i bought a rush hour because i needed a bike fast, and one that i could use for commuting and not be afraid to leave locked up for extended time. i like the bike ok, but i have two complaints: first, the brake levers are of poor quality and the rubber hoods have come undone (not a problem if you don't want to the levers, obviously). second, the front fork feels way too stiff. it's hard to ride the bike slowly through traffic without it moving from left to right. also, because of this it's the only bike i've owned where i don't feel comfortable riding hands free.

if i replace the fork with say, a surly road fork, would this solve the problem or is this a result of the geometry overall?

The no-hands thing could be solved by checking saddle and stem angle. If either one is pointed off to the right or left, you may find your bike leaning.

I got my Raleigh One-Way last week, have not had a chance to take photos yet. It's verry Cross Checkish, actually I was on the verge of ordering a Surly when I got my first sneak peak of the One-Way. I have been riding my Rossin track bike all summer, this Raleigh rides/handels like a truck in comparison. I like that. It is not for the weight weenies, got it up to 27lbs with a brooks pro and a night rider. I'll try to take pics soon.

Here's a quick ****ty shot, along with my wife and I's stable.

it needs a picture without the rossin the the background.. too distracting

Haha, I'll get better pics of the budget bike on a more even playing field.

kozy's in chicago has them. i believe they will ship too.
the frame is made in taiwan. i only saw the small size, but it was heavier than a 58cm specialized road bike.

I also have a Rush Hour, and on the fork front, I think the guy who suggested checking seat height and all that is probably right, since I'm pretty comfortable riding no hands on it (and I'm not an accomplished cyclist or anything). As for the break levers and hoods: oh yeah do they suck, they're annoying to get off too, took me a while to figure them out (though I might just be dumb). I circumvented the problem totally by getting bullhorns and putting on a bar-end mounted lever.

Does anyone have any experience with or an opinion of the Cannondale Capo? I've been reading this thread for the last week as I'm looking into getting a fixed/ss for commuting. I bought a road bike (cannodale R700) last year and really like it but I ride to work every day in addition to taking it out for long rides on the weekend and its starting to take a beating. From what I've read it looks like the Iro Mark V or Angus might be a good way to go or possibly a bianchi pista. I was also considering getting a single gear cyclocross such as a San Jose or Rob Roy also from IRO. I live outside Chapel Hill in NC so there are some hills but nothing too crazy. I just saw the Capo in a bike shop today and it was a little pricier but it looked really sweet and the frame seemed real nice. I'd really appreciate any advice or input on how it would compare with these other bikes people have talked about here. Didn't have time to test ride it but I will soon. Thanks again, this is a very informative thread.

OK, ride report for my IRO Angus: gorgeous. The ride is superb, geometry is a breeze, and it looks like a much higher-end frame. After only riding conversions, the top tube feels kinda short. Acceleration just happens, not much effort involved. It can eat up Santa Cruz's city streets with ease. I'm quite fond of it, and would highly reccomend this frame to anyone.

The Angus is sweet. Do you have pics?

No pics yet. I'll be sure and post it here and in the phot sticky when I'm done.

Just rode my first metric century on it, people were very impressed at "those two kids on track bikes."

Nice ride Josh, from what I can see
Stupid question, but did you by any chance look at
a 925 too ?? If so, how different is the Raleigh ?
Being Surly-like is only a plus to me.

I did check out the redline but I work at a raleigh dealer (great EP $). I think the biggest difference is tire clearance, the one-way comes with 35c I belive the max on the 9to5 is 28c. Side by side with a cross check the only big difference is the rear drop outs. BTW the rear fender has safety mounts so it can be pulled out of the way pretty easy to get the rear wheel out.

Okay, that was the big question on the C&V forum, how to quick change the rear tire. Cool.

You working tomorrow, Josh? I need to pay you a visit.

No work for me tomorrow, its YK. I'll be in the rest of the week so pop in whenever.

Happy Holidays!

i ride no-handed all day long and drunken nights too, on my rush hour

I'm not sure if this would apply to everyone's concept of a budget frame however I would be interested and maybe some other people may also be interested in hearing from anybody who has had any experience with recent Marinoni Pistas made with Columbus Zona steel.

