MrCjolsen

When you can build something just as good, if not better out of an old Peugeot for a fraction of the cost.

1fluffhead

Geometry of frame and rear facing dropouts.

gregg

People have done the math on here and the bottom line is that doing a conversion, while tons of fun and a great learning experience, is rarely cheaper than buying one of the bikes you mentioned in the title.

If you have a great source of super cheap parts and frames then go for it - otherwise you may end up with some headaches.

zip22

time, cost, rust, warranty, headaches.

celephaiz

because i didn't want an old peugeot, what of it?

recursive

Show me something you can build comparable to my rush hour for under $500. Using secret super cheap part sources is not allowed, since I don't have access to those.

Sinfield

because conversions suck and are ugly.

astrx

+1 for geometry. had two conversions and got tired of scraping my pedals

AfterThisNap

I used to build all my bikes from scratch, piece by piece. While it is fun, after a while the headaches incurred aren't worth it and box built bikes become more and more appealing.
My next MTB is going to be ordered from the factory because even with a dealer discount, buying a complete bike is almost 3x cheaper than buying the parts individually.
The same wasn't true w/my fixie, though I used a lot of used and circa 1980s parts which lowered the cost. I did have a lot of redundant costs too, as in having to buy 3 or 4 of something, or ordering the wrong parts on accident.

BTW, I sell the langster, Pista, and the bowery at my store. The pista wins hands down in terms of value and styling.

thurstonboise

Because Bike Culture is for sale nowdays.
Th 925 gets my vote for the coolest off the peg fixed.

brunop

you got that right bro!

Landgolier

Conversions make money sense if you get the frame for nothing or dirt cheap, but that's not what's driving this. Get used to it kids, we're past the era when to have a skateboard you needed an old rollerskate, a board, and a hacksaw. The new **** is good, I can't wait to buy it used in a couple of years.

Now if someone would just go ahead and invent the nylon wheel...

eddiebrannan

+1 and peugeot conversions suck harder and are more ugly, not to mention a huge pita cause of frenchiness

zelah

because Merciers go on ebay for under 370 shipped

i mean, i've replaced every single part on mine except for the frame, but still...i really like the frame

Landgolier

Ugly bikes make ugly conversions. My puke green 80's raleigh is built to be ugly, I like it that way. But I don't give a rat's ******** about anything somebody bought off the peg compared to this beautiful candy apple red with cream details nishiki I'm doing right now for a friend.

Anybody with $$$ can buy beauty, it's about creating beauty.

Aeroplane

You can buy it and ride it TODAY instead of finding out that you forgot to get brake cables, you need an odd-sized seatpost, finding a stem for a french headset, etc.

And the big one: Chainline

monsterkidz

Off the peg bikes, represent a quick and affordable start into riding fixed. For the most part you get a solid frame and generic components. In the time you locate that magic frame and then buy all the parts and put it all together, you could have been riding. Just my .02¢

*Aeroplane beat me to it*

queerpunk

most obvious answer: because there's a market!

only a fraction of people who ride bikes have ever been on sheldon brown's site. we, folks, are the minority. the obsessive. the people who love the feel of grease on our hands, who jump at the opportunity to use a new tool on some previously un-overhauled part on our bike. who fix when it's not broken.

don't you get it? not everybody is like people on this board. some people want to put a few benjamins on the counter and get handed a bike.

and that's okay by me.

Sinfield

no ****. the frenchiness (or "freedomness" if you're a republican) of Peugeots make them probably MORE expensive to convert than it would cost to buy an off the peg bike. This is coming from someone who got into fixies via the crap Peugeot conversion route.

zelah

thats how i stripped like 3 parts of my bike in 2 days....but it was worth it

gorn

I'm a fan of the conversion route. I think mine came out less that I would've paid for an off the peg fixed gear, but even so I didn't want an off the peg fixed gear. I got a 1988 midrange Colnago road bike that was starting to rust and the saddle and bars were holding water (No idea what the previous owner did to it) for a good price. I spent hours stripping the paint/rust off the frame and repainting it and building it up and finally riding it. And that's what I wanted to do and I'm glad I did it and I love the bike.

One of my best friends rode a pista (Hers was actually the first fixed gear I rode since my tricycle). She thought about building one but didn't have time to do it, so she bought a complete bike that met her needs. And it did and she loved it.

There is nothing wrong with conversions despite what some people here say. However there is also nothing wrong with off the peg bikes. Building a bike takes away from riding time. It just depends on what you want to do.

redcurrycelt

My Peugeot, now sitting stripped in the corner, is still probably the best-riding bike I've ever had, and light and stiff in a way it had no business being (straight-guage **** steel what?!). I spent $250 on it (counting the $150 nashbar wheelset and tubes and tires).

With the stock cranks, chainline was totally spot-on using the inner ring spot. It got the nasty rusted cable guides taken off and a really awful paint-on black paintjob. It was a non-pretty bike with stamped road dropouts.

Eventually it got a little annoying and I stripped it to build up a new bike but it still holds as the most fun to ride bike e-var. Maybe it was the hyper short stem, flip and chops and obscenely long wheelbase and fork trail. Who knows.

All of the money I spent on parts ($225) has been recouped as all of the parts were decent enough to take to a new bike(s).

Most of the cheap trackies come with awful wheels, laughable saddes, ugly stems, crap pedals, and graphics that make you want to electric-tape them over, not wheelie up to the bar to show off.

Both of my frequent riders are nice older frames built up with a personalized mishmash of good quality, very functional parts. I spent $550 on my awesome TT conversion (counting the parts from the peugeot) and just over $600 on my geared roadbike.

Both are very singular rides with better parts than what comes with similarly priced bikes. Both have caused me to yell and scream and groan and cut myself and pore through Sheldon's site for tech info.

In their way, like kids, they've endeared themselves to me by virtue of their troublesome birth. ..and that's fun, for me.

schnee

I create plenty of beauty in the rest of my life.

When it comes to bikes, I don't want to wrench, build, strip down, rebuild, troll eBay, paint, experiment, clean or wait around. I want to ride. So, I bought a bike, and I ride. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

Oh, wait, I remember now. Reverse elitism. 'I'm poor, so I'm more legitimate'. Yeah.

ffonst

sure, you can MAYBE build up a conversion of the same quality as a pista/langster/whatever for about the same price, if you want to spend hours, days, or weeks sourcing your parts at the cheapest rates you can find, plus days or weeks waiting for them to come in from 6 different vendors, plus the time it takes to build the bike up.

That's what I did, because I find that kind of thing to be a lot of fun, and I have a road bike I could ride in the interim. Most people would rather spend that time actually out on the road, riding their bike.

Also, when you do a conversion, it usually comes out as a marginally better bike for the same price, rather than an equally good bike for less money... at least in my experience.

Sinfield

don't get me started on the people who ruin nice vintage road bikes in the name of fixed conversions.

If I want to build a track bike of beauty, I'll buy a Keirin frame or some radical carbon track frame and build a fixie up around that. If I want to build a road bike as a thing of beauty, I'll buy an appropriate road frame and make it beautiful. I won't take a road bike, strip it of its parts, slap a cheap set of no name fixed wheels on it and try to pawn it off as an art project. I'll call it like it is. I was too poor to buy a real track bike so I converted a crappy road bike.