I was planning on buying a bike that is already converted to single speed. For $50 he offered to make it fixed. Seems kinda cheap when you consider a new hub or rear wheel is in order. I asked him about this. He replies:
"The hub is a freewheel hub and allows for a singlespeed or fixed, I have several methods for this... don't worry about cogs slipping in general, the way I do it works great. In fact, I was just discussing with sheldon brown that he should put a couple of things on his site, one of them being getting a cog locked super tight."
I wish he would have elaborated more. It just seems a little sketchy. I wasn't looking for a fixed anyway but the thought has crossed my mind. I told him I would consider having him "fix" the bike but if it involves changing the hub and not altering the freewheel setup.


man I feel like the guy I'm talking to over email is a user of these forums.
Disclaimer: I'm not hatin', I just want advice.

sounds like he wants to rotafix you a suicide hub.
eww.

yeah that's what I said. He left on the old multispeed crap and I can chunk it from cog to cog and SS it. That way i can really learn what I like for my fixed setup.

Suicide is not as good as a track hub, but is good enough

True, I'd prefer committing track hubicide to committing suicide.

Is this a newish wheelset on the bike? $50 to fix it is about right once you buy a cog and lockring, but it's a tad steep for just spinning on a cog suicide style.

For a little over twice that, you can buy a whole brand new wheelset (both wheels) with a flip-flop track hub on the rear. Then you can have a proper fixed setup and a freewheel. Just flip the rear wheel around to switch modes. You'll still need to invest another $30 to $40 for a cog and lockring, but this is a much better investment than throwing $50 towards a suicide hub on an old wheel (if that is the case) For cog and lockring, Dura Ace is the way to go unless you need cog bigger than 16 teeth, in which case EAI or Surly are good products that go bigger. Any wheelset under $150 that is built on Formula hubs is a great setup for the money. I'm running Formulas and Mavic CXP22s that I bought prebuilt fron Nashbar for about $140 back in January. They treat me great and have almost 2000 miles on them already. There are two or three threads bobbing around here with links to sub-$150 wheelset deals, most of which are on Formula hubs.

What shop is this?

I'm thinking it's probably a flip-flop hub. They're threaded for a freewheel on one end and and for a track cog and lockring on the other. Cost to convert = a track cog and lockring = $50.00. I have one on order right now.

No, it's not a ff. He said he could upgrade components and I asked for a ff but he doesn't have one.