Reinofratch

Hi guys. I am a daily commuter and am thinking about building a fixie to change things up. Especially now that my daily(soon to be my bad weather bike) is upgraded as far as I care to upgrade it.

The one thing im worried about the pedal impacting the road in turns. I know most fixed bikes have shorter cranks, but im curious if there are any frames with a high crank tube? Where the crank center would be somewhat higher off the ground. Possibly with a fork position to keep the wheel away from my toes as well.

I am a tall guy and hardly ever set my feet down in a ride so a above average top tube height wouldn't be too big of a deal either.

Any suggestions on a frame or whole bike to look out for would be most appreciated!
I shoupd probably also mention I dont really want to spend more than 300$ total to get it rolling until I upgrade the wheels to something nice.

Thanks in advance.
Richard 'Ratchet' Boatwright

hueyhoolihan

i wouldn't worry about pedal clearance, IME, people readily learn what works and what doesn't. just don't put 26" MTB rims on frame made for 700c, that's asking a lot.

rms13

frames with "track geometry" have higher bottom bracket height (what you are calling high crank tube). That combined with shorter cranks like 165mm will make it much less likely to have pedal strike when cornering

rms13

$300 total for the complete bike or for the frame?

europa

My Europa is a converted road bike and so has the low bb. When she was fg and running 170mm cranks, I'd occasionally touch down but it was never a real problem. As I rode her more, I eventually learned not to turn sharply into a corner ie, I'd take a more sweeping line and the problem more or less went away. Mind you, I eventually upgraded the crankset and went to 165 when it definitely went away.

My Hillbrick on the other hand, was designed as a fg and has never had a pedal strike with 170mm cranks.

Summary? Pedal strike isn't a real problem however, when you eventually feel like upgrading your cranks, consider your bb height when choosing the length ... and you'll know whether you'd like shorter or not because you'll have been riding your bike.

Paradoxically, my Europa now has gears again, and 170mm cranks and I occasionally get pedal strikes because I've adopted the freewheel habit of turning tight into corners but retained the fg habit of keeping on pedaling. This old dog aint too good at new tricks.

bro

dat crank tube. yo, my buddy just got one of these, arrived pretty quick too. he switch the handlebars out but we're really diggin it for the price. Save Up to 60% Off Kilo TT Fixie and Track Bikes | Single Speed Bikes | Mercier Bikes - Kilo TT Fixed Gear Singlespeed Fixie

GMJ

If you're very worried about pedal strike, consider going clipless. The smaller pedals have helped me avoid PS. Combine a decent BB drop and some regular length cranks, you have to be leaning pretty hard to get any kind of strike.

Reinofratch

Thanks for clarifying the bottom bracket name. And for the very helpful answer! Ill search bikes with track geometry and make a list to search on Craigslist!

Reinofratch

For the ridable completed bike. Ive got cheap pedals, and seat. And I plan to buy used so cranks, forks, and handlebars should hopefully come with.

Scrodzilla

Life is wacky.

garage sale GT

Buying all the parts will probably be more expensive than getting a bike from BD.

rms13

Used from craiglist or something like

Save Up to 60% Off Track Bikes | SingleSpeed Bikes | Fixie | Windsor Bikes - The Hour | Save up to 60% off Fixed gear and singlespeed bicycles

Save Up to 60% Off Fixie | Hipster | Single Speed | Track Bikes | Road Bikes | Windsor Bikes - TimeLine | Fixed gear bikes that fit wide tires | Save up to 60% off new singlespeed bikes

Save Up to 60% Off Motobecane Track Bikes | SingleSpeed | Fixed Gear - Messenger Track

You will never build a decent bike from scratch for $300. I did a "budget" build last year and cost me about $900 for all the parts. Buying complete will always be cheaper

Reinofratch

I already ride clipless but plan on starting with platforms then this bike will get my roadbikes pedals when I upgrade them to click'rs. Im going to build this slow. But I wanna ride it throughout the process.

Reinofratch

I know but its more of a project. I plan to upgrade a frame and hopefully when I upgrade the frame all my upgraded parts work with the new one.

Thanks for the links! I know buying complete gets better bang for the buck but I really just want to slap a decent fixed rear on a used frame with a good geometry and start riding now and slowly build my dream bike out of it as I go.

Plus im the guy that likes for my stuff to be different, and a stockbike from an online store just doesnt appeal to me compared to making my own myself.

The fact that my commuter has average bottom braket height my favorite trails all have sharp narrow turns leads to pedal strike every so often on a bike with a free wheel. Thats why I care so much about the height on a frame for the fixed build.

prooftheory

Your budget is completely unrealistic for what you want. Even if you buy all the very bottom of the barrel parts a build will come out to more than $300. Price it out and see.

rms13

Yeah, like I said I did a complete build last year. I didn't use complete bottom of the barrel parts but I used what I would call "budget parts". The cheapest options for parts that were not going to fall apart after 6 months and my bike cost $900 for everything.

One of those bikesdirect bikes will give you a decent enough frame to build on so you buy the complete for $300 and then upgrade and change parts over time

bmontgomery87

Buy a complete.

Even if you already had a decent frameset, a cheap set of wheels plus a crankset is going to put you near budget.

Jared.

If you have a bike co-op you can build a bike for under $300. It will be all, or almost all used parts. The new parts will be completely bottom of the line, as will some or all of the used parts, and the whole thing will be completely undesirable.

Reinofratch

So youre saying the crankset has to be changed as well? I was planning on keeping the double on whatever 100$ used craigslist bike I ended up with and buying a rear wheel/or hub, a tube, and tire. Then upgrading from there as I felt the urge.

But recently I tried to get a triple for my road bike and found out how expensive cranksets are. That would indeed put me well over budget and then the complete bikes would make sense. So just for a last bit of clarity. The crank set must be changed to line up with the rear sprocket? I cant just get a wheel or hub and a chain then start riding?

prooftheory

This is more or less correct without getting super ghetto. Look here for info on chainlines.

A $100 craigslist bike that isn't already a fixed gear is pretty unlikely to be a good target for conversion because they typically have vertical dropouts and anyway you already seemed like you were concerned about pedal strike you why wouldn't you want to get a bike with a higher bottom bracket? You are also unlikely to find $100 fixed gear bikes on craigslist that are worth that much money. They are usually walmart thruster's that someone is trying to sucker somebody else into buying.

bmontgomery87

^^What he said.

Your chainline is going to be all screwed up if you just try to throw a wheelset on it and ride it fixed.

You either have to increase your budget or be okay with riding a cheap complete for a while. I commuted 10 miles each way on a 200 dollar critical cycles bike all fall. It's doable.