Project Fixed Gravel Buss: Ride Impressions

Still had the studded tires on here.

A week or so ago I showed you dear readers my latest project bike. A fixed gear version of my Twin Six Standard Rando v2. (LINK) Now I have ridden it quite a bit since then so I feel I can give you my impressions of how this is working out.

First off, if you have never ridden a fixed gear bike, it is a very different experience from bicycles which can coast. You most likely have no idea how much you actually do coast on a bicycle. I know I did not realize how much time I was coasting until I started riding fixed gear regularly. It is eye-opening! 

If you are curious what having to pedal every centimeter of a ride is like, you can put your bike into a bit too high a gear, keep the cadence low so you do not outrun your gear, and never stop pedaling. You'll find you instinctively coast at various points. It's crazy when you focus on this just how much the bicycle you ride lets you have these micro-rests during rides. 

However; you just cannot really understand fixed gear riding in totality until you try it. I encourage everyone to try it as it may make you better at cycling. It definitely will show you that you have muscles you are not engaging much, if at all, while riding a "normal" drive train which can coast. 

I go into all this detail because it is necessary to impart a bit of thought about what riding fixed is like so you can begin to understand my report here. 

My first few rides were during the end of all the icy patches we had around here. Studded tires were required and due to those tires, I wasn't getting a good feel for the bike. However; a thaw occurred and I replaced the studded tires with a set of 700 x 37mm Panaracer Pasela Tour Guard tires.This "woke up" the bike and finally I was able to feel what this set up really offered. 

My my! That gearing! the 39T x 16T set up is challenging and I know immediately when I am not riding flat or down hill. You can instantly feel it in the legs, and with no ability to shift or coast, you just work harder. (Or stop riding) I haven't had to stop and walk.....yet! Steep ramps up to bridges and the like are challenging though unless you carry a lot of momentum. 

Ah! And this is the key. Momentum. Keep it up and things become a LOT easier. This gear feels great at about 12mph and up, so you have to keep up a good clip to maintain this speed. However; it is all worth it when you hit an "up" which would grind you to a snail's pace at slower approach speeds. 

Going down hill is somewhat easier with this taller gear. I cannot explain it fully, but "back-pressure" on the pedals is traditionally how you'd control your descent speed on a fixed gear bicycle. (Brakeless fixed, that is) Now I do have brakes, but I typically only use them in situations where I deem them necessary. Otherwise I am controlling my speed with my legs only. 

Somehow the taller gear allows me to control down hill speeds easier. Maybe it is because I am in a part of the pedal stroke a tiny bit longer than with a lower gear which would spin faster? I don't know..... I just feel this is an easier gear ratio to control. 

I'm running the 37mm Panaracer tires at 30psi and this is probably slightly lower in this colder air than 30psi. The wide Blunt SS rims keep the tires stable, and the ride is smooth, but not draggy or slower than you'd want. This mitigates the stiff T-6 frame and keeps me happier during rides because when you are riding fixed, you just cannot level the pedals and unweight the saddle like you can do on other bikes. I can unweight the saddle a little bit, but your legs are flying around, so this gets trickier to do while riding fixed. 

The stiff frame is a boon when cranking slower cadences and it keeps the frame from twisting, which in turn keeps the drive train happy. Through axles on a fixed gear bike feel amazing and give you insurance the rear wheel is not torquing sideways or slacking the chain unexpectedly. This is very nice! 

I had one longer ride, a night time ride, on this bike. I probably had close to two hours riding time, mostly on city streets and bike paths. The bike is smooth, the gearing feels good as long as I feel comfortable enough to let it rip, and the brakes work great when needed. One thing about riding fixed is you are always working so you get in more work over a shorter period of time than you do on a coaster bike. This and the tall gear worked me out hard! So, I don't know about gravel in this current gearing. I think I'd drop a couple teeth at the minimum in the rear cog if I decide to ride gravel. I could see 39T x 18 or 19 tooth being much better. 

More when I get more time on this.... 
 

Two Things

 Twin Six Standard Rando v2 Fixed Gear Impressions:

Well, I haven't been out in the country yet, and I am loathe to remove the studded tires, but I have several shorter rides now on this bike. I thought I would share how it turned out with you all.

First, I added some fenders and this brought up an issue with the fork I wanted to highlight. The carbon fork I went with has a radius curvature inside the crown which isn't very compatible with fenders. It slopes inward too much and prevents one from "tucking" the fender up as high as needs be to clearance 700c rubber, at least in larger sizes like the 38mm tires I have. 

So, instead of using the full-metal fender on the front as I have in the rear, I grabbed an old metal-core, plastic Hard Core model from Planet Bike and truncated the fender just behind where it would have passed under the fork crown. A simple hacksaw job and a bit of file work later and I had all the protection I really need and tire clearance for me 38mm Gravdal studded tires. There were no issues whatsoever with mounting the rear fender. 

