Hey all,

I recently picked up a cheapo ten-speed in great working order, seems to be an 80's era Huffy, though I am not knowledgable about such things. It is basically just to use to get around campus, and works great for that.

I have been reading a lot about fixed-gear conversions on here, on Sheldon's page, etc., and would like to try it out, but have a few limitations. First, I have pretty much no cash to spend on this. Second, I have no bike tools or access to any short of going to a bike shop.

My plan is to figure out what kind of freewheel is on this thing, and get it taken off by the bike shop...as long as they charge very little for it. The only part I would need to buy then is the cog and lockring I suppose. It is my understanding that once the freewheel is off, you can install these in its place?

The chainrings are riveted and I don't see a way to get them off of the crank, so at least for now I would have to deal with having two chainrings for no good reason, until I could afford a replacement.

I'd use spacers to line the cog up with a chainring, get some loctite on there and use a lockring, and then once more to the bike shop to shorten the chain. I plan to leave the brakes on and just leave the rear wheel dished the way it is for now; yeah it isn't pretty, but I am not confident enough to do that myself even if I had the tools, cannot afford to have it done, aaand I kind of want this project to be easily reversible if possible. In the future I would look for other cheapo bikes to get parts off of, like cranks and chainrings, or nicer wheels or something.

My overall question is, is this plan viable? Can it work without spending too much more money? Am I missing anything? And finally, is there a cheaper way I haven't thought of? I have seen a lot of threads talking about cheap conversions, and replies often reference what are (to me at this time) parts or tools or other things that are way out of my budget at the moment.

One other thing is, I am aware of the risks involved with actually riding, and with using this method of conversion. I plan to ride very carefully and be gentle with the backwards pedalling until I get used to it all.

Thanks!