fix to freewheel impressions

I've been riding my fixed Mary exclusively for four months. Waiting for my seatpost to come in, I've been riding a demo ss hardtail for a couple days. The differences in bikes has produced a couple impressions:

• Flatbars are uncomforable compared to my Marybar.


• Riding on hilly gravel roads, it seems like I was coasting half the time. I didn't like it. I prefer to have my legs moving. Then the workout is more even compared to coast/push hard, repeat.


• Coasting reminds me of skiing or sliding down the hills.


• Coasting downhill is faster b/c I didn't have to brake to keep from over spinning and my legs weren't tired from a really high cadence.


• Coasting is nice for standing up off the seat and stretching.


• I prefer a bigger gear and to stand more than a smaller gear and too much spinning.


• For corners, I had to think about positioning my outside pedal down, otherwise they seem to stay in an 8/2 o'clock position.


• I thought I had really low tire pressure till I remembered I had the suspension fork unlocked.


• Unlocked suspension feels like a wet noodle. 8-)


• Juicy 3 feels nice (less vibration) but they take more grip pressure to stop than my bb7.

I put my Thompson seatpost on Mary tonight and rode a lap around Tranquility.


I am much happier on Mary with a marybar, 58" gear, bigger volume tires, rigid, fix. I think my phil hubs and stan flow rims also contributed to the more comfortable feeling but would have to isolate them in a blind test from other changes to tell for sure. I do know I was running under 20psi with tubes and the tires, Continental Mt King 2.4 and Kenda Karma 2.2, weren't spinning on the rims nor pinch flatting.

I guess as we get a bike dialed in and/or we become accustomed to certain features, changing those features feels strange and uncomfortable. Almost like a new baseball mit vs one that you broke in. Click here for my first thoughts on going from freewheel to fix and the latter comments in this post.