fixie

Focale 44 is a fixed/commuter bike brand from BMX Groupment, an Andorra-based company that – you guessed it – specialises in BMX. This is the third year of producing fixie bikes, and there's a range of models, which seem to all be built around the same basic frame. This test bike is the Focale 44 Relax, a flat-barred commuter bike that the company places in the middle of its range.

Pace have been fettling a range of bikes, bits and clothing from inside their shed on the Yorkshire Moors for near on 25 years although you may never have heard of them as up till now it's all been about mountain bikes. Most notably aluminium mountain bike frames, including one that they won't be allowed to let lie, famously and iconically made from square tubing that mountain bikers of a rose-tinted persuasion get all damp around the chamois over. So for Pace to come out with a bike made of *gasp* steel, with *faint* round tubing brazed into a *fetch the smelling salts* road bike, is certainly an unexpected departure to some.

I'm doing the above ride this Sunday. Anyone else going to be tackling the relatively flat-looking terrain of the new Forest on a single-speed or fixie? I'm sure I can't be the only one. Hope I'm not.

If my brother-in-law speeds off on his carbon-fibre road-bike I might need some company