Road parts on track frame?
 

So I was wondering what the different between track and road parts are. I ride a mercier kilo tt on the street and already have bought a road handle and stem for it. I am thinking about buying a mavic ksyrium sl front wheel to switch with my stock Alexrim 30mm deep front wheel. What would be the benefit of this besides weight? Is it practical to get road parts for a fixed set up if I ride only in the streets and not the track?

No, I'd say it's sensible to use road parts if you're riding on the road. The only caveat is drive train parts: Road bikes use 1/2 x 3/32" chain while most track bikes use 1/2 x 1/8" chain. You can run track chain on road components but NOT vice-versa. Modern road chain rings have ramps, pins, and profiled teeth to assist with shifting; these features are superfluous on a single speed or fixed gear and in fact may lead to inadvertent chain derailment.

HTH...

The actual specs of your parts are more important than "road" vs "track." The only major difference is the rear end - the frame spacing and the track ends that you have vs. the horizontal or vertical dropouts of road bikes. It would be rather difficult to actually put gears on your bike, but there is nothing wrong with putting "road" components on it.

To answer your question, the Mavic front wheel will be fine. As will any 700c wheel.

I suspect another fixie dude..

I think just the opposite, yes u can put the front road wheel in there w/o any problem, the bike will handle the same tho, doubt you will notice something else but maybe some stiffness but besides that nothing else.

If the BB axle is long enough u could put a road crankset in there, the bike u have in there is practically a road bike with track drop outs, so u could get away mixing stuff in there. It was a real racing track bike i would not even try to add road stuff in there but in yours probably it will work just fine maybe with minimal or maybe with zero adjustments. Performance wise? maybe none.

Good luck.

First off the chain size is no different then they were prior to STI, so any older parts designed for the freewheel age of 5, 6, and 7 speed clusters will work, and these parts are readily available new, the shifter system isn't available new but you can find them a lot of times new on E-bay or lightly worn, but chains and freewheels are being made new and IRD makes the best freewheel.

And as another poster said, no problem with the wheel.

I assume you must be riding the track bike on the street now, is so then obviously you've had brakes installed, that part is the toughest since real track bikes did not come with any brakes or any drillings or brake bridge for brakes. I've seen track bikes converted for road use but they could only put a front brake on since drilling a hole through the fork is fairly easy whereas putting a brake bridge on the rear is a different nearly impossible situation. If the brake bridge is there and drilled for a brake and the front fork is drilled for a brake then the bike wasn't a true hardcore track bike. Also on a track bike you need to buy short reach brake calipers.

Track bikes usually used a round instead of a flat fork seen on road bikes. So if you have a true or unconverted track fork for brakes the forks will flex when braking because they weren't designed to be used for brakes, they were designed for heavy torque and to reduce that kind of flexing and forces incurred when entering banked turns. So you might want to get a road fork which will of course have the brake drilling.

And track bikes are noticeably stiffer then road bikes because of the tremendous amount of torque a track racer will place on the bike, a normal road bike would flex too much causing a loss in power and maybe even snap a frame. But if you don't mind that kind of ride your ok, get a shock absorbing saddle, get wider tires like 700c x 25 or 26 and run lower air pressure then you would with a 23, this will take some of the harshness out. Here's a great site to figure you tire pressure, use the second calculator, the first and third one are not as detailed; simply add up your bikes weight plus your weight enter that figure into the calculator using the 40/60 ratio and you can easily tell that with a wider tire you can run less pressure and that less pressure will result in a slightly better ride. Possible problem with the wider tires is that track bikes run extremely close tolerances and they might not fit, but you can always try and see. I have a bike that if I use anything larger then 20 then I have to deflate the tire to get it pass the seat tube, and with 25 or 26 I have to squish flat the tire against the seat tube to get it out.

rekmeyata - OP is riding a Kilo TT, found on bikesdirect.com

Although everything you said is correct, I'd venture a guess that very little of it is applicable to the OP's bike. I've never actually ridden a Kilo, but I believe they are meant more for the road and not a true "hardcore track" bike.

I didn't see the Kilo mentioned anywhere on his post so you must know him through other postings for having that bike. Thanks for the info.

OP; great looking bike though, I really like the forks they're using.

It's the 2nd sentence. ;)

OP: You will be fine. I actually converted my Kilo OS to a 3 speed (see link in my sig if you're curious).