...these fixed kids chop the derailleur hangers off their old road frames, it's hardly like they get in the way. Screw redundancy, I say.

The majority of fixie conversions are done on bikes considered expendable, or parts fodder, by more traditional enthusiasts. That's as it should be; once a bike is extensively modified the chances of it ever being returned to original are very slim.

Trimming off the brazeons and hangers somehow satisfies these builders. I don't see the point myself, but they must have their reasons. It would be foolish to butcher a fine frame, but to do this to a very common frame is not a great loss.

The real tragedy is how many thousands of bikes, fair quality to really good makes, are scrapped daily because they aren't wanted, went out of style, or because the bill to get them fixed at the LBS exceeded the cost of a new Walmart MTB. Now that rankles my azz.

I think that it goes along with the whole fixie ethic, which appears to be bicycle incarnation of the original chopper ethic that applied to motorcycles. Basically, they remove everything that is not absolutely essential to riding the bike. I do admire their single-minded pursuit of their ideal, but I see your point.

Overall, I take FlatTop's position: at least they're not throwing them away.

On second thought, maybe they chop the hangers and braze-ons because they can't afford an NJS track frame.

I really don't know. This question brings up some pretty deep stuff. When does one cease to be a "wannabe" and become a "being?"

They chop 'em off to watch us groan in agony over it.

-Kurt

you guys have it all wrong, it's because pressurised fire is fun!

I didn't cut the derailleur hanger off my Battaglin conversion, but took off all the braze-ons except the pump nipple. It's really cute.

- Joel

My take on it is that they're obsessed with getting rid of anything and everything on the bike that isn't absolutely necessary for it to function in a most basic way, and to a lot of them that means a very clean, uncomplicated "look" that they consider simple, virtuous and honest. Even safety is compromised (who needs brakes, anyway?) for appearance.

I agree with scooper it is 99 percent for asthetic value that they do it, there is no reason it is necessary.

Nah, I think the motorcycle chopper analogy best fits the earliest mountain bikes, when they were figuring out ways to add gears, better brakes, and moto-style handlebars to old clunkers.

I don't get the whole fixed-gear thing anyway.
Do they LIKE walking their caponized bikes up hills?
Top

As one who has been riding fixies long enough to be completely bemused by their current heptitude, I gotta say I think the mech hanger removal is simply a fashion thing. Easy enough to find an old roadie that is nearly braze on free (I think I've got at least a dozen of 'em in the house now); the removal of the mech hanger serves absolutely no purpose. You're not gonna bash your knees into it doing a skid-stop, FGS.

Which leaves aesthetics as a purpose. Now I ain't gonna rage against the pursuit of aesthetics or nothin' (I do like them lugged steel frames), but there's too often an element of fashion in aesthetics.

I do like seeing the old rides reborn, just not completely hacked. Years back (gah, it pains me to think of this) I was married to an art conservator... now I learn from my exs, and one of the things this one taught me was a conservator's credo: never do anything that can't later be undone. Makes a lotta sense on the older stuff.

Still, if the choice is between the dump and someone hacking stuff off so they can make a fixie, well, I'll choose the later. But here at least, old road frames are getting thin on the ground, they ain't dump bound. I think there are two reasons behind this: one, a lot of the bikes I see in thrifts etc. are from the mountain bike boom; although I see a fair number of old roadies, the number has certainly declined in the last five years; and two, a lot of younger riders snatch 'em up fo fixies. I get at least a couple of emails a month from local folks looking for a frame for a conversion. And two of the local dealers have asked me to explain to them how to do a conversion.

I'm glad to see them riding, and I hope they follow my ex-wife's conservator rule when making their fixies.

It's a sick, perverse, stupid practice if the frame is of decent quality. The bolt-on derailleur "claw"/hanger on my 1971 Nishiki always gave me an inferiority complex, since almost every other double-butted CrMo or MnMo frame had an integral hanger. Nishiki finally got it right a few years later.

