It's easy to pick Jim Shepardson out of the pack on a Seven Hills Wheelmen road
ride. When everyone else is coasting down a hill, Shepardson also is descending
as fast as gravity will take him -- but he's pedaling like crazy. He rides a
fixed-gear bike.
That is to say, his bike has only one speed. No
freewheel. No coasting. Whenever the rear wheel is turning, the pedals are going
around.
Why ride a single speed, mashing your knees on climbs, when
today's bike technology offers smooth shifting of up to 27 gears?
"You feel more connected to the road and the bike," said Shepardson, 27, a truck
driver from Worcester. "It's a great workout."
Moreover, he said,
"It's the only way I can afford a lightweight bike." With no rear brake, no
derailleurs, no shift levers, no extra sprockets, and a shorter chain than a
multispeed bike, a fixed-gear rig can be considerably lighter. And it has "a
nice clean look," he said, "without cables all over the place."
Shepardson became intrigued with fixed-gear bikes after stumbling onto Sheldon
Brown's Web page on the subject, http://www.sheldonbrown.com/fixed.html
. "There is a purity and simplicity to the fixed-gear bicycle that can be quite
seductive," says Brown, owner of Harris Cyclery in Newton.
Shepardson
built his fixed-gear on an old steel frame, a Sterling from the 1980s that he
had bought used. "I stripped the bike down to the frame, then spray-painted it
black. I had a set of Shimano RSX components left over from, ironically enough,
converting my other road bike to a triple," he said. (A third or "triple"
chainring adds low gears for easier climbing.)
"I bought a fixed-gear
wheel, cog and a few other accessories from Sheldon for about $150. I also
bought a new stem and handlebar. Total cost: well under $300," Shepardson said.
"Without derailleurs and shifters to mess with, putting the bike together is
pretty simple."
Track bikes by definition have fixed gears, but
today's resurgence of fixed-gear fever is geared toward the road. Road racers
who used fixed-gear bikes in training know that the constant leg motion and fast
cadence helps smooth out their pedal stroke and improve spinning technique.
"It gives you a nice sense of tempo," says longtime racer Dick Ring,
65, of Chelmsford, announcer at many New England races, who looks forward to
Monday and Friday road workouts on his track bike. "To me it's very relaxing."
"I started racing in '49, and all the criteriums were on track bikes
then," Ring said. "The Tour of Somerville (a venerable New Jersey race) didn't
allow road bikes until 1952. Francois Mertens won the Tour of Somerville on a
track bike in 1951."
Riding a fixed-gear bike takes some getting used
to. "There is going to be a fear factor," Ring said. "The first thing you're
going to try to do is stop the bike by stopping pedaling, and if you do, you're
going over the front of the handlebars. I've seen it happen.
"As for
the downhills, I will tell a rider: Relax. Your legs are not going to come out
of their sockets. Don't fight the pedals."
"I kind of look forward to
the challenge of uphills now, but you can't rest on the downhill side,"
Shepardson said. "Steep hills can be a little rough on the knees. Getting
clipped in is a challenge until you get the hang of hitting a moving pedal."
Riders who learn the idiosyncrasies, Brown said, find fixed-gear
bikes are "more nimble and controllable than freewheel bikes." That's one reason
they're popular among urban bike messengers. Also, fixed gears are so simple,
there's almost nothing that can break or get out of adjustment. And fixed-gear
bikes are theft-resistant -- they don't look fancy and a naïve thief won't get
far trying to ride away on one.
"They also lend themselves to a
certain amount of macho posturing that fits in with the courier mystique," Brown
said.
Or, as Shepardson put it on his own fixed-gear Web page (http://www.angelfire.com/biz5/ultimatepay/fixedgear.html
), "You can put your $300 fixed gear next to a $2,000 Ultegra-equipped carbon
fiber bike and get all the attention."
~~~
Three racers from the
Worcester-based Hot Tubes/Century Road Club Association juniors team are
competing in Poland this weekend, the first American trade team ever to contend
for the Junior World Cup. Entered in the stage race are Hot Tubes/CRCA
18-year-olds Dustin Rademacher of Monson, Ian Stuart of Burlington, Vt., and
Peter Mazur of Dundoff, Ontario, who is a dual citizen of Canada and Poland and
has won junior national track cycling titles in Poland. Mazur, who also rides
for the Kissena team, based in New York, won the 3.5-kilometer prologue time
trial yesterday in the Polish race. Rademacher placed second, 6 seconds back,
and Stuart was seventh, 12 seconds back.
Matt Wilson, 18, of
Northampton, and Dan Wolfson, 17, of Belmont, will join their Hot Tubes/CRCA
teammates in the Netherlands next month for two more of the 10 Junior World Cup
races, and some other European racing.
Hot Tubes owner, team director
and coach Toby Stanton of Leicester, who has been recruiting top juniors from
around the country since 1991, is confident this year's team is a winner.
"Everyone has just matured at the right time. They're monsters," he said.
Rademacher, for example, beat pro Frank McCormack (Saturn) of
Leicester at the Gill Road Race on April 1.
~~~
TIP OF THE
HELMET to Worcester-bred Marc Witkes, 33, of Durango, Colo., who ran his
first Boston Marathon this month in 3 hours, 12 minutes. That was a short jaunt
for Witkes, who is training for a triple Ironman -- kayak 22 miles, bike 336
miles, and run 78.6 miles, with a 60-hour time limit -- in Virginia Beach, Va.,
Sept. 16-18.