Fixed hub: anyone ride a fixie?

fixies are really cool if you close your eyes and think about literally anything else with 2 wheels!

Fixies are for coffee drinking hipsters , why ruin a perfectly good cassette

I think you’ll need a special stem to fit the bars, not entirely sure. I can’t imagine riding a BMX with a fixed gear, but hey I like the direction you’re taking.

The “crank” you refer to is the sprocket. Cranks are the arms that the pedals thread into. Generally, the bigger the sprocket, the harder it becomes to pedal, but you gain more travel distance per revolution.

readybmxer wrote:

I think you’ll need a special stem to fit the bars, not entirely sure. I can’t imagine riding a BMX with a fixed gear, but hey I like the direction you’re taking.

The “crank” you refer to is the sprocket. Cranks are the arms that the pedals thread into. Generally, the bigger the sprocket, the harder it becomes to pedal, but you gain more travel distance per revolution.

Yes, it looks that way. I just found a decent looking bar on kijiji.ca selling for $20 that would match my BMX well:



But, like you said, looks like the tube is much too thick to be joined to my BMX. They are likely all to be that way?

Was looking for bikes specifically made for artistic cycling (ref., the bike the girl in the video is on), and found none. Perhaps they are usually very expensive or custom made? Anyways, awesome looking bikes, to be sure! I'm really liking their simplicity.

Thanks for the explanation of what a sprocket is. I'd believe I'd benefit greatly from a smaller sprocket; peddling forwards and backwards, and doing wheelies, would be much more easy. Right now it takes a fair amount of force to just start peddling backwards. It's not nearly as easy as going forwards.

Perhaps doing wheelies will be a little easier due to the fixie as compared to no fixie and no back tire breaks?

Wow, what am I getting myself into!

tubbytime wrote:

Yes, it looks that way. I just found a decent looking bar on kijiji.ca selling for $20 that would match my BMX well:



But, like you said, looks like the tube is much too thick to be joined to my BMX. They are likely all to be that way?

Was looking for bikes specifically made for artistic cycling (ref., the bike the girl in the video is on), and found none. Perhaps they are usually very expensive or custom made? Anyways, awesome looking bikes, to be sure! I'm really liking their simplicity.

Thanks for the explanation of what a sprocket is. I'd believe I'd benefit greatly from a smaller sprocket; peddling forwards and backwards, and doing wheelies, would be much more easy. Right now it takes a fair amount of force to just start peddling backwards. It's not nearly as easy as going forwards.

Perhaps doing wheelies will be a little easier due to the fixie as compared to no fixie and no back tire breaks?

Wow, what am I getting myself into!

I dunno much about road bikes, but I assume they are all like that. After all, BMX and road bikes don’t have very much in common when it comes to measurements, especially diameters.

As far as the bike the girl is riding, it looks like any other typical fixie to me, but I can’t say anything about it.

I’m pretty sure fixie riders use larger sprockets so they don’t have to pedal so much. But I guess if your intentions are like the video, that makes sense.

Wheelies I imagine are more difficult with a fixie. Obviously some people do it seemingly non-stop, but since you have a fixed gear, you’ll have to really focus on balance. With regular hubs, you can stop pedaling to let the front drop, then pedal again to regain balance for a split second to correct yourself. But with a fixie you have no room for error, much more balance is required.

I would buy a cheap used fixie and spend some time riding it before you invest money & time into a nice bike, just to make sure you really like it. The novelty factor is a major thing. If you like it or hate it you'll be able to resell it for minimal or no loss

That said, if you like it go for it! Bike riding should be fun, and if a fixed gear bike is what is fun to you, make it happen

I feel like BMX bikes are poorly suited to what you want to do. The small wheels are going to hurt stability. If you add roadbike bars I'd expect it to feel too low.

I am not sure how a roadie bar would work on a BMX bike. The stack height is sooo much lower. And yeah will need a new stem. You are going to basically folded in half in seems like even with it flipped.

If you want to do riding like the video you posted, I'd keep my eye out for a cheap fixie on Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace. I see them often for $100 or less. I sold one for like $75 not that long ago.

Some more fixie BMX type riding.

https://allcitycycles.com/blog/first_handrail_done_on_a_fixed_gear_done_by_all-city_riders

These dudes were about an hour from me, Jesse was a BMX dude (he might still ride, not sure) and is apparently like the first known rider on a fixie to hit a handrail. This was a decade ago.

I think it's cool and it will have a whole new set of challenges to overcome. I don't wish to do it myself but don't let anyone dissuade you from something you want to try!

Finally got the pics working:

tubbytime wrote:

Finally got the pics working:

You try it out yet? If the gearing is too hard you should check out a 22t sprocket. It would probably feel close to 1:1 gear ratio. It would be an absolute pain to pedal faster than a walking speed though I think. Lol

Bought another used stem. This one connects flat where my foot would rest when surfing. The issue with this stem is its length; I'd prefer the stem to just go straight up as road bike stems generally do, but BMX stems have a tendancy to go out and not up. This makes me have to lean forward to reach the bars.

Well, compared to that stem, BMX stems definitely go up, not out.

readybmxer wrote:

Well, compared to that stem, BMX stems definitely go up, not out.

I wish I could find one that just straight went up, but what is more important is that the stem is flat on the topside where it attaches to the bar; I want to be able to surf with it, and having a big bump in the middle of the bar is no help.

Fixed gear freestyle is the original bicycle freestyle. well before bmx freestyle.

Some of the tricks from fixed gear made their way into the bmx world.

You can watch the movie Quicksilver with Kevin Bacon for some mid 1980's fixed gear freestyle action.

personally, being able to coast is one of the best things about rolling on two wheels. fixed gear is like a weird unicycle to me...