Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - building up the dumpster bike

so i found this bike behind a dumpster a few weeks ago before school started. i stripped everything off of it including the awesome saran wrap and electrical tape handlebar tape. i read a bunch of stuff on sheldon's site but have some questions before i lay down the cash for new parts. luckily our collegiate team has good deals for parts. i'm just trying to determine what to get so it all properly goes together since i have only really dealt with my mtb/road bike before and nothing involving fixed/ss nor building up a bike. i took a bunch of pictures, so hopefully they will be able to illustrate my questions better. any help at all would be appreciated.

parts (i think) i need to get:
new wheels (the old tire said it was a 26x1.5 but the new one i got didn't fit by at least an inch. i had to cut the old tire off so i am thinking that it was improperly installed and forced on.)
flip-flop hub or just straight fixed
tires/tubes
new brake (105???)
crankset (105 or sora????)
chain
bottom bracket
pedals

pictures:
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bchalk/biking/bike.jpg

this is the bike i plan to convert into a fixed/ss with a flip-flop hub hopefully. i would like it to be both so i can take it on light off road since it seems to have decent tire clearance.

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bchalk/biking/front.jpg

i tried both my 26" wheels and my 700cc road wheels up front. it seems that the fork is narrow and both don't slide on too easily. i didn't try spreading the fork to get them on since i wanted to be able to remove them easily. it seems to be that the cover on the axle keeping it closed that is getting in the way. maybe i need a small spaced hub?


http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bchalk/biking/leftrear.jpg

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bchalk/biking/rearaxle1.jpg

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bchalk/biking/rearaxle2.jpg

the rear wheels seems to be fine with my 700cc tire. the only thing i saw that poses a problem was the qr skewer sticking out on the right side. but it doesn't seem to be an issue since i wouldn't run one and i could always just cut the bolt or skewer to fit.


http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bchalk/biking/bb.jpg

i'm assuming i take a measurement of the bottom bracket to determine the size of the new one i should get.


http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bchalk/biking/rearbrake.jpg

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bchalk/biking/kickstand.jpg

would it be feasible to have a welder remove this rear brake bridge somehow? or it is too much of a risk with damaging the frame and strength? same goes for the annoying kickstand cage. at least i was able to get rid of the stand and just threw it over my fence quickly.


http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bchalk/biking/headset.jpg

i unscrewed the headset bolt but it didn't seem to loosen or let me adjust anything else like the fork or remove the front reflector. ideas?


http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bchalk/biking/chainline.jpg

the chainline seems to be ok with just my quick job at messing around with it first.

sorry for the long post, but i figured it is better to be thorough. any help would be greatly appreciated.

I hate to rain on your party, but I wouldn't put one dime into that cheap dept. store bike. It's essensially worthless! I'm not trying to be insensetitive, but there's alot of much higher quality bikes out there that are a much better candidate for a SS conversion than that (Raleigh, Schwinn, etc.).

Remember, mountain bike 26" wheels are a different size than 26" English 3-speed which (I think) are different than dept. store clunkers. The one-piece crank will also be problematic, requiring a BMX 3-piece conversion bb. That's some serious money right there. Other parts simply wouldn't fit, requiring a new frame, anyway. I don't think you will be happy with the results.

To paraphrase former Sen. Bob Dole: Just Don't Do It!

Yeah, I wouldn't throw too much money at that one either. As far as the bottom bracket goes, my friend got one for his BMX (one piece crank) for like 13 bucks from the shop. I don't know if these run in different sizes, but if you can find something like that it would be good. I can't tell if the chainrings are removable from those cranks, but if not try to find a single ring crank from an old BMX or something. (I wouldn't buy new ones though.) You can buy a new rear wheel, since you could always move it to a better bike in the future. After that if you have a spare front wheel laying around, just throw it on, and maybe throw on a better seat if you have one around. Take the reflectors and other extra stuff off, and you are done. Oh, you probably need a new chain, so just use a cheap one from Sports Authority or somewhere (9 bucks).

So you spend maybe 25 bucks on a bottom bracket and chain, and then maybe 30 bucks on tires and tubes if you need them.. Not too bad. Much more than that would probably better spent towards a better bike though.

-Jason

i wouldn't touch that bike. it's not worth it. the whole thing probably cost less than $100 when it was new.

lurk around at bike shops that sell old junk and you can find a perfect fixie candidate for cheap. i got mine for $5. a friend of mine his for $20.

