Workout: Fixed gear vs road bike
What’s the difference?
I’ve been riding both road bikes and fixed gear bikes for years. I love them both for different reasons. The road bike is perfect for climbing and group rides, but the fixed gear is better for shorter efforts and winter riding. And unliked urban mustachioed hipsters, I ride my fixed gear bike out on the open road like a road bike. I proudly depend on my front brake and don’t plan on ever skidding.
People always ask me why I ride a fixed gear bike.
“Are you learning how to pedal fluidly?”
Nope. I already knew how to pedal, thanks.
“Are you training for the track?”
Nope. I’ve never ridden on the track. I have nothing against the track, I’ve just never tried it.
“Do you love pain?”
Nope. It’s not that painful, actually. It’s mostly just like pedaling any other bike.
So why do I ride a fixed gear?
Here are a few reasons I’ll select a fixed gear over my road bike:
It’s a great winter bike. Less to clean up after a rainy ride, better traction
It’s a more efficient workout. It’s perfect for short workouts. If I only have an hour between the kid’s soccer games, or if I only want to get rained on for an hour, an hour long fixed gear ride works out to about the equivalent workout to a 1.5 hour road ride, in my estimation. More on the ‘efficient workout’ issue below…
But mostly I ride a fixed gear bike because it’s fun! I love the simplicity. And the power efficiency. And the feel of momentum and power ROI. And the speed. I’ve earned many of my Strava PRs on the fixed gear. That bike is crazy fast!
And for the bike geekery. My current fixed gear rig is a carbon frame Dolan with carbon fork, carbon wheels and carbon seat post. It’s a 13 pound bike. Super bike nerd achievement unlocked!
Goodbye, road biking?
Nope. I don’t plan on selling off my road bike. Road bikes are far superior for modulating speed in group rides, climbing, and descending. Coasting is amazingly fun. I would estimate that I choose my road bike 70% of the time.
But is riding a fixed gear a better workout?
Recently I’ve been thinking about this question:
Is the fixed gear a fitness secret weapon?
Certainly, riding a fixed gear forces you to work harder in the saddle. Mostly because you never coast, but also because you have to mash a bigger gear to keep your momentum going. And you need to spin at higher cadence on the flats and downhills. It definitely feels like more work overall. But is it?
Let’s look at the data
In this graphic I’m comparing two long road rides on Strava. Both are over 3 hours. No matter how you slice it both rides were massive efforts that burned over 3,000 calories, according to Strava’s calculations. Both are justifiably “good workouts.”
The first ride is a road bike ride with a lot of climbing in the Santa Cruz mountains. The second ride is a 60 mile, hilly fixed gear ride on rolling country roads outside San Francisco.
The main difference, as you can see, is the amount of time spent in the “tempo” zone, ie the “cardio” zone. A fixed gear ride puts me in the high cardio zone for literally half the ride. Only about 22% of the time can be considered low effort. And there is essentially zero “endurance” riding, which translates to soft pedaling or coasting. The majority of the effort is in the intensive cardio zone and there is no sign of recovery. On paper, the fixed gear workout looks like a massive 3 hour trail run or open water swim.
Fixed gear riding may be may be more work because your legs always want to speed up to a comfortable cadence, like 70–80 RPM. In the rolling hills, pushing a big gear at 80 RPM translates to going really fast. And pushing really hard. While spinning slowly, say at 40–50 RPM, feels awkward and is more painful. Like you might tip over any minute.
The road bike workout, on the other hand, works out to mostly “moderate” zone ride at 58%. All that coasting and recovering adds up. While the road bike workout rates higher in terms of Strava “points in the red,” the overall ride is not as taxing as the fixed gear ride. The fixed gear rides rates a “Tough 134” on the Strava suffer score scale, compared to a mere “Tough 109” for the road bike ride.
At the top end, it’s worth noting, both rides have about the same proportion of threshold or “peak” riding — 10–12%. On the fixed gear the peak zone riding comes from monster pulls, punching it up hills or sprints. On the road bike, the peak efforts are from KOM hunting on steep climbs in in smaller climbing gears. Both bikes love to push hard.
The data tells us that fixed gear riding IS a better workout than road riding. But it’s a different workout. A fixed gear ride, as shown in the charts, forces the rider to ride at higher effort zones, ie in the “cardio” or “tempo” zone for most of the ride. The lack of down shifting and recovery means there is less time spent in the “moderate” zone. While intensity at the top level (“peak” or “threshold’) is comparable, the difference is the cardio load, not to mention a complete lack of time spent in the “endurance” or “fat burning” zone. A fixed gear ride is intense and a great workout, but it’s as unforgiving and intense. Which is exactly why how I like it.
