I have a memory, from the mid 70s I think, of riding my 5-gear racer the 2 miles to the nearby town to hang out in the shopping centre with schoolfriends in that aimless way that teenagers do. On the way back home I was passed by a group of cyclists with saddlebags and mudguards, wearing shirts with "Audax UK" on them. Meant nothing to me. Not wanting to let them get away I overtook: "Go on lad, we've only got 200 miles in our legs". I still couldn't stay in front.

Nearly 30 years later Audax UK has grown from a hardy bunch of pioneers to a club of almost 4000 people, and I'm one of them. More relevant to this site, I'm a fixed wheel Audaxer.

Audax UK is a long-distance cycling club, or more precisely a club for those "imbued with the spirit of long-distance cycling". Long-distance means anything from 200 km to, well, as far as you want to go. So much effort, so much potential pain. So why do we do it ? I guess it's addictive. Early season rides can be amazing - 200 km in January or February involves an early (and cold) start, a finish in the dark and probably some rain and wind too, but on a good day the sense of reward at getting a good ride on the bike makes it all worthwhile. And in the early season no-one's rushing, there's plenty of café time to discuss plans for the year…….A June 200 is quite a different thing. The aim then is to fly round, spending minimal times at the controls. In the summer, 200 km is nothing to an Audaxer who's ridden 300s, 400s, 600s maybe even a 1000 or 1200 since those early season café crawls. The real spirit of Audax, though, is found on those longer rides. Riding the whole length of Wales and back in a weekend, grabbing an hour or two's sleep at a control, those magical moonlit mountain night sections…and dodging the drunken Friday night revellers in an English market town: "Look ! It's a bloke ! On a bike !".

And the fixed bit ? The elegant simplicity had always appealed to me, and it seemed like a good idea in principle. By the late 80s I had got as far as acquiring a wheel with a Maillard Normandie flip-flop hub but I hadn't really got on with fixed. In fact I'd nearly killed myself by my complete ignorance of the importance of good chainline. The Normandie was consigned to the shed of oblivion. In 1988 Sue and I moved to Yorkshire, and I started riding with the local Cyclists' Touring Club. Yorkshiremen, you may know, are renowned for a certain resistance to change. And a tendency to, shall we say, be less inclined than some to succumb to a desire to exchange their hard-earned cash for unnecessary new bicycle bits. These fellows had always ridden fixed in the winter, that was how things should be and they saw no reason to change. These traditionalists, effectively, kept the spirit of fixed alive in the dark ages of the 1980s. I rode with them in the winter on my Sturmey-Archer 5-speed hub gear and admired how they swooped down the descents and powered up the climbs. One day the SA5 spontaneously disintegrated as I sprinted through the centre of Leeds, and it was time to try the Normandie again. I took chainline advice and successfully joined the fellowship of fixies. Around this time, we had a series of bad winters in the North of England and the local councils didn't stint on the road salt. Regular cyclists found that the combination of road dirt and sodium chloride was wrecking their fancy new groupsets in a matter of weeks. Younger club riders started riding fixed and so did some couriers. That, I think, marked the start of a gentle resurgence in riding fixed in the UK.

In 1994 we moved again, this time to rural Berkshire in the South of England. I now had a 35 mile round trip commute on small gravely lanes, and of course I used a fixie because I needed reliable transport. I was riding with local clubs at the weekend, but fixies were almost non-existent in these Southern climes, outside of the small but growing courier scene in London. Although I kept the faith in the winter, in the summer I used gears. I graduated from Sunday runs to Audax, still on gears. In 1999 I rode a summer 200 on fixed to see how it felt. It felt tough. 100 km or so was OK, much more than that was not. By the end of 2000 my Audax bike was worn out and I was planning a replacement. Somehow I didn't get round to buying one before the 2001 season started so I decided to try fixed again. A couple of hilly 100s went OK, as did a 150 and a 200. Then some more 200s. This fixed thing was going well. I entered a 300 with some trepidation but that seemed no harder than on gears. If I can do 300, can I do 400 ? A 600 ? I could, and in fact the longer distances seemed easier than on gears. I don't know if it is because I pace myself better on fixed or because spinning fends off fatigue but give me fixed for a (not to hilly) 600 any time. I'll admit that a hilly ride is harder on fixed. A really hilly 200 can be an hour or two slower on fixed than gears. But an undulating or flat ride can be as fast or faster.

The zenith of my 2001 season was the London-Edinburgh-London 1400. That's a hard ride with some significant hills but it was noticeable that there were three or four fixies there. 2003 was Paris-Brest-Paris year and 9 of us rode fixed - five of us rode in the Audax UK group from England to Paris and back as well, to make it a proper excursion. PBP was amazing and I think it is an easier fixed ride than almost any UK 600 I have ridden. It's undulating with very few steep hills, and if I rode again I would definitely ride fixed. I might even consider gearing up a little from my customary 68". My abiding memories involve numerous conversations about "pinion fix"with elderly Frenchmen in small Norman and Breton villages in the middle of the night, and whether it is hard on the legs. These guys had, like their British counterparts, ridden fixed in the 50s, 60s and 70s (and 30s and 40s in some cases) but in France it had died away. They really couldn't believe that we were riding sans derailleur.

In the last few years there's been a real resurgence in riding fixed in the UK. Partly it's the availability of decent equipment, much from the US of course but some home-grown. And partly it's the influence of the couriers, I'm sure. But I'd like to think that what we are seeing is fixed returning to its rightful place in the semi-mainstream. And for that I think we have to thank the club riders who kept the faith in the dark days.