Surly flip-flop hub
So I started riding the Cross Check fixed this weekend. Part of the purpose of this message is to confirm that I’m still alive, in case anyone was worried for me – I was, a little.
Anyways, was getting adjusted to it last Friday morning and not particularly loving it, weird getting pushed around by your pedals, especially in those instances where a lifetime of riding freewheels has unconsciously conditioned you to expect /not/ to be getting slammed by the pedals at that particular moment.
That said, on the way home from work, for whatever reason I blew past the turn towards the house and instead kept going straight. Stopped by the shop where I bought the bike to gush a little to the guys who built it. Then it was down to the beach.
At some point while headed down State St. to the ocean, I think it started to click. I stopped fighting the bike and instead just sort of went with it. By the time I’d gotten to Cabrillo Blvd. and was paralleling the beach, I was feeling the love. I suddenly, viscerally understood why Surly calls their dedicated fixie frame the “Steamroller”… you just keep chugging along.
Anyways I got home good and sweaty and stoked. Took the wife out for date night, then after she was tucked in bed, I went down to the shop to “put the airplanes on charge.” Yeah, well eventually anyways…
Ended up riding figure eights and circuits around my little parking area for… I dunno, an hour? Hour and a half? I really like the low speed handling of a fixed gear, it’s very interesting. Earlier in the day, I wasn’t really getting what a fixie was all about, but now I don’t worry about it; I “just dooo eeeeet” instead: round and round, in the drops, on the top of the bars, on the hoods, to the left, to the right, up the driveway, hairpin turn, down the driveway (braking with my legs), repeat. Endlessly. Slow, lazy, casual. Hey, this is fun!
After a while I took my beach cruiser out, which I’ve not ridden at all since I got the new bike. WHOA. Fat, cushy, upright… and what the ####’s wrong with the pedals? They aren’t moving…!!!
It was the weirdest feeling to freewheel a bike after an hour and a half of solid fixed gear puttering. My legs’ muscle memory was expecting the cranks to keep everything cycling. Instead, I’d pulse-pedal, then relax and wait for the push, and… nothing. No loving me back, I was doing all the work and had a dead fish under me.
I don’t know if that Nexus 8 hub is ever gonna get ordered at this rate!