__
Disclosure: I hate single-speed. I have no interest in fixed gear. I really like derailleurs and consider what Frank Berto calls "gear phreaking" and gear changing itself to be a vital part of the cycling experience.

I agree, although with my tired old 64 year-old knees and these San Francisco hills I really don't have a choice; it's derailleurs or I don't ride.

"Disclosure: I hate single-speed. I have no interest in fixed gear. I really like derailleurs and consider what Frank Berto calls "gear phreaking" and gear changing itself to be a vital part of the cycling experience."

Ah, I just like bikes... don't really care how they're set up, just so they're being ridden. I don't like seeing stuff hacked off bikes, though. I try to set my bikes up a bit different; I think I'm going to set up an old Follis with half-step gearing, for instance, think it'd be cool around RVA. And I wanna build a FG snow bike out of an old Trek MTB. To bad it doesn't snow here that much... I like the wrenching and the difference twixt rides.

"Do they LIKE walking their caponized bikes up hills?"

I dunno... a lotta fixed gear fashionista hubs (NYC, Chicago, my own RVA) are pretty flat. The only place I can think of that has a lot of fixie riders plus hills is SF, though I am old and cranky and prolly wrong on that. There's a lot of fixies in RVA, but very,very few are seen in Charlottesville, just up the road and much much hillier. Could be RVAs art school, or it could be C'villes hills. I dunno. I don't usually take my fixies to C'ville when I visit (though I have). RVA's got hills, but if you stay in the fan/northside/west end, they ain't much.

What does blow me away are the faux fixies. Either they're built with a kid's bike coaster hub (and I wonder if the riders really understand the maintainece on those) or with a freewheel. At least three times I've seen riders brakeless on a freewheel, which makes me wonder, although that might explain why a) they're going real slow; and b) they're riding on the sidewalk. Stick a couple brakes on, folks. Please. And I see too many fixie riders who apparently cannot a) trackstand or b) skid stop or c) resist stop, all riding brakeless. You can spot em cause they go real slow and run all the lights in the fan...

My fave had made his bike a single speed by removing all the mechs, shortening the chain and putting it around the middle cog of his freewheel. In a mad quest for fashion, he had, when removing the mechs, also removed the brakes. Don't worry, though, he could brake by the simple expedient of scuffing his feet on the ground... I kid you not.

Going up the hill you just stand. After a while on a singlespeed (freewheel or fixed) the legs get stronger. On a fixie it's really going down the hill that's the hard part.

Anyways... I cut some braze-ons off a Schwinn World Sport a while back, but kept the hanger. It's by no means a collector bike, so I didn't feel bad about it. Now I want to convert it to a 3-speed internal. I'll either have to find bolt on stops (probably what I'll do), run full housing and zipties, or find a new frame. I learned my lesson and luckily it was cheap. The frame was only $30 and not something history will miss.

If anyone out there is thinking about it, don't, it's a bad idea. It's not a track frame. It will never be a track frame. Suck it up and leave the braze-ons or buy a track frame.

I like the way they look so much that I plan to build one even though I don't think I'd like riding one. You never know, though. I didn't think I'd like single speed until I built one and started riding it. My geared bike have been neglected ever since. I'm looking for one of the early '70s Gitane TdFs that were built with no derailer hanger. They also have no stops, guides or shift bosses. It's going to have tubulars and cowhorn bars with a single reverse lever for a MAFAC Competition front brake. I'll tell my wife that I'm building it to sell it. She'll roll her eyes because I always say that and I haven't sold one yet.

I can definitely identify with that...........

To OP: For the looks. I doubt anyone is thinking about what will be done with the frame after they've used it.

