Originally Posted by
Cjpatak
I'm hoping to start building but I have no knowledge or experience. I'm going for a clean simple contemporary look along the fixed gear realm but with multiple gears. A frame up build. I'm hoping for some wisdom as to where to start, what avenues to pursue, and what to avoid. I really like the aesthetics of fixies but am more city/road inclined; so with more than 3 gears. Derailers are fine but as clean and simple as possible. A classy timeless look. I'll be applying a custom paint design. Not sure what yet but I'm going to be very picky as to the looks of the gears, the spokes, handlebars, materials, etc. Possibly some product sources and technical literature? Thanks everyone!
Do you like the
aesthetics of fixies, or are you actually intending to ride with a fixed gear (i.e. no coasting)? Generally speaking, getting a lot of speeds out of a fixie is very difficult because complex shifting mechanisms tend to *need* some form of slack in order to function well. If you built up a modern derailleur bike but intentionally seized the freewheel, the cassette would yank on the lower chain the moment you stopped putting forward torque on the cranks, which could have exciting effects like dropping the chain and/or ripping the rear derailleur off the bike.
If you simply want a bike that doesn't have big external sprocket clusters and tensioners, internal-gear hubs are an option.
To my knowledge, the only practical way to build up a multi-speed fixed-gear bike is to use a fixed-gear internal hub, and as far as I know, the most speeds available is 3 (i.e. the Sturmey-Archer S3X hub). I'm not super familiar with these mechanisms, but they seem to have a reputation for sloppy function and fragility.