I'm new to the forum so excuse me if this is considered a dumb question...

I want to purchase an old either road or track bike and use it just for commuting to school instead of taking my regular road bike. My hopes are to have a track bike in the end. If i get a road bike, is it possible to convert vertical dropouts to horizontal dropouts? Where would i get horizontal dropouts to weld on to the frame after i cut the old ones out?

My second question is if it is possible to add stamped lugs onto the old frame. I am looking for a steel frame to do this all on. If I can add the stamped lugs, where do I find them? Ebay, or a local shop? Does anyone have any reccomendations for all of this or should I just drop it and toss some cash on a real track bike and forget the work? I just love the look of vintage track bikes with nervex lugs and was hoping to get a cheap fake version just for commuting.

well...the lugs on a lugged frame really do a job, rather than provide ornamentation. It'd really be cheaper to buy an 80ish or 70ish road bike with horizontal drops and lugs in place, rather than try to build one up from a tig-welded dealie. The assembly of an older steel bike is done (usually) with bronze brazing...it is entirely possible to heat the dropouts to the point of melting the brazing and pull 'em out, and replace 'em with whatever, and re-braze 'em. The frame repair guys do that all of the time...

but...they have the jigs and everything to keep the bike in line, instead of crabbing down the road like that skyed 1964 ford f150 fwd that crashed into the side of the mud bog one too many times. Really. you can get a frame for 10-20 bucks that'll do you for a lugged steel fixie.

Where is my best bet for finding a frame? Garage sales and ebay? I'm living in D.C. for the summer so I dont know of many LBS's... I went to Philly a couple weeks ago and they had a shop with a bunch of old cruisers and road bikes. I didnt notice any track bikes, but I wasn't specifically looking at the time though.

you don't really need a track bike although it'd be very cool if you found one. A track bike has muy steeper angles, rear facing rear dropouts, and no place to mount brakes. A road bike is much less twitchy on, well, the road, and if you find one with horizontal drops you can get the chain adjustment that you need. A complete bonus is the hole in the front fork for a brake. EBay has about a million of 'em every day - or post your size and see if anyone here has a good candidate for you.

If you just want to goof around on an old road bike, then yeah, garage sales, Value Village, Goodwill, all of those places are a good place to start. I see old bikes out in the garbage a lot too, even a decent Peaugot yesterday, but upon closer inspection, the drops were rusted through

The easiest is probably getting the stuff off of Ebay. I bought a frame/fork, headset, seatpost, bars, cranks, wheels from Ebay, then I bought a new BB and chain from my lbs. The frame is a 70's steel lugged which was in almost perfect condition for a good price. If you are going to ride mostly on roads, I would recommend a road frame and not a track frame, and build a fixie which you can ride on the tracks for fun as well. You wont need to cut and replace the drop outs either.

great bikes for fix gear converting are the 80s schwinn LeTours made in Japan.Cheap at places like Goodwill or yard sales.Lot of other tricks too,like reversing the drop bars and cutting them off, Or pulling a fixed hub off an old schwinn exercise bike.Mainly though you will need to go with a good wheel and tire combo to get a good road fixed gear bike ride.Keep it cheap!--sam

I'll second the '80's LeTour suggestion. These are all over garage sales and thrift shops for very little cash. Also bikes from the '80's to look for would be some of steel Treks, and mid to upper range Centurions (Ironman models come to mind), Miyata, Fuji, Bridgestone.........

I've seen all these types for under $50 at one time or another.

Yeah, just find an old Fuji or something and convert it.

Some helpful links:

• Fixed Gear on the Cheap
• Sheldon Brown
• Sheldon on fixed gear conversions which is prob what you want. Here he talks about what kind of bikes to look for: should be very helpful.
• If you want to go the easy way get an old bike and throw on a fixed rear wheel. For that I would check out IRO cycles.

If you have some fixed specific questions it might be better to do some searches on the Fixed Gear and SS forum.