it was all that time looking at columns of numbers when he used to be a sensible accountant . . . Here’s a close-up of how my cycling progress chart is looking today (you can also click on this for a further enlargement; and just in case that’s not got enough detail on it, the mileage recorded reads 1314 miles):

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 06/19/2007
• Total Time: 1:50:00.00
• Distance: 28 miles
• Average Speed: 15.27 mph

Filed under: Cycle