Fixed gear time trialling

Who here does it?
Got a 46 x 17t (medium gear) I’m thinking of using for a local TT,
and going off this link

it will take a cadence of 120 RPM to get close to my usual time for the 10 mile course.
Any tips (other than pedal at an insane speed)!

Stick a 15T on there? Fixed gear sprockets are pretty cheap.

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Pick a date with lots of headwind or a climbing route, that will reduce the cadence.

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Is that a fixie, or a single speed?

My only experience of riding fixed is on the track. I did line up at a 25mTT behind a guy on a fixie. It was a lovely 1990s beam bike and really nice. The course was a rolling DC (B25/8). I eventually passed him around 20 miles, sat up and clearly struggling. Afterwards he said his legs were toast (or something like that).

I have to admit I admire the gall to try that and acknowledge that, years ago, riding a fixed on a TT was the think do. Even on a short DC, it must be hard, especially when the wind is straight down the course. (For the last but one 25 I did it was average 30mph outbound and average 23 return!).

I am not sure I could stick to 120rpm for 20-25mins. Single speed might be nicer for downhill to recover and not over stretch your legs/knees. If you average 120, what will you hit on a downhill?

Apart from that I have no advice on gearing, but good luck.

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I ran fixed while TTing for the 2019 season. I figured it was the simplest way to make a really clean aero bike, and it stopped my bad habit of changing down for headwinds! :slight_smile:
I even did some blogging about it - you can see the bike and my trials and tribulations here: https://fixedtting.home.blog/
If your courses are pretty flat and not technical there’s no reason why you can’t be fast, but the fast people I’ve seen round here have been mashers rather than spinners. Course matters massively - if your local fast courses have even a slight gradient then you’ll need to be able to produce power over at least a 25rpm cadence range (I probably ended up being able to do between 75 and 100, but I found it hard to generate good consistent power at the top end of that range). You can see from the times I put in the write-ups that I definitely wasn’t all that fast!
I haven’t done any TTs since 2019 due to a hip issue I started experiencing the year before - I hardly rode any of my bikes for about a year and a half. I’m back on the bike now, but not planning any TTing this year because I want to get my hip really strong before I try to get really aero and push big gears! If things go according to plan I’ll do CX this autumn and then return to TTs next year. And I’ve only done 10s, I never got the bravery for a 25!
There were a couple of guys on the UK TT forum who rode fixed - if you want to see what the current state of the art is then have a look around over there (I don’t go there much any more).

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