Good Question

A few days ago, in the comments section of a post, Bill asked me why I had stopped using a fixed gear for my commute.  I gave him a short answer, but later realized that I hadn't really answered the question very well.

I spent quite a bit of time searching for a Specialized RockCombo.  They were only sold for one year, and not many of them went out the door.  So, when I finally found a frame and fork, in The Netherlands of all places, I snapped it up.

Once I had the bike built up, I wanted to put it to use rather than just hang it up in the shop and let it go to waste.  So, I put a rack and some bags on the RockCombo and started commuting on it.  I planned on only using it for a while, then going back to my old commuter.  But, I got in the habit of grabbing the RC, every day and the fixed gear commuter ended up getting sold off.

The 100 mile rides I was doing also came into play.  I felt that sticking to multi-geared bikes would help me on the long rides.  I find that transitioning from fixed to multi-speed takes some adaptation time, and i didn't want to deal with that on the long rides.

But, I do miss the fixed gear.  So, I think I will put some slick tires on the snow bike, once snow season is over, and use it as a commuter this summer.  I will probably do something like use the RC one week, then the fixed gear the next.  I did that with the Thruxton and the Trident, when I was riding motorbikes to work a few years ago, and it worked out pretty well.

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