Sam the Singlespeed

I have decided to name my singlespeed "Sam".  Why "Sam"?  I don't know.  It just seems right.

I rode Sam exclusively for about a month because of issues with my geared bikes rear wheel.  By the way, why no name for my geared bike?  It hasn't earned one yet.  I have considered something like Shadowfax or Mercury or Greased Lightning.  Unfortunately, they all sound pretty lame and I'm no faster on the geared bike than I am on Sam.  Maybe I should call the geared bike Gimli.  You would need to be a Tolkien geek to get the reference.

Back to the topic.  While riding the single speed, I did discover several things.  When tackling hills, it often seems easier on Sam than I expected it to be.  That doesn't really make sense does it?  Hills should be harder on Sam.  I have a theory as to why hills seems easier on Sam.

On a geared bike, you have to hit the right gear at the right moment.  If not, you can lose a lot of momentum. Too big of a gear or too small of a gear and you will lose momentum.  A good example was yesterday during my Metric Century.  There is one very steep hill toward the end of the ride.  It is made more difficult because there is a smaller hill right before that takes away a good bit of your momentum.  At the bottom of the steep hill, I down shifted into too high a gear.  I then had to down shift farther and grind up the rest of the hill in the granny gear.

On Sam, this is not an issue.  "Which gear should I be in?  Oh wait, it doesn't matter; I only have one."  As I am going up a hill, I seem to automatically adjust my cadence to match the gearing I have.  In general, my cadence seems to flow with the terrain, going up or down without much conscious thought.

The tires on Sam are 32s versus 23/25s on my geared bike.  I have been running Sam's tires at about 60 psi as compared to 90-110 psi on my geared bike.  It feels like the lumps and bumps in the road are better absorbed by Sam.  Some of the perceived comfort could also be due to the forward rake on Sam's fork.  The forward rake allows the fork to act a little more like a spring.  Either way, the bumps feel less bumpy and that is not a bad thing.

When I compare speed on similar terrain, I really don't seem to be significantly slower on Sam compared to my geared bike.  Sure, if you add a lot of hills, there will be a difference, but most of the rolling hills I ride on don't seem to slow me down much.  Once again, I would not have expected this.  I anticipated having to slowly grind up hills and not being able to get good speed on downhills.

I did the Tour de Donut on Sam and actually finished faster than I did last year when I was on the geared bike.  The route was mostly light rolling hills and flats.  Toward the beginning of the race, I found myself easily passing people on hills.  What?  As I was watching the other competitors, I think most of them were not hitting their gearing quite right and would lose a lot of their momentum.

I have really come to love riding Sam, despite the fact it is an old, heavy beater-of-a-bike with rattling fenders and a little too much reach to be truly comfortable.  As I write this, I have a much greater urge to hop on Sam than the geared bike.  Go figure.