<When building a fixie especially, you also have to keep track of the rear hub widths (usually smaller than average) as well as the dropouts (usually vertical):>
i'm primarily looking at raleigh 20"s and similar knockoffs, and the majority that i have seen are horiz drops. so this shouldn't be a problem.
<can you get a hub in the size (not to mention a fixed or flip/flop hub)? Can you find a matching 16" or 20" rim?>
i've been looking into bmx stuff. there's a lot of flip-flop hubs and ready-built wheels available, but i need to do some measurements anyhow on whatever i get first. i'm going to try using a suicide hub to avoid the cost of getting a wheel built custom.
<If you don't use a brake, you'll also put tremendous stress on the head tube because of the leverage of the longer stem if you skid/skip stop. Some are OK with this however; not me.>
i will use a break, but i'll most likely use my feet more often as that is what i'm accustomed to. do you think a rider could potentially break the frame on one of these old steel ones?
<The only frame I would ever want to try a fixie on is the cromo Swift frame: they seem to have purposely designed it so that one could make it fixed. I don't like the fold however since it still looks cumbersome to me, but I'm a commuter and not a world traveler.>
not to mention they are ridiculously overpriced. for the record i have no interest in a "new" bike, i'm strictly looking for something old to retool.
<But if you really want a ready-made fixie, there's always that "Hon Solo.">
like i said above, i'm more interested in building something.
thanks for the info/opinions