July 7th, 2006
Why Singlespeed?
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singlespeed on horseback
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Guitar Ted was pondering recently why cyclists are so different in general, and singlespeed endurance racers in particular.
He put it down to a willingness to overcome self-imposed hardship.
For me it’s sheer laziness.
I have a horsey parallel. At this time of year my preferred style of horseriding is bareback with a hackamore. Horseback singlespeed.
I’d better explain.
A hackamore is a bitless bridle. It supposedly offers more brakes than a regular bit at the expense of steering control. It has no bit in the horses mouth, and just slips over the horses ears and is done up with one buckle. Far quicker than fiting a regular bridle with bits to fit into mouth and nosebands and curb-chains and buckles to do up.
Doing away with the saddle means that the higher gears (trot, canter, gallop) are a bit more difficult and a bit more interesting and jumping becomes a lot harder and a whole shedload more exciting.
That hardly sounds lazy. But there’s no fetching the saddle from the tack room, no making the horse stand still while it’s fitted, no buckles and straps to do up, no checking my stirrups are even.
To ride I just slip the bridle over the horses head, do up one buckle, leap on and go.
Simple, quick, and lazy.
I pay the price in that the riding is a bit more difficult, but I’d rather spend five seconds getting the horse ready than five minutes. Beneficial side effects are that I get to feel if she’s using her back muscles properly to carry herself, she gets a lot less sweaty in the hot weather we’ve been having lately, my control has to be more explicit and my balance really has to improve. Especially in trot or over jumps.
At the end of the ride it’s even quicker to remove the bridle than it was to put it on in the first place so I save even more time.
Singlespeeding is the same.
Get bike.
Ride.
Finish Ride.
Put bike away.
No faffing with gear alignment and supsension settings.
Lazy.
Ace.
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