brought an old road bike into the local shop last week & had them strip all those useless gears off & throw a beautiful track hub on there, relace it, put the new chain on...
it's gonna take a while to get used to learning how to operate without traditional brakes, but holy good god in heaven, i hopped on that thing last night, and i've never had a bike that takes off like this one does...to have such a pure machine is a thrill, that physical connection to it felt instantaneous...
any other 'fixie' enthusiasts on this board?

Awesome, i am working on building a single speed city bike as we speak.

i've been seriously thinking about this. what's the pros and cons of "fixed" vs. a single gear bike that has hand brakes and allows you to coast.

c.

well, it comes down to a matter of preference...you can actually get what's called a 'flip-flop' hub, which will give you both a fixed gear and a single speed/coaster gear, one on either side of the wheel. the change, you simply flip the wheel over. theyre about 30 bucks on nashbar.com, i think.
for fixies, the thing is on long rides it might be tough since if the bike is moving, yr legs are moving. there is also def the braking issue to contend with. yr stopping time gets a lot longer on one as opposed to a single speed/coaster with handbrakes which you can stop on pretty quickly.
one of the things i instantly loved about my bike now is how in tune i felt with the pure mechanics of it - you move, it moves, you feel the road so much better underneath yr wheels, and by not coasting, you get a much better workout.
dangers on the fixie: stopping short - or not being able to, steep descents that cause you to spin out, pedal skip - taking turns too sharply on a fixie will cause yr pedals to hit the ground and the bike to 'skip', so you have to lean much less than you might on another bike and use yr wheel much more

i knew after about 30 seconds why there is such a revival in fixed gear bikes of late, but i can also see how theyre not for everyone in every place. bklyn is gonna be a little tough, and i doubt i'll ride it much in manhattan except a few blocks off the greenway to get to work.