The Short-Lived Life of My First Fixie (Part 2of4)

Lessons started hitting home relentlessly In my second week of immersion into the wild world of track-bikes-not-on-tracks:

Week 2: Poppin da Cherry

I raced a bunch of other fixies at midnight on p’tree and my supposed racing ratio felt fine. If anything I’d want to go a little higher, but they keep saying stuff about circulation and I think they’re referring to cadence, so I’ll keep stick with this ratio for a while. I’m learning there’s a fine line between recklessness and skill. On any given day I never know which side of that line I’ll be riding. Whichever it is, I guess it’s good to see others doing what I do.

I’m getting used to everything now except those ‘emergency moments’ when cars are dangerously unpredictable, I take a turn too sharp and scrape my pedals, or any time I have to cross those tracks on dekalb. I still have the hardest time getting into my clips though. I was told that SPD’s are not the way to go for fixies, but I can’t remember which kind to use instead [egg beaters].
Fixters in the city?… Yeah, if you ride with no brakes I say you’ve got a death wish. Can’t tell you how many times just my front brake has saved my bacon. Flying down those hills is so crazy on such small gears. I’ll never take my brake off - that’s for certain. Think I’ll move it to the middle though - you can never reach a brake when you’re distracted by impending doom.