West 5 Cycles
Cycling, fixed-gear bike building and life on two wheels onlyArchive for October, 2008
Fixie travels – Ritchey BreakAway Fixie frame
Forget getting somewhere nice and thinking how great it would be to explore the area on a bike, looking longingly at anyone passing on a bike. Moreover – perhaps you are such an avid fixxer that any old bike suitable for travel just won’t do – Brompton’s (for suit-wearing office workers?), Dahon’s (for less sophisticated and sentimental suit-wearing office workers on a tighter budget?), Molton’s (for folks with a penchant for clever design and far too much money to burn?), roadbike in a bike box (good idea, but the box is still huge!) – no, what you want is a folding fixie in a box!
And guess what – Tom Ritchey has just the thing for you. A very neat design for a fixie frame that breaks up into two parts – the Break Away steel frame uses the seat tube to help align the two halves of the frame and features an incredibly beautiful solution locking the two halves together both up at the seat collar and at the down tube. A very neat solution that comes complete with a hard-case featuring lots of neat innovations for protecting the frame and components inside and wheels on the outside for easy manouvering. The roadie versions of the Ritchey BreakAway has had brilliant reviews in the cycling press, the titanium frame earning accolades for being a timeless, beautiful and racy frame on par with many ‘normal’ bikes out there, so can’t imagine the fixie version is going to let the side down. Tom Ritchey takes bikes seriously and it shows!
Fixie travels – Ritchey BreakAway Fixie frame
Forget getting somewhere nice and thinking how great it would be to explore the area on a bike, looking longingly at anyone passing on a bike. Moreover – perhaps you are such an avid fixxer that any old bike suitable for travel just won’t do – Brompton’s (for suit-wearing office workers?), Dahon’s (for less sophisticated and sentimental suit-wearing office workers on a tighter budget?), Molton’s (for folks with a penchant for clever design and far too much money to burn?), roadbike in a bike box (good idea, but the box is still huge!) – no, what you want is a folding fixie in a box!
And guess what – Tom Ritchey has just the thing for you. A very neat design for a fixie frame that breaks up into two parts – the Break Away steel frame uses the seat tube to help align the two halves of the frame and features an incredibly beautiful solution locking the two halves together both up at the seat collar and at the down tube. A very neat solution that comes complete with a hard-case featuring lots of neat innovations for protecting the frame and components inside and wheels on the outside for easy manouvering. The roadie versions of the Ritchey BreakAway has had brilliant reviews in the cycling press, the titanium frame earning accolades for being a timeless, beautiful and racy frame on par with many ‘normal’ bikes out there, so can’t imagine the fixie version is going to let the side down. Tom Ritchey takes bikes seriously and it shows!
When every mile is earned..
An unusually sunny weekend has greeted us here in London and I’m off on another long ride to unwind from a crazy week and to prepare myself for yet another next week.
Riding fixed is a very rewarding way of doing it – a 80 to a 100 km loop into the beautiful surroundings of Virginia Water on a fixie rather than a roadbike not only earns the respectful looks of passing roadies out on their club run, but when you cover distances like that – fixie riding goes from the annoying stop-start of town riding to a kind of meditation where you go for long periods of time without having to stop. Your legs turn rhytmically and your mind wanders off, you are relaxed, but alert like a cat and above all, every mile is earned. No coasting or resting, in fact you learn to rest your legs even when they are turning by virtue of the fixie momentum.
Winter is coming and what better way to start building that base fitness level than by dusting off your fixie and overcoming that mental barrier of thinking that you can only really cover long distances if you are on a road bike. If you are in doubt, you can always go for a reckie on the roadbike and design yourself a route with manageable hills and you’ll be surprised just how many hills you can cover on a fixie if you couple patience with technique and some core strength. In fact, battling your way methodically up a hill on a fixie is good training not only for your legs, but arms and core muscles too.
So I’m off – sunshine needs to be enjoyed while it lasts! (At least if you live in Britain!)
