I have owned two airplanes: a Piper Cherokee 140 and a Piper Cherokee 235. Both of which are fixed gear airplanes. I would like to go faster and it strikes me that one way to do that is to get landing gear out of the airflow creating drag. I spoke with a guy across the way from me at our airport, and he said, "Stay away from retracts. You can go fast with fixed gear. But then you don't have to pay the maintenance on the retracts which has been - by a large margin - the most expensive part of maintaining any of the airplanes I've owned. I just won't buy retracts any more." I wonder what other's experience is with that.