Gosha Lebedev: fix on gravel, track and Circumpolar Urals

Guest

Useful from the issue

1. Transferring Gosha to different tasks

   Track — 53×14 or 53×13, street — 49×16, gravel race like Tsar Grader — 43×15. Starting point for those who assemble a fixie for a specific start.

2. Wide tires do not fit into the fix

   About 40 mm is the working width for gravel on the fix. Before buying wider ones, check the gap in the frame.

3. A mountain ford with a bicycle is dangerous

   Crossing a mountain river waist-deep with a heavy bicycle Gosha calls the most difficult thing he did on a bicycle. It is wiser to exclude dangerous fords from the route in advance.

4. Follow the recovery

   There are so many races that the nervous system starts to give up without rest: you go to the start, but your legs don't go.

5. Be serviced in winter

   The off—season is the best time to give the bike to the workshop while there is no queue, and prepare for the season.

Fixersky hangout of St. Petersburg

Gosha is from Yekaterinburg. According to him, the big fixers' party in St. Petersburg has split up into many small clubs: some do only races, others race, someone rides more calmly, someone is more aggressive. He himself is for safe driving.

When asked if fixed gear is alive, Gosha answers that yes. A few years ago, the movement in Yekaterinburg almost died out, and this was one of the reasons for his move to St. Petersburg. Now there is a charged team again, which holds races in the summer and film evenings in the winter, and Gosha regrets missing this era.

Gears and gravel on the fix

Ilya transmits the listener's question about the best gear ratios. Gosha calls his own: 53×14 or 53×13 on the track, depending on the discipline, 49×16 on the street and 43×15 on the Tsar Grader. The circular format of the Tsar does not bother him — you still have to go.

His hardest race of the season was Gravel Instinct: about 170 km, lots of elevation gain, and four falls. Among road races, he remembers riding through all of Moscow on wide streets at a high average speed. He doesn't ride gravel races on a multispeed yet. He received a frame for a gravel fixed-gear from a sponsor, and carbon wheels are coming soon. He takes tyres about 40 mm wide: wider ones might not fit into a fixed-gear frame — in his opinion, this is the main disadvantage of fixed-gear bikes.

Twelve days in the Circumpolar Urals

The main trip of the year is an autonomous hike with friends from Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg: four days on bicycles, eight on foot, about 370 km and 8000 meters of kit. The bicycles were left at the campsite, and we went to the mountains to the highest points of the Urals without them.

Gosha calls the most difficult a waist-deep ford of a mountain river with a bicycle weighing under 30 kg: the current is blowing away, the water is icy. The older comrades excluded an even deeper ford from the route, and now he agrees with them. Kyrgyzstan is next in the plans. He dreams of ultra-remote races like Silk Road, but honestly says that he is not yet ready for hundreds of kilometers a day and four to five hours of sleep.

Track and winter races

Gosha's favorite track discipline is the omnium, where points from several races add up to the overall result. Last season he came in second in it. He calls the track a place created for fixed-gear riders, but in January amateur training there was canceled due to the Russian championship, so for now, he's spinning the trainer at home.

From the winter starts, he is going to the criterion at the cartodrome in Penza — this is his favorite race — and is glad that the organizers of Fury Road are reviving the February criterion in Tver.

Work as a mechanic and new bicycles

Gosha works as a mechanic at the Moder bicycle workshop and advises to be serviced in winter while there are no long queues — although the queue, he admits, has already appeared. The most unloved thing in the work is when a simple camera replacement on a cheap bike turns into a cracked hub axle. Such bicycles, on the other hand, forgive mistakes, and learn from them. One of the memorable ones is the unusual engineering of the Look bike, which he recently assembled.

In addition to the fix, he has a steel rigid MTB Shulz Long Ranger, assembled independently from a frameset, which, according to him, is the best bike to ride anywhere. In the new season, he wants to ride the entire treklo-cross series and separately praises the guys who organize it and publish a magazine about bicycles.

Timestamps

1. 00:00Acquaintance and fixers of St. Petersburg
2. 01:37St. Petersburg fixers' parties
3. 02:24Is fixed gear still alive
4. 03:59Winter starts and the Criterion in Penza
5. 04:49Work in a bicycle workshop
6. 05:38Transfers for Street, Track and Tsar Grader
7. 06:26A trip to the Circumpolar Urals
8. 07:15Yekaterinburg and Petersburg
9. 10:28Travel plans
10. 11:16Gravel racing on fix
11. 13:41Track and omnium
12. 14:29What infuriates the mechanic
13. 16:55Track-cross and events of the season
14. 20:07Tires, frames and steel MTB
15. 22:36Wishes to young fixers

Mentioned in this episode

Gravel Instinct · Tsar Grader · Fury Road · Moder · Shulz Long Ranger · Look · Silk Road · Roulette FG