The LT

I built my fixed gear from the ground up and I am very happy with it and it only ran me about 450$ which also included new clipless shoes and cleats. It did take me about 2 1/2 months to acquire all the parts but well worth it in my opinion. luckily I have two other bikes that I rode in the interim

pretendlee

****in' A. i bought an old peugeot cause the frame was a beauty and i sold my miyata and i've spent the past two months walking to and fro work because i can't get parts for that french monster. now it's the end of summer and im ditching the frenchie for a pista. ****!

Suttree

I bought a new frame and slowly put the components on it that I wanted because I couldn't bring
myself to convert my road bike-not the best not the worst but I dig my Miyata 912--with the M
windows and Miyata's stiff frame.

Tapeworm21

I bought an '07 Langster. All I have stock on it is the stem, headset, seat post, seat, and cranks (Sugino Zen Messenger). I have 2 Langsters because I totaled one, then swapped all the stuff from the crashed frame onto my new Langster. I sell the NEW parts and buy others. IMO, I made lemonade my friend, even though I never had lemons. And a bike that will last a lifetime... as long as I don't crash again.

Upgrades I've made, in order:

SRAM single speed chain
Bullhorns
White cork tape
Tektro 5.0 RX carbon bar end brake levers
Ultegra brakes
Chain tensioners
Shimano 16t freewheel
Silver Velocity Deep-V's laced to Formula hubs
Hutchinson Fusion tires... I don't know how rear tires I've gone through. At least 12.

Next upgrades on my list, in order:
Sugino 75 cranks
Silver Thompson seatpost
White Specialized Toupee' saddle
Silver cable housing... (Whenever I come across some, no hurry and very minor)
And MAYBE a white industries freewheel, but very unlikely.

Basically, I've had a kickass single speed since day 1. I'm just making it more badass. And I also got the bike on a pro deal... so I didn't even pay that much. So enjoy that 1980's Peugeot. I have one too... only it folds up and is fun as hell to ride.

But yeah, if you leave a Langster stock, they pretty much suck. The frames kick ass though! Just ride... I just happen to have nothing better to buy.

Briareos

So you run single-speed and you've gone through 12 rear tires? Sounds like your rim might be the culprit.

Tapeworm21

Brand new wheels.... I just enjoy skidding. It's unnecessary, but again.... I like adding and subtracting things to and from my bike. Waste of money? Yessir!

kjohnnytarr

Don't call my conversion ugly.

Out-of-the-box track bikes don't impress me much; any chump can buy one, so they're all paddywagons to me.

Tapeworm21

Which one? Your BMX with a one piece crank or your SE draft? I'm confused.

-=(8)=-

Why go to Mikky D's when it would be more
fun to slaughter a cow and pull spuds in your
apartment ?

squeakywheel

I spent $450 on my SS conversion. The real benefit is getting to choose your components. The crank length and stem dimensions on my conversion aren't the same as what comes on those off the shelf bikes. Plus my bike has fenders and a rear rack. A really nice CroMo steel rear rack.

Cyclist0383

Silly me, I thought it was about riding your bike......

bonechilling

I think you're confused with regards to the common use of the terms "single speed" and "fixed gear."

MrCjolsen

Conversions work under the following conditions:

1. You have a bike you like, best example being the old Nishiki or Centurion you rode in college, and want to resurrect it as a fixed gear by stripping it and replacing the rear wheel.

2. You come across an old Univega or Raliegh at a yard sale that's in excellent condition. So you strip it and replace the rear wheel.

3. You come across an old Univega or Raleigh at a yard sale that's in crappy condition. But you have a garage full of stems, cranks, bottom brackets, bars, brakes, front wheels, tires, saddles, seatposts, etc. from all the times you upgraded parts on other bikes. Moreover, you have the ability to look at the yard sale bike and know in 30 seconds whether or not the parts you have on had will work with it. You strip the bike, spray paint the frame and build it up with the surplus parts from your collection and a new rear wheel.

Note that in each of these cases, the only real expense is the rear wheel. Once you start having to replace thigns like brakes, cranks, bottom brackets, stems etc. you are looking at a potential money pit.

