...but don't avoid road frames just because of fear of pedal strike. Hundreds of us on these forums have ridden road conversions for millions of miles w/o killing ourselves from pedal strike. I've struck a few times (but oddly, never on a fixed gear) but once I learned how to ride well it never happened again. I do a several road races per year on a road-fixed.

If you are handy with a wrench, have some patience, some advice (such as that from Sheldon and the rest of us here), and ideally access to a good LBS or community bike shop/coop/junkyard with used parts access you can build a good first fixie pretty cheap. One of my main rides (since upgraded seriously) was super trusty for over a year and cost a grand total of 200 bucks. And even though everyone will tell you that Suzue jr's are crap, if you find a hub or wheel super cheap with those, ride it for a while...