The eighth article! I know it's not a particular watershed, but I've now written ten posts for the blog (if you're wondering where two of them went, they were combined into larger ones). The sharper will have noticed that there is a hit counter on the bottom of the page - so I do know that people are at least clicking on the link to this page (and hopefully reading it). But I don't particularly know what you think - so please tell me. Leave a comment either here, on my Facebook page, or on Twitter: what do you want me to write about? Think the blog's any good? Ideas to make it better (dispense with the author is a valid suggestion) - leave a comment!
When you choose to be a SingleSpeedist, you choose one gear (I've got the hang of this, haven't I?).
But this week I'm not going to wax lyrical about how hard that makes it to churn up muddy inclines, or compare popped knee caps, or indeed the faces we pull when trying to haul ourselves uphill. This week I'd like to take a post to pause and think about the tragically under-geared. It's a time when we can stop and reflect about the SingleSpeeders currently on flat tarmac, whirling their legs like demonic washing machines - desperately trying to keep up with their geared cousins.
Off road, this isn't particularly a problem. A few years ago, I used ride with The Huddersfield Star Wheelers, a notable member of which was "Noggin," (no clue as to his real name). And Noggin's chief advice for going faster downhill was "just don't touch the fucking brakes!" Nowhere is this truer than a SingleSpeeder on an off-road descent. With no braking, you can do a tolerable impersonation of a good off road descent, but on road is a completely different fish filled tea making instrument.
A few days ago, I didn't fancy jaunting up into the Pentland Hills for my usual ritual of mud eating - so I headed out for the Forth Bridge instead (to gaze upon its Victorian engineering magnificence, but nerding out about cast iron is another article for another time). The route to the Forth Bridge is mostly on sustrans bike paths and roads - which are not exactly the most technically taxing places to be, and as I was passed (again) by someone in jeans and a hi-vis jacket, it occurred to me that not enough is written about the perils of not having sufficient gear-inches.
The gear you pick for your bike has to do everything: a jack of all trades, and master of none (I was trying to think up a funny analogy about mechanical engineers, but couldn't come up with something that wasn't both not funny and wildly offensive). One (of the many, see my very first article) downsides to this is that sometimes you're powerless. Cruising on flat or slightly downhill roads, there's nothing you can do to go faster without doing the aforementioned impression of a whirling dervish. I know there are people out there who can summon cadences of over 120 revs/min (usually track riders), but we lesser mortals can only lean back and pretend that the scenery is lovely (all the while watching the people you're riding with slowly disappear into the distance). Infuriatingly, you often know that you could definitely keep up with (and sometimes pass) these people, if only the road sloped up!
Though the major problems start when you're not riding with friends. When you're on your own - perhaps you're commuting, or just using the road to get from one bit of trail to the other. Because then you're in the realm of Everyone Else on their bikes, most of which have gears, and nearly all of which have substantially less kit than you do. SingleSpeeding is often very embarrassing.
Off the line at traffic lights this is a particular problem, especially if you're the second to show up. Annoyingly for me, this only seems to occur when the bike box is already being occupied by someone particularly attractive looking (complete with basket full of kittens and flowers on the front of their bike) who under any other circumstance you'd attempt to steam past and, in passing, charm with skillful overtaking and thighs of steel (in my head, at least. And I should tone it down - my better half reads this). Or another cyclist is at the starting line, also bedecked in lycra, and that grim acknowledgement of existence occurs - along with it the tacit assumption that whoever is rearmost in four hundred yards time is clearly weak, and should start saving up for a Pashley as soon as they get home.
As soon as the light goes green - everything is brilliant, for about three seconds. SingleSpeeding has lent you the acceleration of Odin (trust me, his horse had eight legs - can you imagine how many speeding tickets he picked up?), helped in no little part by the fact that the bike weighs as much as a paperclip. And then your legs reach their maximum speed - at which point anyone else would change gear up. Since you can't, you're left proceeding, legs a-blur, along the highway at a stately eleven miles an hour (depending on your gear), which is a speed even my mum can muster in a hurry. As a result, the rival cyclist bombs off, and an almighty struggle ensues to keep the purveyor of kittens and flowers behind you.
Just consider that, the next time you see someone in full mountain bike regalia, making like they're The Swan from the Carnival of the Animals. On the surface they might be moving at a positively regal pace, but take a look at their legs - and if they're spinning like a loon, they're almost certainly SingleSpeed.
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