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.
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.