Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - A bucketfull of Bull

Hey folks...been er..lurking for a while, posting occasionally(changed my handle a bit ago b/c I felt like a chump). The deal was that I had no fixie and every single one of my questions up to now has been answered by watching and searching. Man! what a mind-flog getting my head wrapped around building up a bike for the first time :eek:

So here's the deal. In the back of my head I've been wanting to build a bike for 10 or 12 years now. After being tied to a truck for many of those, I bought a bike and went full-time velo. Of course, I get addicted to fringe, complicated, zen type of stuff pretty easily. After finding Sheldon and seeing his fixed page, it was just a short hop over here. I've seen the jokes about suckers who "jump on the fixie trend" then realize they can't hang, but I'm 97% sure this is for me. I roller bladed for most of my life without a brake, and from the short spins on a couple bikes of friends, ss/fg seems to be the closest thing I have found to it with two wheels.

I saw this (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=83258) frame here and fell in love with it, so it is mine now. I think I have had it for 6 or 8 weeks now, harvesting more parts than I need from eBay as I get extra cash and slowly begin to understand what it is I can have and what all I need to make a steed worthy of my sick obsessive mind.

I'm mostly posting right now because I'm sick and tired of waiting and watching and have a burning desire to not be alone with it any more (all my friends are sick of hearing about it).

Actual decisions will come soon enough, but so far I have found some Gipiemme track hubs, Wolber 27" rims, a chorus aero 26.0mm seatpost, Tsunami bullhorns(actually says Toro on the top, which I didn't know when I bought them, lol), and a cinelli XA stem that I need to sand down a couple of mils to fit the steer tube. Ahhh, and two cranksets, one an unknown campy double- the other a Gipiemme double. They came with 34(?), 48 and 52 chainrings(all 144 BCD), so I have choices there. I also spent waaay too much on a campy record BB with 111mm spindle because it's pretty. The next dream part is a campy headset, I underbid on two record ones already and keep running out of cash, darnit!

Anyway...after I am sure that this is the longest post on the board, I will state my quandries.
OK, I'm still wavering between 27" wheels and 700c. I've read all the posts and still can't decide. I will probably just use the rims I have and make some 27" wheels with the Gipiemme's and save up for some Phil hubs on 700c aero rims when I build a 'real' wheelset.

Anyone buy any of those spoke "deals" on eBay where you get, like 100 spokes for 10 bucks? Assuming they have some in the size I need after I get everything measured, you think they would be OK for a first wheelset? I'm down in the 'burbs near Stanford University so the roads are OK and I don't see myself being too nuts for quite a while until I become a decent rider.

Either way, the brake is going to give me a problem in finding something nice. By Sheldon's directions the reach needs to be 65mm, and that's with 27" wheels. Saw some side-pulls on Alfred E. Bike for ten buck but they look like schlock. Any ideas? Like I said, I prefer shiny things...

My two cranksets would probably be OK if I wasn't hell-bent on filling up an extra-parts box. I can figure out what the chainline would be for the campy cranks without installing the BB, but I like the Gipiemme cranks better, they have the more squared-off look with the indentations. I can't find any info on what BB is paired with them. I'm kinda considering waiting a bit longer until I can score a Campy pista crankset since it would pair up perfectly with that 111mm BB I got.

Colors are also spinning me...I read a couple places where silver parts + black bars = stupidity, but with the black 'flying C' on my cinelli stem and the black Tsunami bars it actually looks pretty nice in the half-built stage it is in. I was originally going to go all shiny stuff with red bar tape and a green saddle to match the stickers. I even impuse-bought a Campy Electa saddle in green b/c it was NOS and would be totally unheard of. I just may keep it in the box now. I'm now thinking silver parts with black bars and saddle(would match the tires ;) ) with red bar tape.

Sooo....I know I should probably just cheap-out on whatever is left just to get him on the road, but I also really want it to be juuust right, or nearly so.

Sorry to be so verbose, but this is both an introduction after my reticence as well as to further my understanding. If I had asked before I bought it, I'm sure I would have been told not to buy such a bike with funky french parts and non-standard holes, but I probably wouldn't have listened anyway...I just really dig this frame.

Thanks to you all for hangin around here and sharing. Hopefully I will be on the road with y'all in a month or so...$$$

http://www.adker.com/ebay/torrotA.JPG

http://www.adker.com/torrotDecal1.jpg

And props to Adker for letting me post the pics from his site and for being a straight and reliable person to buy a frame from. I am very impressed and thoroughly happy that my frame came through the hands of such a person.

Build it up!! You've got a cool assortment of parts, and you can always change things later, as your preferences change. The sooner the bike is together and rolling, the more fun you'll be having.

Yeah man, throw that bad boy together! Don't stress too much on what parts you're going to put into your die because it very well may change. I've found you really won't know exactly what you want until you start riding.

As far was wheels go I just switched from 27" chrome wheels to 700c Deep V's and oh my god its so much better.

