a friend of mine sent me this link, when I inquired how she wants the fixed gear she wants me to build for her to look:

https://www.frankencycle.com/

it seems like the motherload of drew'ed bikes! the only redeeming features of this business is that it is owned and staffed by women, which is awesome, and they are keeping bikes on the road, but geeze, some of those hacked up frames made me sad!

I think I'm going to be sick. They butchered a perfectly good Specialized Allez in 47cm (Mis-measured as a 44cm).

the saddest part to me is that someone took the time to turn a firenze into a fixedgear conversion! HAHAHAHA!

doesnt look like any overly nice bikes met an untimely death, no classics destroyed. more power to the frankenpeoples.

(sorry, the only allez's ill ever be able to get worked up about would be the ones made by 3rensho)

The steel Specialized Allez were good frames.

i know they were nice, but they were not amazing frames, not exceptional, not rare, and lacking in character. just nice. like a an early 90s toyota, a shelving unit from ikea, or a dinner at the olive garden. bikes like that to me are great candidates for conversion. frames that lack the hallmark detailing of fine craftsmanship, those are the ones i dont think i mind seeing go.

I will say though, I general prefer the paint before its been redone to something that becomes too precious...

Well, one man's trash is another's treasure. An Allez is a Chevy Corvette, to the more exclusive Italian frames which are the Ferraris. If you like Corvettes then having one destroyed because it's more "common" is just as offensive as putting a Volkswagen "pancake" in a Ferrari engine bay.

I've never understood the allure of clown bikes. Do folks with 25cm bars actually ride their bikes much?

i don't get the attraction either. but if a purple chain gets you on a bike, go for it.

Me neither. From what I gather from site that it's a bunch of women doing the building for other women. What I find most distressing is many women (Note: I said many not all) get caught up in the novelty of a project. Consequently, in a case such as this they're all gungho about building these monstrosities, ride them once or twice then never again..

Too cool to put the brake lever next to the grip on an upright-bar bike, eh?

-Kurt

I dont mind the site and applaud the women building bikes. I think many of the bikes were saved from abandonment and if these new builds gets people out on them with some form of passion, then power to them. Indeed, a few of the builds are improvements over the originals, although some not so much. And of course, a few were horrible. But I think the spirit was good with these guys and remember seeing this site before the zenith of hipster movement drowned out much of the unique goodness of fixed gear. At its best, it brings the bike to its purist form, not such a bad thing depending on what you're working with. Lastly, it inspired more to go two wheels over four, another positive force on many levels.

Actually, I see almost no hacking of frames being done here. I see dropout hangers intact and cable guides still on the completed projects. I grant you that the color schemes are arresting and often garish, but I give them props for salvaging a bunch of bicycles that probably would have just been tossed.

Yes, I tend to agree, but my obvious emphasis on the quote above is where I start to have issues with the entire fixed-gear "movement"...

From my observations over many years, and actually knowing a couple professional messengers in NYC more than 30 years ago, the whole fixed gear/single speed thing seemed to have begun with devoted riders actually salvaging bikes by themselves and then personally developing a decaying relic into something unique which they could take pride in and even use as something well suited to their own purposes. It was a learning experience as well as a low cost expedient. Perhaps it might be compared to old hot-rodded cars from many decades ago, built at the hands of cash poor but enthusiasm and imagination rich youths.

Eventually, somehow, fixed gear bikes became trendy and commercially available, which makes no sense to me - just like purchasing someone elses old but now newly transformed jalopy also would seem silly. No harm of course if you are content with the work of others and simply don't like grease under your manicured fingernails (either male or female, that is). But how sad that purchasers of the rather sorry looking conversions on the Frankencycle website [just my personal aesthetic opinion] will feel no satisfaction for having done something for themselves, will have learned nothing, and will likely just pass the bike on to someone else after the novelty of a limited purpose bike quickly wears off.

What also makes little sense to me is why people always add hand brakes on a fixed gear bike. Perhaps some people should just hire another cyclist to ride the bike around town for them so they won't even have to use their own muscles, acquire any dexterity and bike handling skills, or even get sweaty.

Okay, sorry folks, afraid I'm just being stubborn and grumpy now... [sigh]... I think I'll pull on a pair of my brand new pre-distressed jeans with the wear patterns and color fading already applied to the denim along with the pre-rips in the seat and knees and drive my fixie down to where I can park around the corner from Starbucks so I can be seen cycling up for a fashionable sip of late night expresso.

