Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - On a quest

Well, it's official. I'm on a fixed gear quest.

It was to be my fathers day gift.. but the Ebay guy I posted about just didn't work out. (He basically kind of P!$$ed me off, he's been recommended by a lot of people, so I'm sure he sells a good product, I'll just chalk it up to a personality thing between him and I).

So Sunday I tooled around two thrift shops. I found an older Sears fram (and bike) for 20 dollars, but there was rust where the frame was molded to gether (the tubing, I don't know the term). And the rims were shot. I would like it to be ridable right off, and I can replace rims etc as I get the $ set aside.

I also hit a garage sale, almost picked up a nice Fuji bike, however, I over heard the home owner talking about "the accident June had on the bike". Looking closer, there were problems.

Soooooo.. I'm a hunting. Gonna build my own.

flea markets are a great source of good deals. usually, you'll find a bike on a really good frame that looks really bad (bad paint, rusted wheels, broken parts) and you can buy it for $5-$10, ending up with a nice frame for cheap. my dad paid $5 for this frame.

http://web.pdx.edu/~marius/pics/fix/fix_back.jpg

as far as parts, i don't know what to recommend... you can pick up a couple of cheapo bikes and recycle their parts. i recycled some parts off other bikes i had laying around, but decided to buy new wheels and hubs. if you can find a LBS that deals with track/fixed gear stuff (i did) they might already have nice deals for you.

I picked up the one of to the right there, the black one for $75. Handlugged Trek frame, Phil BB and some other decent stuff, built it up for around $200+

Rev.Chuck, a bit offtopic, but are those wall hooks OK for the rims? will they aid with pulling the wheel out of true or damage the rim/spokes/hub? I was planning on getting a 3-bike hook to get my bikes out of the way, but my dad recommended against it, saying that it could damage my wheels. He recommends the frame hooks, like you have for your Giants, but I don't like those much...

I saw a decent looking Schwinn called "world sport" in a thrift shop, but they wanted 59 dollars for it. To much for the bike IMHO. I'm going to flea markette it for a few weekends.

William - Be patient and keep looking, eventually you'll find something. Here's the tale of how I got mine.
http://www.63xc.com/joewh/twodoll.htm
It's got moustache bars on it now, thanks to a Bike Forums classifed a while back.

ShrimpX - No problems hanging the bikes by the wheels. I've done it with several (my fixed being one of them). Sitting your a$$ on the bike puts far more of a load on the bike than hanging it by it's wheel! :D

Thanks. It just starts at the frame I see.

I'm right now trying to read up on cranks to see if I will want or need new shorter cranks.

And I'm trying to decide if I want all new rims or just use what ever is on the bike if thier in good shape.

RiderX, thanks for the story link too!

It's cool!!

The frame is most important because of fit and rear wheel adjustability.

Otherwise, my philosophy is use what ever you can salvage and cobble together a franken-bike and see if you like fixed gear riding before investing to much.

As far as the cranks go, 170mm or shorter are probably best because they give you more clearance in the corners. Lots of people run 165mm because they feel it's better for spinning, but I tend not to worry about that. My 170's have worked fine.

ShrimpX, the hooks will not hurt your wheels(Be careful not to put the hook on the decals as it will mess them up) Every bike shop I have worked for or been in hangs their repair bikes up this way. Think about it, if a wheel can handle a two hundred pound guy on it twenty pounds of bike hanging from it should be no problem. I hang most of my bikes this way, there are a couple more hanging out of shot to the right.