>In cycling parlance, "fixed" refers to a bike where you can't coast. A bike that can coast is called "freewheel." A bike with only one ratio is referred to as

>In cycling parlance, "fixed" refers to a bike where you can't coast. A bike that can coast is called "freewheel." A bike with only one ratio is referred to as "single speed." Yeah, I assumed there would be proper names for both concepts but they do seem to go together usually and the article does discuss them without distinction. >I'm not sure that I follow the article. It seems to suggest that on a freewheel bike, you pedal at a discontinuous rotational speed. If that were happening on my bike, I'd hear the freewheel mechanism engage and disengage with each stroke. Maybe this happens to elite cyclists, but I'm just not that strong Yeah the reasoning does sound suspect. As long as your feet are attached to the pedals you should be able to power the rotation continuously and as you say never freewheel so you'd get no benefit over a fixed wheel. More importantly while in a track situation getting the power down might be a bottleneck in a road course surely the bottleneck is the rider actually being able to produce the power in the first place. As long as the drive system is efficient at transmitting power when it does exist there shouldn't be much more to gain from it.