2018 Fixie Century
CHAPTER ONE The Ride One of my very few cycling goals this year was a fixed-gear century. I’ve had this particular fixie for almost two years, and it’s time to break the three-digit barrier. Oh, I suppose I ought to define a couple terms here for some of my readers: Fixed-gear (aka fixie): A peculiar subset of road bicycles. Has only one gear, as opposed to as many as 22 gears on some others. It also has no coasting mechanism, so whenever the bike is moving, the pedals are turning. This all means that when riding this bike, I cannot shift to a different gear to match my pedaling speed to the bike’s speed, nor can I stop pedaling and rest. I can only increase or decrease my pedaling speed, which does limit my high speeds as well as my low speeds. Century: Many bike ride distances are given names relating to the ride’s distance. In this case, a century denotes a ride of 100 (or more) miles. By strict definition, 99.99 miles is NOT a century, but that’s a subject for another blo