hey guys - just assembled my fixie today for the first time and took it for a ride - its quite a trip, i'm in love with it.

however, i am fairly in the dark with chain tension and chainline adjustment.

chain tension: i read Sheldon Brown's article about adjusting tension and tried to follow his instructions, but they were a bit convoluded. could anyone give a description of how to tell if it is correct or not/how to adjust if it isn't?

chainline: the front crank is the same from the geared bike, an old sugino set. if i put the chainring on the inner side of the spider it is too far in, and on the outside it is too far out (although the outside is closer to dead on). the ideal spot would be in between the two, but i dont see how i can make that work with spacers on the spider. would spacers on the rear cog be smart? let me know.

also, the bike is pretty quiet, but i hear a clacking sound from the chain, almost sounds like chain slap on a deraileur. it's not too loud but its there, and noticable. is this normal?

thanks

Congrats. I just finished my fixie too about a week ago. Its a blast.

For chain tension, I just pull back as hard as I can on the wheel and have someone wrench down on the drive side bolt. I'm looking into getting a chaintensioner sometime. (maybe a mks allen bolt tensioner if I can find them)

You could try getting a shorter bottombracket so the outer position on the spider lines up with the cog. I run an old Shimano 105 double crank and I use a 107mm length BB to get the outer to line up with the cog. I wouldn't use spacers on the cog

If it's too tight, and you spin the drivetrain, you'll see that the wheel and cranks come to a stop fairly abruptly where the chain gets tightest.

Loosen it up just enough to keep this from happening.

You might try flipping the rear sprocket over so the shoulder is outboard, this might match up with the inner position in front.

Another option is to remove the bottom bracket and install a spacer washer under the right side cup/mounting ring. That would move the whole crankset to the right by the thickness of the spacer.

The noise probably resultsf from poor chainline. It can sometimes be a bit of trouble, but it's worth taking the time to get the chainline really good.

See my article on this: https://sheldonbrown.com/chainline

Sheldon "Straight Ahead" Brown