Freewheelin' Sheldon Brown

It's got a flip flop hub... that's a rear hub with a thread on both sides so you can mount a cog on each side and change between two gears by "flipping" the rear wheel. It came from the shop with a freewheel on one side and a fixed cog on the other.

To start, I just rode it how it came out of the box, set up to freewheel, and apart from some bar ends and toeclips, I didn't really do much to it. Then after a while the chain started to sag a bit and the cranks creaked a bit and everything needed a bit of a tightening.

So I thought: "Since I'm loosening off the back wheel, I'll try turning it around and riding with a fixed wheel".... I was almost hooked. It felt really good riding up hill, smooth and connected to the road. It was wierdly interesting riding slowly and stopping, like I had more control but more potential for disaster. I was definitely getting a good work out and my legs hurt in new and unusual ways. But it was wrong for going down hill. The strange feeling of walking down giant stairs trying to keep in control, I wasn't game to build up any speed in case some kid or car came out in front of me and I couldn't stop in a hurry... Some people ride without brakes!!? Mostly it was too slow. As soon as I started down hill I was beeing overtaken by grannies on hybrids and everyone else. And when I flicked a stick up off the road that got in my spokes and I thought about the dangers of anything catching in a fixed drive train, I realised that the freewheel is actually a safety device... part of what was originally mean by a safety bicycle?

If I was twenty years younger and not so worried about loosing skin and breaking wrists, I might have stuck with the fixed gear and learnt to go fast and do track stands and ride backwards. If I lived in Melbourne or New York or some other place with no hills I might have given it a bit more of a go but I think there are reasons why there seem to be very few people riding fixies around Brisbane. So I went back to the freewheel.

Now I was just a little bit too old when the BMX craze hit. My first bike was some sort of kids cruiser made by Repco. It was red and I don't remember much more about it. I'm pretty sure it hand "back pedal brakes". My next bike was a "Ten speed racer"! White Toyosha frame (made by the Toyota auto company) with shifters on the down tube. I rode that through high school, got a car and after a while got into mountain bikes. So I'd never really looked at a screw-on freewheel before my wife bought me my on-line single speed.

It didn't take much searching before I found Sheldon Brown and now I know everything.

    ...about everything!

The street where I live

I live on a hill in Brisbane. Hundreds of cyclists ride past my door each week. Most of them have climbed up the hill from the cycle bridge that crosses the river to the university. They reach the highest point in their ride just before they get to my place, then start down the first steep pitch of the descent to the track along the river.

In the early morning and on weekends, packs of lycra clads on expensive road bikes roll past shouting, then they thin out to give way to commuters with back packs or panniers followed by the daily neighbourhood comings and goings, on old mountain bikes, cruisers and bmx, a few now heading the other way, up the hill.

And that's where I rolled out my new green single speed. Down the Terrace and over Boundary street on the bridge, straight ahead at the bottom and into the left turn on Hoogley, then through the round abouts and on to the long flat track around the river, as far as the crowds at Southbank or the wharfs at Kangaroo Point if you like. Then again, a little bit faster this time..... Down the Terrace spinning as fast as I can till I can't keep up, tuck and roll, spin, through and into the dropping left hander, start wide, try not to touch the brakes. Almost straight, through the small round about, then the big round about at the bottom of the hill with the busses and the reverse camber....watch out.... and on round the river as far as I like till I turn around and head back up the hill. And again a bit faster.

Now I'm not competitive. I'm out riding for fun and exercise. I'm only looking for the fastest line down the hill to keep my mind ocupied....But when I pull out for my ride and see two skinny guys in lycra appearing at the top of the hill behind me, I hit it as hard as I can. Out of the seat, pumping up to speed then spinning like mad hardly coasting till I get to Ganges street. I quickly look behind me as I pull out to line up the left hander. And the guy behind pulls around me just as we exit the corner. I look at him. He looks at me. He turns over his pedals and starts to pull ahead. Mine won't engage at this speed. "Dam!" I call Out at Him "I need a bigger gear!"

I caught him again when he slowed at the big round about and there's a little hill, before he pulled away again on the flat along the river. Spinning as fast as I could, smooth and fast, he still pulls away, then his mate passed me as well and I had to give in. I need a bigger gear!