I have been riding a fixed since Mid-December and am still pretty new to it all. So far I have loved it and now know why it is so loved by those that ride fixies.

When I rode a geared bike, I never much paid attention to gear inches and ratios, I just rode what seemed right for the road and kept me moving. I am much more attuned to this now that I have only one combination.

In setting up my bike, I posted and received a lot of help with what gears to choose, I went with a 44x17 with a 165 mm crank arm to get me somewhere near 70 gear inches. Sheldon Brown's calculator puts this at 68, other charts a little higher. I completed a fixed conversion last week and rode it this weekend. BTW, I did say I got hooked right? On the conversion I used spare parts and ended up with a 40x16 with 170 mm crank arms. Sheldon's site has this at 65.7 and this does seem to spin me out when I push it.

I am looking into a new chain ring as the one I am using on the conversion is 25 years old. Does the mix of chainring size to cog size make much difference as long as the gear inches ends up near the same number. In other words for two different set ups one where there is a little chainring used with a smaller gear and the other where a larger chainring is used with a larger gear, but the end result in gear inches is about the same, will there be much difference noticed by the rider.

Thanks

Nope, you won't be able to tell..In BMX circles they go with small chainring and small cog because of weight. The shorter chain and smaller rings are lighter. In reality, you won't notice any difference as long as the gear inches are the same

Not only what Dave said, but some fixie riders intentionally choose the biggest ring/cog they can get while maintaining the desired gear inches; the thinking is that when you spread the load across more teeth, your chainring and cog will last longer.

Not only what Dave said, but some fixie riders intentionally choose the biggest ring/cog they can get while maintaining the desired gear inches; the thinking is that when you spread the load across more teeth, your chainring and cog will last longer.

and some think it looks cooler, too, because real track bikes generally use bigger rings -- they use pretty tall gears for most track events (they don't have to ride up hills, or start out repeatedly from red lights, like us road fixers do).

LOL..One of my Bike Fridays has a 60T front ring..Of course it only runs 20" wheels so the gear inches isn't any different but I get he-man comments from those that don't understand the math...

Thanks for guiding me through what must be pretty novice questions.