There are plenty of cheap good frames to be had, so pass by the crappy ones. Even if you dont know a frame by name, you should be able to make a quick judgement of whether is was good or low-end when new.
Look at the way the dropouts are formed. Your forks are simply crushed, ie lower than low-end. Cheap but good bikes can have stamped steel dropouts, and decent machines would have investment cast parts. Decent lugs are thinner, have a less pronounced step change in thickness, and have some curved sections and cutouts.

Check out henryjames.com for some examples.

thanks for all the input. and i could really care less about dumping the project. i'd rather be happy with a fixie rather than riding a piece of ****. i guess i should have seen it being "crappy" when i couldn't find much about it online. at least i know what frames to look for now. should i steer clear of swap meets or do you think it might be worth a trip to get a decent frame? at least i can practice painting a frame on the old one or something now. but thanks for the help and guiding me away from the crummy bike.

CHekc out swap meets.. pawnshops.. thriftshops.. dumpsters everything :) I have found quite a few good bikes at my local goodwill store. I would say 90% are cheap crap but they get a good one now and then.

Keep your eyes open and you will find a good older frame to build up. If you want to do some off road look for a MTB frame so you get a frame for 26es and canti mount brakes for clearance. Sometimes you can find a pre-stripped one on campus, bare frame dangling from the bike rack by a cheap lock. You might be able to get campus cops to let you take it.

Originally posted by Kev
CHekc out swap meets.. pawnshops.. thriftshops.. dumpsters everything :) I have found quite a few good bikes at my local goodwill store. I would say 90% are cheap crap but they get a good one now and then.

Don't forget garage sales. Plus, around universitys the end of a term means moving sales galore and maybe dorms getting cleaned out.

There are a couple good articles online about dirt cheap bike buying. The best is probably:

http://www.howtorockandroll.org/writings-detail.php3?id=17

Also, the adendum to Tom Deakins' conversion article at Sheldon Brown's site has some good pointers on picking out a conversion candidate.

Happy wrenching,

Bill

DO you have junk collections?
In New Zealand we do and you can find oarsome stuff if you look around. I found and incomplete bike with frame, fork, cranks and B.B. and with suntour superb pro derailler and modollo master pro brakes. Just look around for the other parts and I will Have a high quality old school bike.

garage sales and swap meets shouldn't be a problem at all. it's bike friendly here and being a college city and all, finding another frame shouldn't pose that much of a problem. my friend and i picked 'columbia' up in the wee hours of the morning on our way to a road race. he started riding (pushing) her around when we were unloading everything and showed everyone his 'off season' bike. i'm probably going to go ahead and order parts before i get a frame only because we get such insane deals with our team sponsorship. that's the one plus of college aside bad dorm food.

well, after giving up on this pos of a find i gave in and just purchased a khs flite 100. i couldn't resist a very, very, very good deal. i will be getting it in about 2 weeks and post some pictures. thanks for all the help.

Takin' the easy way out, shame, shame.:D

i know, i know. someone that was there said half the fun in fixed riding is building it up. i'd totally build it up, but when you got school, work and the chance to get one brand new below dealer cost, things begin to blur. yea, it was cheap. just think of it as the hook to get me to build more for my fleet after i get hooked. maybe i'll just sell it and build up a custom???

If you come across an old frame, you will have all the swap parts.
It is fun to build one up, but it can be hard to do if you don't have a lot of old stuff laying around or an in to a bike shop.

< smacks head >

i never really even thought of doing that. luckily, we have a bike shop in berkeley that has an area of workstands and tools that anyone is allowed to use at their own risk which is really cool. i should learn more bike maitenance too. i wish i could interchange that with school.

Good job dumping that Columbia! Our local hardware store in a very remote corner of Minnesota where I grew up stocked this horrible brand for years. I think my mom bought about a half dozen of them for my sisters and I, and they were all crap right out of the box! They were even worse if the store assembled them for us! lol

I quit riding at 16 and never got back on a bike hardly until I rode a Trek about 15 years later - mostly because these horrid things made me hate riding bike! Do me a favor and shoot it for me if you still have it laying around! lol JUST KIDDING!

hahahaha. don't worry. maybe i will just find a huge 50+ cliff and do a little ghost riding with her and post the video. proper burial ya know? it does look 100% better with everything ripped off since it resembles an ss right now. but i think a proper death might be in store for her.