Okay, but the ride. How does it do as a fixed gear bike? Well, I think I was spot on with my feelings concerning the frame being stiff enough to handle the high-torque riding fixed gear riding can dole out to a frame. It does not flex in a perceptible way. It feels very solid, and rides like it always had, which is to say not the greatest in smoothness! I'm super happy I went with a ShockStop stem! Of course, studded tires are not known as "great riding tires" either. 

The gearing.... Ooof! At first I was really worried this was a mistake 39T x 16T is around a 68" gear. However; I was riding the T-6 home from work on Monday evening and it is almost all uphill. Some at a fair steep grade. I found keeping the speed up and cranking smoothly and strongly worked out okay for me. It is a different beast riding fixed and climbing is one area where you'll notice this. I think fixed gear makes climbs a bit easier, in a way, since you have zero dead spots. The bike carries you through the usual dead spot in your cadence with momentum, and there is little "pulsing". Those little micro-coast moments right after you push the pedal through a power stroke. It's hard to explain, but to my mind, it is a difference between single speed (coaster) and fixed (no-coast) style bikes.  

Changed The Tires - Better Or Worse?

I mentioned in my posts late in the year last year I wasn't really very happy about how the Schwalbe G-One Overland tires rode. They felt oddly harsh, no matter what pressure I decided to run them at. 

I ran my SOMA Cazedero 700 x 50mm tires for the tail end of the season. I used TPU tubes in them and it was......okay. I still thought the ride quality could have been better. 

After the post-Thanksgiving Winter blast we got here I decided to swap out tires again to some older Pirelli Cinturato H tires I had tested for review back in 2022. I knew these tires rode well from the time I spent on them, and I remember being a bit sad to have to remove them for another tire review. 

Of course, with this colder weather and a different bicycle, there was a question as to whether or not this would be worth trying. My thoughts were if these tires can even show promise over the Schwalbe and SOMA's it would be a win of sorts. 

Well, I was rewarded with a better ride feel. Only slightly so, but again, it was 40°F and the pathways were odd in that I was running over a lot of really frozen ground. On one hand the vibration damping was better, but I also wasn't getting a rolling resistance I was happy with. It wasn't 'bad', but it wasn't great either. Again, I am attributing this to the colder air. I'll keep trying and when warmer weather comes we will see how it goes. 

But for now, these tires are staying on this bicycle. I've a feeling these are going to work out just fine. 

Project Fixed Gravel Bus

The key to it all. (Image by A. Andonopoulos.)

 I have hinted at this all throughout December and now it is time to share what I've been up to over the past four or five weeks. I will also add the weather was mostly not conducive to being outdoors throughout this period, so it was a good thing to have this to do during the dive into deep Winter weather we experienced. 

Just a quick recap for those new to this story: I had a Twin Six Standard Rando v2 set up geared since around 2022, and for a year or two before that, as a single speed. When tires for gravel started to plump out to the 47mm - 50mm widths I was finding the Twin Six to be lacking as it barely handles a 44mm wide tire. So, I dreamt of retiring the T-6 and ended up replacing the T-6 with my Singular Cycles Peregrine Mk4 last September. 

Meanwhile, I had become enamored of riding fixed gear again via my road bike standard Shogun 1000, a 1980's vintage road bike, which has very limited tire clearances. My thoughts began to swirl - What would a fatter tire fixie be like? Then it hit me.....

Build the T-6 as a fixed gear bike, and move the Shogun down the road. So, this is what I have done. This now brings you up to speed on my journey up to the point where this project started.  

The first order of business was to build wheels. 

Thanks to Ari Andonopoulos and Jay Barre, I have this sweet Paul Components fixed WORD through axle hub. It is great Paul Components does this part, because it is not only high-quality stuff, but it is about the only game in town for fixed, through axle, and disc brake all in the same hub. Wacky one-speed rear device indeed!

To build the wheel set I needed rims. Fortunately I had a set of Velocity USA Blunt SS rims just chillin' in my shop. They were waiting for such a time as this! I also needed a front hub. I had used the old original front wheel in the Noble Bikes GX5 before in the Standard Rando, but this wheel was a mismatch from the standpoint of the rim. So, I broke the wheel down and harvested the front Stan;s Neo hub for this project.

Topped off with hand-cut DT Swiss spokes from Ari in the rear, and Wheelsmith spokes for the front, and this set of wheels was ready to go. Of course, I used my "signature wheel set" spoke scheme where I use half black, half silver spokes and nipples. The black spokes on one side get silver nipples and the silver spokes on the other side get black nipples.  

The wheel builds were fairly straight forward and besides one spoke, I had no real issues. Then it came to drive train parts. I had two screw-on fixed gear cogs to choose from. One was an All City 17T but is an 1 1/8th pitch. I also have a Dura Ace, vintage 3/32nds pitch cog in a 16T.  Both are black anodized steel. Not sure how they do that, but they are definitely black and definitely steel! 

