Rowan

There are two bike shops in the town where I am at the moment, one that specialises in BMX and MTB, the other a bike shop that has a full range. I want to build up a fixed gear using an old Venture (department store bike ) that has a great lugged frame and is pretty lights when stripped down. So, I go to each bike shop, and these are the abridged versions of the conversations.

Me: Do you have track cogs?
LBS 1a: Errrrr... front or rear?
Me: Rear, a track cog for spinning on to a hub to make a fixed gear.
LBS 1a: Do you mean these (and shows me chainrings in a showcase)?
LBS Dude 1b (I can use "dude" because they were all under 20) who was standing around said: No man, fixed gears, like they use on track bikes.
LBS 1: No we don't. Have you tried the bike shop around the corner?

Went to bike shop around the corner.

Me: Do you stock track cogs?
LBS 2: (Puzzled look on face). No. (turns away and continues something menial).
My friend: You know what we're talking about don't you?
LBS 2: You mean the cassette?
Me: No, a single cog that spins on to a hub to make a fixed gear... like a track bike.
LBS: No we don't do track bikes.

It's a town where FG is unheard of, obviously. Maybe it's the end of the season and everyone is tired of people coming in and asking for track cogs. Who knows.

My friend and I discussed retail on the way home. Particularly how a really switched-on LBS dude would have dragged the QBP catalogue from under the counter and found what I wanted. "I'll get it in by this time next week" is a statement that would have delighted me.

I doubt these people would know what QBP is. And people wonder why bike shops' market share is declining against internet shops. Now... who has the cheapest track cogs on-line?

operator

Just get a DA cog online. Cheap as hell. Available in 1/8 or 3/32. Personally i'd say **** the 1/8 ****, loud and it's heavier.

urbanknight

I think my brother and I bought every one of my track cogs (we had 2 each of 14, 15, 16, and 17) online or at a swapmeet. Despite 3 local shops displaying the latest Cannondale track bike in their window (this was the mid 90s), none of them had track cogs available.

Pete07

I made conversion with parts I got from Harris Cyclery online - trying doing some homework by reading the https://sheldonbrown.com/harris/fixed.html

From the vocabulary I picked up, a track COG refers specifically to the 3/32" width and a track SPROCKET is the 1/8" stuff. I used the 3/32" setup as I had a good inventory of chainrings already.

Good luck - I'm having lots of fun riding my new rig.

Rowan

Errr... this is not my first FG. Track cog is what I want. It wouldn't have made any difference to these LBSs if I had used different terminology.

As it happens, the first FG I built had a 17T cog that came from a very old cassette, five-speed I think. The cog performed the same function as the lockring on new cassettes -- that is, it locked the cassette to the freehub. The trouble is that the bike and associated bits are a long way away, and I can't remember the variety of cassette the cog came from -- I suspect SunTour.

Maybe if RetroGrouch is about, he might give me a clue. Otherwise, I might start hanging around the garbage dump/tip shop and secondhand shops to take a close look at the rear wheels of old roadbikes. Or maybe I'll just pirate a BMX freewheel from some unsuspecting kid's bike in the neighbourhood and get it spot welded x 4 to fix it. (j-o-k-i-n-g!)

thurstonboise

ummm....
Cogs are cogs regardless of width. Sprocket has always meant chainring to me.

Just get a DA or EAI cog from whoever has the best price. 3/32" is fine.

operator

Sorry I have never see anyone making this particular distinction, you ask for cog and you specifiy size. The terms however sprocket and cog both refer to the same thing but does not differ based on "track" or "road" size.

LóFarkas

^^^
Yup.

BTW, I've never seen "sprocket" used to mean chainring. Sheldon and a few others use sprocket to mean cog, but "cog" is much more widespread.

grolby

Rowan - that was almost certainly a 6-speed Shimano Uniglide cassette, if it was a cassette. If it was 5-speed and SunTour, it was a freewheel.

As for "sprocket," it is a universal term (not just a bicycle one) for a toothed gear in a chain drive system, and can be used interchangeably to refer to the front chainring/chainwheel or rear cog. So your bike has both a front sprocket and a rear sprocket. Width, of course, has nothing to do with it.

TallRider

Wow, that's crazy. And funny. I'm often surprised by what some of the mechanics at my LBS don't know. When I picked up a headset spacer yesterday, I commented to the mechanic that this threaded fork had been cut with more length than it needed, perhaps because the bike originally needed a cable hanger for centerpull brakes. The guy said, "you mean, for cantilever brakes?" Even though the frame obviously didn't have any bosses. I explained to him what a centerpull brake was ("kind of like a U-brake that used to be on mountain bikes, except the bosses don't need to be built into the frame") and he seemed interested.
This same mechanic once thought that single-pivot sidepull brakes had a center bolt that was made of aluminum, so it wouldn't be safe to bend it back into shape. Ah, yes. But I guess current mechanics are almost never going to see a centerpull brake, and rarely see single-pivot sidepulls. And this guy knows more than I do about threadless steering/headset systems, integrated crank/bb systems, etc.

top506

Everybody knows that Spacely makes sprockets and Cogswell makes cogs
Top
(dating himself again...)

Rowan

Thanks! It definitely was a cassette.

humble_biker

Sproket is a Dog on The Jetson's isn't it?

simplify

Moose

Nope, that was Astro.