Nope, I don't think VCU has anything to do with the fixies.
Hey, I run all the lights in the Fan and my bikes have brakes! I've got a three-speed coaster brake conversion - aethetically a faux fixie, if you will - and a Redline 9-2-5. Those freewheel-no brake cats are scary, I've added/fixed the brakes on several of my friends' bikes out of sympathy. My friend had the shoe-leather brakes on his old bike, I hate to say it but it was probably for the best it got jacked!

about a bazillion bikes get crushed every year, so one running with no hanger doesn't bother me a lot. I'm with Pogue - I'm amazed that fixies are fashionable. For any really long rides they become sheer torture devices, because of the difficulty involved in stretching whilst the pedals are going around. I ride mine a lot in the spring, because that is just what roadies do to get back souplesse. I ride it up some pretty big hills, because souplesse is all about turning the cranks over at a high RPM whilst being really smoof. And you learn that by riding down the really big hills.

And my fixie has always had a front and a rear brake, although I can do a reasonably good job stopping without using the brakes. Pay attention, all of you new fixie riders! Someday that garbage truck is gonna emerge from that blind alley and you are gonna plaster yourself all over the side of it, because back pressure isn't going to stop you in time! Put a front brake on it, anyway. They are simple little things.

They don't weigh as much as you [fixie riders] think either.

And if you believe that they make you look like a sissy, put a front disc on, for god's sake.

-Kurt

Because a little less than half of the derailleur hanger makes a nifty bottle opener.

Schwinn World Sport, found by the side of the road, now a daily commuter in Seattle.

Being both a vintage fan and a rider in the process of building my first fixie conversion, I think it's pretty hypocritical for any vintage-purist to criticize a ss/fixed rider for 'ruining' a frame purely for aesthetics - just because vintage aesthetics don't (usually) involve modifying the frame, it doesn’t mean that the NOS crowd isn't every bit as fixated on looks. Different bikes for different ideals.

I was into computer case modification a few years ago. For one computer, I spend hours soldering extra lengths of wire onto every part so that I could route all the power cables along the outer edges of the case - to make sure I had a nice clean look on the inside (to view through the lexan window). Cables running all over the place never looks that good, and neither does a lot of unnecessary clutter; in a computer or on a bike frame it just looks a little sloppy.

Vintage bikes and conversions are a lot cheaper than track bikes (unless one is lucky), so I can completely understand why someone would chop off the unnecessary bits from an older frame - they want to dedicate that bike to being fixed gear and there's nothing wrong with that - it wouldn't be getting any use otherwise.

I'll completely agree that if people are chopping braze-on's off of Paramounts, PX-10's, or other highly collectable bikes, but I really haven't seen much of that. I'm building up an 86-87 Peugeot fixie, lower end frame, and will probably chop off the unnecessary things. The frame's got a dent in the top tube, wasn't that great to start with, and had components that were nearly impossible to replace. Assuming I can match the pain colors, I'm not going to feel guilty going at the frame with a dremel. Even if I ruin it's chances of being built up to stock again, it'll still be getting much more attention and ride time than it ever would have otherwise.

If it's any comfort to anyone, I'm building a fixed conversion on a Nigel Dean handbuilt 531 frame, and I'm not cutting ANYTHING off. The fixed crowd would, I'm sure, want me to take off the der hangers, the cable hangers everything, but hey, stuff them. I'm thinking about making another on the cheapest servicable frame I have, to leave at Waterloo Station in London. I'm in London about twice a week on sales visits, and I ride to the station at this end. I'd love to be able to hop on a bike at the other end to get to my meetings, but it will need to be as simple as possible (little opportunity for maintenance, except with a multitool at the roadside, and need to look like crap. I'm thinking a fix on the oldest crappest 10 speed I can buy.....

But some folks just want a coaster-brake bike...

...and some folks just like to coast. I like the combination of a freewheel coaster-brake hub supplemented by a front brake. There were vintage bikes made with this combination.

I'm building up a Schwinn World Tourist for the wife, with a Sturmey Archer 3-speed in place of the 10-speed stuff. We're just not derailleur people...she doesn't like to shift them, I don't like to adjust them. To each their own.

I like the minamilist setup that the guy I bought this bike from did for a front brake. I don't really see the need for a back brake, given that the vast majority of your stopping power comes from the front, and you have the ability to control the back wheel with your feet.