Other than riding on one of his custom road frames and hearing some good things said by Machka over in the long distance cycling and touring forums I very rarely hear anybody talking about them let alone anything about their track frames.

From what I've gathered Giuseppe Marinoni came of age cycling in Italy and raced with guys like Felice Gimondi and has been hand making custom frames for over 30 some odd years in Quebec Canada. As far as I know he unfortunately no longer makes lugged frames but he does supposedly however continue to "personally" hand build his custom frames in materials ranging from Columbus Starship to Zona which I think in most cases he guarantees them. And he's got over 25,000 frames under his belt so his website says. Somebody told me his wife even paints them. I don't know if thats true or whether this is a good thing but it does sound charming.

When I compare frames such as the

$500-600 EAI Bareknuckle, De Bernardi
$400 Steamroller, Somas
$350 Moth
$250-300 IRO Mark V, Angus, Jamie Roy, Pake,

all of which as far as I know except for the De Bernardi are all made by companies who choose to farm out there product for one reason or another to Taiwan

with

$605 Marinoni Pista frame & fork
$537 Marinoni Pista frame only

which is handmade personally by Marinoni and you get to choose the geometry of the frame, pick the color, and is backed by a guarantee staked on over 30 years of handbuilt race frames. I can't help but be slightly interesteted even if they are sadly no longer lugged. Especially if it doesn't take months to make and Giuseppe Marinoni gets to make his frames under fair and humane working conditions?

I personally don't know if any of this is true. On their site under the Specs heading I clicked on geometrie and a pdf downloaded giving specs for the pista that seem like general or slightly lax track geometry. More or less 74 seat and head tube angles running in the the various listed even sizes ranging from 48 to 58. I don't know if these specs are for a standard off the shelf model or what. Maybe they have an off the shelf model thats available with no wait time. But supposedly the frame comes custom made. Somewhere I saw that the optional fork is aluminum. I don't know if I like the sound of that or whether its threaded or not. And as far as custom color and whether that means that they plaster their label over the color you choose. I can't say. The Marinoni road frame that I got from a shop in Cali about a year a go came matte black completely bare except for where its says campagnolo on the drop outs. As far as Columbus Zona and how it compares to the Dedacciai COM 12.5 Cromoly or Reynolds 631 I don't know. My road frame is made of Zona and its light, very responsive, and has carried heavy rear panniers from San Fran back to NY. Its held up so far. But thats that. I hope some of this may be of some help.

$250? Anyone got more info on this bike?

I haven't seen any mention yet of the Giant Bowery. I put 1000 miles on my Bowery in 10 weeks of riding/commuting. My thoughts are posted here on my blog.

Summary (I'm long winded): the Honda of budget fixies. Decent components, many solid component choices, Just Plain Works. A bit on the portly side. Not terribly exciting. Aluminum, which you like or don't. I feel it is a good value.

It was discussed in the Interbike thread, here are some thoughts:

1. Supposedly, SE Racing has been purchased by the same folks that own Mercier, Windsor, Motobecane, Dawes, et al. So, definitely a cheap bike.
2. One-piece cranks = super-cheap, and for the most part unsealed. However, you can easily upgrade to Profiles or other blingin' BMX cranks to make it look ultra-dope.
3. Nobody has said that it's fixed yet... I would bet on it simply being a flatbar SS.
4. Seatpost is in the style of ultra-cheap BMX-style clamp, another ridiculous place to save money, but they did it.
5. As has been the case with other BMX-centric companies who put out a cheap bike of another genre (redline *cough* *cough*: It might be just supercheap BMX hubs, in other words, 110mm rear spacing.

Thanks for summarizing.

i have a windsor and love it just upgrade when u have to which i didn't have to but i got nice stem and bars

Today I went over and put down money for a new commuter rig for my wife, a 44cm Bianchi San Jose. it's a 2007 and should be in friday hopefully. I told her she's gonna be one of the hippest 43 year olds around.
of course it doesn't come fixed but she's gonna start out on the freebie and get used to pushing only one gear, then we'll swap out rear wheels and see how she likes fixed.
It seems like it should be an excellent commuter/ 2nd bike for her. i'll post up some pics when she gets it.