+1000

What they're doing is great. EVERY one of those bikes they built was one less bike in a land fill. Do you guys really think there are that many C&V hobbyists out there to save those bikes from the dumpster. If you do you're nuts. The only way most of those old bikes will ever see the streets is as a SS/Fixie conversion.

Those girls are doing us a favor by introducing the masses to cycling. The more people involved the better.

I also think that they have done a nice job on those bikes. From the junk yard back to ridable again. Their conversions rank pretty low on the tarck scale.

I'll disagree with most. What they're doing is terrible. By encouringing riders to join in on this nonsence fad they're taking good quality frames and destroying them forever.

We dont know that any of theses woud be heading for the trash head. I think, in most cases, thats a convenient excuse to justify butchering a frame. In a year or 2, when these riders realize a fixie/SS bikereally does suck to ride, and the trend wears off, there'll be more hacked frames on the market that will go to the landfill because they've been drew'd.

+1 Miamijim. I doubt most of these bikes would have gone to the dump or were headed to the dump. I see several decent Univegas, including a Gran Turismo, converted. And they call what they do "restoration". OK, maybe not some Italian eye candy, but since I own one (Univega GT), I feel the pain. I also see at least one nice steel Trek converted.

They are having fun. Great, but why not head to bike direct and get a new fixed gear?

These bikes are one step closer to the dump, as when someone wants to convert them back (ex, the Univega Gran Turismo), all of the components are gone, making such a reconversion too costly.

Eh.

It's just paint. For the most part, nothing is hacked.

It's being used...much better than being in someones basement or shed.

A lot of men do the same thing. I need to stop buying more frames and build up the ones I've got now before the garage is completely filled up. (I do have one excuse; I've put four coworkers on bikes this year AND vastly increased the price of Varsitys on eBay.)

I went through the whole site and saw a lot of ******* and Chevettes getting a new lease on life. Maybe one derailleur hanger got ground off but the rest were fine. Cable guides are no biggie to replace and most of them weren't touched anyways.

I think the fixie craze is a good thing as it gets a lot of younger riders on bikes and they are using them for transportation, recreation, socialization. If you read the SS/FG forum much, you'll find most of them do not favor butchering nice frames or even semi-nice frames that are vintage and most of them have several bikes, including roadies.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as they don't hack off the braze-ons or derailleur hangers, these ladies can do what they please. Services are being provided, money changes hands, and a need is fulfilled. Sure, some of the bikes are kinda tacky, and if it were me running Frankencycle, I'd definitely have a stable of lesser bikes to offer as an alternative to converting a more valued and/or collectable bike. They apparently don't care or are ignorant of the C&V community, and just convert whatever they get their hands on, without regard to the value of the bike. Their mission statement and marketing plan apparently is oriented toward women (and some men with flamboyant tastes in bikes) and if it looks pretty to them, then that's fine. I do admire their drive, even if it's a bit misguided in our view of bikes.

I've done three SS/FG conversions that I've sold to some of our local hipsters in Indy, but I didn't hack off stuff and repaint anything. Now, what they have done with them I don't know or care, but I sell up the classic look of the frame and simplicity of experience, and that seems to work.

geek

I don't mind and even applaud the fact that those folks are re-doing the bikes. That's all well and good.

BUT FOR CRY'IN OUT LOUD! They have no style, no sense of color, no asthetics, nothing. Just horrible. What's with those bands of color on the top and or down tubes? Looks like someone forgot to take some tape off. I've never seen worse paint schemes in my life. Ever. Painted rims? Fine on a rat bike, but oh, oh, oh. To each their own, I guess, but it just hurts me...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, i'd say. But as far as i could spot, they didnt violate a single bike i'd have said was worth to be preserved in original condition, so if the bikes are fine with their owners, they are fine with me

c'mon, lets be real here......80% of these bikes you guys would just pass on if they were in the thrift store, wouldn't you?

"ah, nah, it's a run of the mill "bike boom" bike....not worth the restoration or effort"
"nothing special to me, I'll just keep looking"
i bet that's what would run through most of our minds if we saw these bikes pre-conversion anyways

so what are you crying about? let them have their cake, eat it too & hell even make thier bikes look like a slice for god's sake they're just having fun & there's a market for it.

different "spokes" for different folks

Touche! Absolutely spot on for this crowd depending on mood and moon quadrant...

Its nice the old bikes are being used... doesn't bother me a bit.