Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Finally finished the fixie

My summer project took longer than I thought, but it's finally done now. Took me from march until end of July to find the right frame, it's not a great frame, circa 90's Giant low end frame, but it will do fine. Got that for £25.

First of all i attacked the frame with an angle grinder. I cut off the cable routers, the derailleur hanger and made the rear dropouts horizontal. I started stripping the paint with nitromors, and finished the job with sand paper which was easier and quicker. Spray painted a couple of layers of primer, then a couple of layers of auto paint, then masked off the cream sections, sprayed those. Then realised that the rear hub spacing was 130mm, not the 120mm of my hubs, so cold set the frame to 120mm (thanks sheldon). Then realised the rear dropouts were not wide enough for the hub axles so I got out the angle grinder again. This of course required more spraying.

I built up the miche high flange 36h hubs onto open pro's. (288mm front wheel spokes, 289mm rear drive side, 291mm rear non drive side). I'd never built wheels before, but once again sheldon showed me how to do it.

I installed the headset, after I found a cheap headset press, and used one of the legs of my workstand to bash the crown race onto the fork. Incidentally, I had to spend a while filing down the fork first as it was way too wide to take the crown race.

The BB caused problems as it should have been campy compatable but simply the splines were too small, so I filed them wider too.

I was really happy because I hadn't done an awful lot of bike maintenance before, but on this I did everything myself, and it's really nice to have it all come together and work.

Final Specs:

63cm Giant CroMoly frame
Cranks - Miche Primato, 170mm
Chainring - Miche 49 tooth
Hubs - Miche Primate High Flange, 17 tooth, 36 hole
Rims - Mavic Open Pro's - Black
Spokes - DT Competition
Headset - Miche Primato
Bottom Bracket - Miche Primate
Seatpost - Amoeba (Off my MTB)
Saddle - Selle Italia Oktavia / Brooks B17 (still breaking in)
Stem - Cinelli Frog 13cm
Bars - El Toro Bullhorn + Profile Design Airstryke 2000 Aerobars (Sprayed black)
Tape - Cinelli handlebar
Brake - Shimano RX100 deep drop (front only)
Brake Lever - Tektro RX 4.0 Aero
Tyres - Specialized Turbo Armadillo

My only regrets were not using lighter spokes, and not radially lacing the front wheel, but I would have had to have ordered in a 100 of each kind of spoke.

I picked up the Miche stuff from chucksbikes, and the rest was through my LBS or 2nd hand. I'm going to try and attach a pic though it's a bit low quality to really show it off,

and another, not great quality pic

Excellent job!!!

Doing it yourself takes a little longer but the satisfaction is worth it!!

What is your review of the groupo from Chucks bikes??? I have been eyeing that for some time.

i'm sooo sure I replied to this thread already, must have closed the window or something stupid. I would say personally if I could just buy the hubs and crankset I would get those, as I didn't use the seatpost or pedals. The headset is nice but pretty standard, and the BB was a pain cause of the filing down of the splines. Also it doesn't give the correct chainline when it's put in centrally in the BB shell, I have to have it hanging 5mm out the non drive side. Which frankly is a little weird cause you would have thought it would have been fine with a groupo. Chucksbikes were very good to deal with though so I'd definitely recommend them. In terms of value for money it's good, the only other options are dura-ace and campy record which are way too expensive for me. If you want the low down on individual items, or photos of them, give me a yell

Hope this helps,

Simon

oh i found a pic of the frame before I stripped it down