I would not use a mountain bike, they are heavy and cumbersome. The riding position is not great and even when running slicks they are slow.
A good mountain bike is not heavy and cumbersome, it is possible to build a sub 20lb mountain bike. Speed on the bicycle is about the amount of transmitted power to the rear wheel and the aerodynamic drag and rolling resistance. Bicycle weight has very little do with it. Even folks like Gianni Bugno would ride a 23lb Tour bicycle preferring reliability over lightweight frame, wheels and components.
Why a fixie? Because there are no gears to go wrong and you don’t need your brakes although it is advisable to have breaks especially when you are riding using the freewheel. The chain is larger and stronger. They are good strong bikes that have nothing other than a couple of bearings to go wrong. They take skill to ride though.
Fixies are OK if riding on the flat, but not really any good for any hilly or undulating terrain. Even professional riders and elite amateurs have lost Olympic titles because they overgeared their bicycles and failed to take into account proper gearing for the terrain. Cycling efficiency and power drops away at lower cadences, which is why time trailists will keep 90-100+ rpm (something a trained cyclist does with ease whereas the inexperienced cyclist will barely maintain 60 rpm cadence). Hour riders like Graeme Obree will be over at around 100-110 rpm even though they are pushing a huge 110+ inch gear. Start to get to any hill such as a 1 in 10 or steeper then the normal 65-70 inch gear on a fixie is geared way to high to be efficient. There is no way for example you would get from the town centre of Dundee to the top of the Dundee Law with a 70 inch geared fixie (about 2 miles and I've seen tour riders virtually collapse with exhaustion trying to get to the top on a 42x17 or 19. Add 60lbs of touring gear and most would struggle to push it up on foot.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBxPMU-l-v8 A competent cyclist can cycle between 18 to 25 miles an hour for 100 to 200 miles on the same roads with ease
Getting a sub 4 hour 100 mile in a time trail is elite riding not just competent cycling and is definitely not accomplished with ease. Of course it becomes much easier riding as a group in a peloton. The difference in speed would be an additional 5-7 mph riding in a large peloton for the same effort.
If I am buying a £200 or £6000 off the peg bike the wheels go straight in the bin and are replaced by hand tied wheels built by a competent wheel builder.
There is nothing wrong with the wheels on a good quality bicycle, throwing them away is just throwing money away. Manufacturers will use the same components as a custom builder the only difference is one is laced and tensioned on a machine an the other is done by hand (some builders will even use the proper spoke tension measurement tool and some will use just their skill of knowing what tension is just right). All that is needed is to retention the spokes to the correct amount and ensure that the rim is centered correctly and the rim is true. Just make sure that good quality components are used in first place when purchasing off the peg wheels that come with the bicycle.
Saying that I actually have a had a difficult time finding a mountain rim that actually uses stainless steel double eyelets as most of the mountain rims seem to use single eyelets. These seem to be the only ones.
http://www.dotbike.com/ProductsP6968.asp...tm_campaign=PMPOf course spoke choice is critical, which is why I only ever use DT Swiss Single and Double butted Stainless Steel spokes.
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