Today I revived My Summer Bike!
This one's a bit of a beast — a fixed gear touring gravel bike (?)
Cinelli Tutto frame, bought online in size M (I'm 5'8/172cm), and it needed a seat post with setback, a saddle with long rails scooted all the way back, and all the spacers to make it fit.
I guess I'm tall for Italian standards.
Mounted the widest tires it would take, the lightest rack I could find, and the bare minimum in accessories to make it kinda street legal.
It's the silliest bike I ever built, and it makes me smile every single time I ride it.
fixed gear TOURING?? You say it makes you smile "every mile", but do you genuinely do touring distances on it? Doesn't Italy have mountains??
I'm from Southern Germany.
And yes, I do tour with it. The longest was about 800km in a week through the Black Forest. It's important to remember that every fixed gear bike has three gears: sitting, standing and walking.
But I also noticed that when I start to walk on a steep hill, my riding partner with 30 gears usually follows soon after.
I admit I wasn't smiling on some of those miles.
They may be too nice to say anything, but I am certain your riding partner hates your fixie. Riding with a fixie in the group kinda sucks.
Trust me, he isn't too nice to say something.
But we had an agreement that worked: I get to set the pace, and he gets to sit in my slipstream all day long.
Biking sucks. I do it because I hate myself. But I've mostly switched to running because it sucks so much more, and rednecks and fascists don't try to kill me.