For the brakes make drop bolts... sheldon has a bit on it. I tried it on my bike works good. You should have no problem using a short reach with a drop bolt, wont look the best, but way better than an ugly extralong reach caliper.

Oh, I really wanted that exact frame too. Something about it grabbed me when I saw it here. Can we ask how much you paid?

i wouldnt worry about getting it perfect right from the start. i rebuilt a similar raleigh frame and it went thru 3 or 4 major mods before it settled into its glory as... "The Land Commander"

once you start blowing out tires every couple of weeks you'll be pissed you didn't go with the 700s... if you are building your wheels, just save the time/money/energy and go with 700s...

once you start blowing out tires every couple of weeks you'll be pissed you didn't go with the 700s... if you are building your wheels, just save the time/money/energy and go with 700s...

Blowing out tires? Why would that happen? I never had a higher occurrence of flats with 27" over 700c.
I would just go 700c for the tire choices. For 27" wheels you have a handful of options. For 700c, the options are nearly endless.

Big problem with 27s is finding decent rims; you almost have to go vintage. You can get the tires okay, but your selection is limited.

The spoke deals on ebay tend to be Ashai (sp?) spokes, made by the same company that makes wheelsmith spokes. I've built wheels with them; including the ones currently on one of my fixies; they're fine, no problems. If in doubt, ask the seller a question or two.

French threading is less of a problem than people make it out to be, but you have to learn to scavenge and hoard the occasional part. I keep seven french bikes on the road no problem.

Kogswell (www.kogswell.com) has calipers that'll go 64mm

its funny,... every other post on this board resizes with the browser.. except that above ramble goes off the page no matter how wide i stretch the browser... its like the forum software has physically displayed the post appropriatly for what thas been posted... so my response is...huh? what? nno matter how many times i look at this.. i dont really understand what youre asking about? maybe its me and my faulty browser... but i see a frame ( a nice one!) and a bunch of parts..(nice ones too...) you could build that bike quicker then it took to post that.. i know your type.. an all information gatherer... one of my best friends is one.. its time to do... and whatever you do.. its going to be wrong.. thats the fun of it.. theres always somethign to fix..soo.. lets see some pics of that thing built after this weekend...ok?

Yup...build it! I hear ya...and I got 7 bucks in my pocket atm. It's gonna happen soon...I think it's been about a week since I've felt like I understand how to do all this stuff. And, yeah, I'm a knowledge junkie...takes longer to do some stuff, but I get to know it really well. And cut me some slack...1. I'm not like you, if I was I might have just bought a premade job for less than I have spent already :rolleyes: ...2. I'm a full-time student, run my own small business and still have a couple other hobbies I try and keep up with...3. I'm poor but always try and buy nice stuff or I'm just not happy with it...and 4. I'm gonna have a parts box that will make my next build happen ever-so-quickly. Don't worry, it will come together with pleeenty of upgrades left to do. But a kick in the butt here and there has never hurt me either :)

On tires: I don't think he's saying the 27" blows out easier...just that he goes through tires a lot whatever he uses. Sheldon has 27" tires and rims brand new, but the limited choices always seem to add up to something less than bulletproof and far from spiffy. Another 100$ or so for good 700c rims...

True on the brake(both drop bolts and Kogswell) - thanks for the reminders. I also saw a post here (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=87906) that mentions a pipe up the steer tube :eek: to extend it downward. Might try that...I could match the paint and it may blend in pretty well.

Thanks about the spokes, I might try that if I actually go the route of learning to build my own wheels.

Any opinions on the colors? I'd love to hear what y'all think about matching to this bike.

This post doesn't resize properly because the pictures I have access to are all too big, I don't have time atm to find a host for hot-linking.

ha.. well.. a kick in the butt is what i gave... believe me.. i know all about spending way too much money on building bikes when you could have just bought a new one for way less.. im inn the middle of one right now actually... hopefully that seatpost and BB show up today..

i think you should go crome and black on that bike.. silver stem, silver bars, black seat, black tape...black tires.. silver hubs.. black or silver rims... the colors onn the frame are so nice but so subtle.. make them the color focus of the bike.. thats my idea.. oh.. and 700c wheels.. just cause.. thats what you use.. i know you want all the answers.. but sometimes thats just the way it is.. whenn youre building a bike liek this.. as a fixie.. you use 700c wheels..

and before you buy phils.. read the threads about people getting their bikes with phils, or just wheels with phils stolen.. especially in the bay area.. they might not be worth the stress..

and before you buy phils..read the threads about people getting thier bikes stolen with phils, or just wheels with phils stolen..

Ahh, go ahead and get the phils..just have "Joytech" stickers made to put over the Phil script :D

Hey dudes. I've aquired the same frame (1973 Torrot) from my father - the first bike he raced on. It's been sitting in his garage rafters for about 25 years now. I'm in the process of stripping it down and cleaning off decades of dust before singlespeeding it.

One question... my Torrot has no decals on it, and I'm thinking of either finding identical made-up decals, or just stripping the paint and going jet black. Any suggestions?