I went the all-3/32nds route and so I have the Dura Ace part on the hub. For a crank set I came up with a 172.5mm Shimano 105 triple, Hollowgram crank set and I dismounted the three rings and replaced the middle one with a 39T steel ring from some old road crank set. It is a Shimano ring though. 

This meant I had to modify my Wheels Manufacturing Eccentric insert for a PF-30 shell. The left side bearing has that old, pre-DU(M)B spindle which had a 24mm drive side diameter and stepped down non drive side bearing. I knocked the SRAM specific bearing out, grabbed a Shimano outboard bearing sealed bearing cartridge, a plastic bushing, (top-hat) from same bottom bracket, modified the plastic bit, and used this. It worked perfectly. 

With a new SRAM PC 853 chain it now is locked-in and ready to roll. All I needed now were controls, brakes, and cabling. The handle bar is an old favorite, the Kitchen Sink Bar from Redshift Sports. I also used the same Redshift Sports ShockStop stem I had on the T-6 before I broke it up. A Shimano PRO seat post topped with a WTB Silverado saddle gifted to me recently by MG was the seating arrangement. (Thanks MG!!!) Then old Tektro levers in black were mounted as well. All I needed were cables, housings, and brake calipers. 

With everything but the calipers, tape, and cabling. 

 So, with the year closing out I was on the hunt for some brake calipers. It was the only thing I didn't have yet to make this a complete bicycle. Of course, I needed flat mount brakes, but they also needed to be mechanically operated. This leaves you with precious few options. 

You could do the bougie route. Paul Components Klampers or Growtac brakes (Velo Orange sells them), but we're talking hundreds of dollars for two brake calipers. Then you have the next step down in TRP Spyre brakes. Far less money for sure, but no big drop-off in performance. TRP/Tektro has a lower end version of the Spyre, which is slightly less money. Then you get into the sub-100 dollar per caliper brakes which of the lot, only Shimano is a brand I would trust. 

I hemmed and hawed about what to do. I was texting with Ari a few days before Christmas and he pointed out the half price offer on TRP Spyre calipers from an online store. I ended up ordering those as it put the per-caliper price under $65.00. 

Two days before Christmas. No calipers, but I just couldn't resist a test ride!

 I had strung the cables, but no wires, by a couple of days ahead of Christmas. It was pretty nice out for late December, and I had time, so I decided to go out for a short, brakeless ride. This would be on totally flat terrain and maybe for a few blocks and back, but I wanted to get a read on how this gearing was going to work out for me. I knew it was a little steeper than I had my Shogun set up with. 

I think it will be fine for most flattish terrain, but hills will be interesting! I'll just have to see how it goes over the course of Spring and determine what to do after that. 

 I think if Winter is going away, and for good, (fingers crossed), I will set up a different set of tires, But the 45NRTH Gravdal studded tires will grip ice and snow well. In case Winter comes back again, (more than likely), I'll keep them on. So we will see about tubeless tires at some point. Fenders may appear here in either case. I've got metal Planet Bike fenders or a brand new set of plastic Giant Revolt fenders too. We'll see how things fit to decide there. 

Finished Saturday evening 12/27/25

 Twin Six Standard Rando v2 (2020) in Saffron 

• Size: 59cm
• Frame: Steel (Twin Six never really says what, if anything, is special about their tube set) 
• Fork: Carbon T-6 (Again, no details but it does have internal routing for the front brake cable, Three-Pack mounts, and a 12mm through axle.) 
• Wheels: Hand-built using Velocity USA Blunt SS rims (28 spoke hole drilling), Mix of Wheelsmith (front) and DT Swiss spokes. Spokes in each wheel are all black on one side  with silver nipples, and all silver on the other side of the wheel with black nipples. Three cross lacing. (Guitar Ted Special Wheel build) Hubs are Paul Components WORD Fixed Disc (rear) and Stan's Neo (Front) 
• Track Cog: Vintage NOS black Dura Ace, 16T x 3/32nds.
• Chain: SRAM PC-853
• Chain Ring: Steel 39T Shimano of unknown vintage. (Likely 7 speed) 
• Crank Arms: Shimano 105 10 speed Triple modified for single speed use. 172.5mm length.
• Bottom Bracket: Modified Wheels Manufacturing Eccentric for PF-30 shell. 
• Seat Post: Shimano PRO
• Saddle: WTB Silverado
• Head Set: Enduro MaxHit stainless steel.
• Stem; Redshift Sports ShockStop Pro
• Handle Bars: Redshift Sports Kitchen Sink (46cm)
• Bar Tape: Ergon AllRoad
• Levers: Tektro short pull
• Brakes: TRP Spyre/Shimano rotors/Jagwire Pro housings.
• Pedals Fyxation Mesa MP's
• Tires: 45NRTH Gravdal, fully studded, with tubes. 
• Frame Pump: 1990's vintage Blackburn 

I'll have a ride report up once I can get out with this bike for a decently long ride. Indications are the stiffer T-6 frame will be a big benefit toward making the fixed drive train work its best. Gearing? Yeah..... I don't know yet! 

Stay tuned...