If you are one who gets off on building up bikes (and that's a perfectly normal and healthy fetish to have), then you are better off purchasing a nice frame and building up from there. The cost will be far greater than buying the Langster, Bowery or Pista, but at least you'll be sinking your money into something real nice.

soze

Aside from the fact that converting gorgeous road frames is a sin, off-the-rack bikes are fine because people just get on and ride them.

I mean, that's what this is about, right? People riding bikes?

Live2Die

I am just finishing a Miyata 112 conversion from the frame up and I can attest it can lead to headaches sleepless nights and a very light wallet not to mention I have been moving fairly quick on it and it's been 2 months. But I have a lot of pride in it and I learned a ton. But as everyone mentioned above if you just want a great bike go for it outa the box. and work on a build in your free time and when money permits. otherwise you end looking at your bike in shambles instead of riding for the last two months.

dutret

Given the large amount of posting here devoted to pointless upgrading I would say any bike is a "potential" money pit.

Doing a conversion for a few hundred is hard. However new bowery, pista or whatever is closer to $600. That will buy you a very 80's road frame with some parts attached that will be of far superior quality to the frame you'd get on your low end pre-built, brand new nicer wheels, and a hodgepodge of old and new quality components and all the bar tape, brake pads and cables you need. The end result will be far nicer then if you had just walked into a bike shop and thrown down for some entry level fg.

MrCjolsen

Any new bike I get is going to incure at least the following costs:

A Brooks Saddle
A stem so that the bars are exactly where I like them.
Chainring and/or a cog so that I have exactly 71.4 gear inches.
Better tires than what come stock on 95% of the bikes in production today.

Tapeworm21

That's what you get for thinking.

teiaperigosa

depends on if you have the time/energy to put into building up the conversion

my peugeot is that ISH tho!!!

knucks

In all honestly I enjoyed building up my bike, it makes me feel more accomplished and I learned a lot along the way, but I feel that I should have gotten a Mercier because then the chainline would be good, everything would work, etc etc..

Granted I'd have to get a new seat + new tires, as well as putting on a front brake..

cc700

in my experience, all the horizontal 80's road frames i can find for cheap are in crap condition and haven't been properly cared for.

i LOVE my mercier. i loved my conversion but it wasn't half the bike my mercier frame buildup is.

Suttree

+11 Ultimately it's about riding your bike--otherwise you are just a bike collector--

JamesGoodman

I road in the TA Century today and as I noted elsewhere, I saw many fixies and many freewheel singlespeeds. I saw every kind of imaginable bike, from cheap but really cool looking do it yourself conversions to the fanciest imaginable track frames and parts tweaked for the road (and a few quick laps around the Kissena Velodrome, included in the ride). (Some of the very coolest bikes were ridden by ride marshals). (I should add that there are parts of this ride--totally unpredictable surfaces on the walkway of long high bridges, for example, that it is simply unimaginable to me that people can ride fixies without brakes, but I saw people doing it with my own eyes.) When I was half the age I am now I used to build ten speed road bikes from old parts, including the complete rebuilding of my first road bike, a 1972 Peugot U-08. There was not a ball-bearing I didn't know how to unpack, clean, re-grease, repack, and resasemble. I even stripped the paint and applied several new coats. That was then, this is now. Two days ago--with a tiny fraction of the free time I had then and very little confidence in my mechanical ability let alone expertise--I was thrilled, thrilled, to successfully remove the chain from my newish Sputnik, degrease it and regrease it and put it back on. I know that will sound silly to some of the younger people on this forum, and some of the older people who have kept at it. But for me it was a thrill.

To make a long windy wordy entry short: different strokes for different folks. The important thing is to have a bike you like and ride, ride, ride. For the exercise high, for the carbon savings, for the pure pleasure of it, ride. If you have the time and know how and patience, do it yourself, from scratch. I could not be more jealous of the bikes you build. And if you are like me, without time, without patience, riding a single speed in part because I don't want to deal with complex maintenance of deraillers and complex care and feeding of carbon frames but just want to ride, go out a buy one of the steel or aluminium bikes off the rack. I bought a Sputnik five weeks ago and I have ridden it
way more than a thousand miles. Though I must admit it is not wholly off the rack. I swapped the wheels for Phil Woods laced to Deep Vs before I left the store.