Adding my recreational and commuting miles together, I have biked 2146 miles so far this year. I really would have liked to have done more, especially recreational miles, but I digress. The thing that does however amaze me about my total miles is that every single pedal stroke of that total has been aboard a single speed bike. My burly mountain bike is single speed, my old 1978 Schwinn shifts so poorly that I ride it as a single speed, and my new Surly Cross Check I have set up as a single speed. I even did a 50 mile ride/race that had some pretty large hills.
There’s just something about riding with only one gear. All you have on your handlebars is your brakes. Things are just more simplistic and boiled down to a more raw relationship between bike and rider. When I’m on a downhill, I either spin the pedals like crazy or stop pedaling and coast, because the gear ratio can’t keep up to the fast coasting speed. On the flats, I just keep spinning a good fast cadence. On the hills, well on the hills I just go for it. Again, I have to keep a decent cadence. If it’s a long hill, I naturally get more and more tired, and with that said, my speed and my pedaling gets slower and slower. If I pedal too slowly, I basically come to a standstill. I guess really my strategy is just to attack a hill with a good sized effort right away and just hopefully hang on until the top.
Now of course, I can’t always hold on. There are times when I just have to get off and walk. Luckily for me this has been with hills that geared cyclists have or would have to walk up too. Walking is just part of the game. I totally accept it that I might have to from time to time. It has been said of single speed riders that you do actually have three gears – sitting, standing, and walking. It’s hard sometimes for my ego to take, but I always just say “Hey it’s a single speed!” right back to it. (My ego then just settles down, but still demands that I walk faster.)
I get asked all the time why I like to ride single speed so much, and while I like to explain that it’s easier to maintain my bike (specifically the drivetrain) or that it has taught me to have a better pedaling cadence, I often think of something else. The answer that I really want to say is along the lines of “well, horses don’t have gears.” It’s not the perfect analogy because horses can’t coast downhill, but think about it. Horses can do anything from pulling an Anheuser-Busch wagon, to racing in the Triple Crown, to long distance races like in Hidalgo. They can’t shift up or down. It’s all in their legs. It’s just like running, really I guess but with coasting and usually longer distances.
Hmm, saying single speeding is just longer distance running with coasting is tempting to use as my new explanation. Still, there’s something about comparing yourself to horses. It’s like I have Clydesdale power. Yeah, I’m definitely sticking with the horses. My ego likes that better.
