Useless cheap conversions
 

I stared my fixed gear life with a cheap conversion, I found a frame with forks, bars and seatpost collecting dust in the basement of a cycle shop.
I put on nice very old road campy cranks, cheap screw-on cassette wheels respaced and redished, scrap brakes and rotafixed a cog on.
Wow a complete bike for a very few euros.

First I found that the rims where terrible and the rotafixed cog can went of skidding, so I bought real hubs and made nice wheels, than I snapped the stem screw trying to tighten it, replaced stem and bars (too flexy).
Now I destroyed the cranks, frame is quite flexy (I'm a big guy) and I fear it's rusty inside.

I'm reading everywhere that the best way to start fixed gearing is to convert an old frame, now I know that's a lie.

Well, I rode a rotafixed conversion for quite a while and found it totally solid. The frame wasn't the best but good enough. I eventualy got some proper wheels and now I'm getting a decent frame. I found the conversion route a cheap way to decide I liked fixed without dropping hundreds of dollars on an off-the-shelf track bike.

I started fixed using an old road frame, decent parts and a redished and rotafixed rear 27" rear wheel with matching front. That was two years ago, maybe three, I can't remember. But as of this day, I'm still riding it and it's going strong. This is probably the cheapest way to get in, but if you're gonna start out with crappy parts, you're gonna end up with a crappy bike.

Clearly not - you liked it enough to keep riding. Also, "converting" can mean a lot of things. I have plenty of old frames where the stem, bars, cranks, frame are well up to what I need. Maybe suicide hubs aren't the way forward, but there's no reason why any other part of a road bike would be weaker than the same part of a track bike.

i think the best way to start is to convert a decent old frame with decent parts. unfortunately i've definitely worked with or advised a bunch of people who've heard that the best way to get fixed is to convert an old road bike and they buy some heavy gaspipe monstrosity with gross cranks where you can't seperate the chainrings, and steel rims and all this terrible **** that's completely not worth it. on the flip side i made a conversion for a friend out of a really lovely trek, with fastback seatstays and some decent parts on it, jbwelded a suicide hub and told her to get a track wheel if she ever wanted to wean herself off of handbrakes. and it's a nice bike right now. real nice.

I like my old japanese conversion.

A lot.

ok

I think it depend what you expect from it. If you expect a top notch bike then it is crap if you expect a biking equivalent of a weekend taster course it seem fine. I have a very ***** frame as a basis for my convertion but I am using it while I save up for desent parts (that take me a long time so I would rather have a **** fixie than no fixie) and slowly transform it. I have made up so nice ish wheels have some clipless peadels next thing will be crank set, then I can start looking for an appropate frame + fork. it's not the destanation it's the journey. Well I will enjoy the destnation when I get there!

So did I... I sigh when I think of that huge and majestic Fuji S-10-S special road racer (first porduction japanese frame ever imported to north america). I rode it as a 10 speed until it was no longer rideable, then I converted it into a mean urban assualt bike with flat bars and a disc brake and rode it until it was no longer rideable, then I changed it up to a brakeless scorcher with flipped and chopped bars and campy cranks, and rode that until it was no longer rideable (long stays kept dropping the chain nearly killing me, and the fork was mangled). Then I moved from my apartment and ddin't have room for the frame so I went to pick it up the next day and the landlord had already trashed it! Poor thing... I still have a soft spot in my heart for that bike, but it was time to move on. I just wished I had pulled the cool nitto I-beam stem from it beforehand!

Don't have a pic online of it in 10 speed mode but:
manifestation 2
manifestation 3

Also this conversion was pretty fun but kind of dangerous to ride, and a real ball-buster so now its back to a regular BMX:
haro frankenbike

It cost me some money, but I got alot of riding out of my conversions and don't regret it. Never tried suicide hub before though.

I think you might have just had some bad luck, that is all. My conversion was great and I liked it enough to upgrade to a true track bike and I just swapped over all the parts from my conversion.

I think a lot of people make the mistake of doing a cheap conversion too cheaply. I spent a good chunk of change on the wheels, figuring that the fixie trend would be big enough for me to get my money back on eBay if I didn't like riding fixed. The rest of the stuff, I found lying around my apartment or in parts bins, the only real money, initially, was on the wheels.

Shiz, I've seen that BMX with the mad sissy bar before, perhaps in discussions on FGG? I love it.

I don't think I ever submitted it to FGG, but I got the idea from a couple of other bikes set up the same way, one of which was on FGG, the other was on bikecult. It was fun to ride distances of up to 2km, but you could highside yourself so easily and your centre of gravity was pretty ******** as well. It was definitely a conversation piece though!

It was probably on here then. It was definitely a chat on a forum, and I think you were chatting too.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=97215
ta da!

To me, this type of thing is the most useless conversion possbile; it is a Colnago road bike, it really should be used for such. Just my opinion.

http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/2006...remyCondon.htm

yeah, it always makes me a little sad to see that. but seems like the dude's got his choice of cherry vintage road frames, so i can't say i blame him either.

I think that's the one. I remember people saying it was dangerous and ********, but I thought it was cool. I used to ride this:
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...2/Image075.jpg

until it got stolen, so I may not be a good judge. I'm also over 6 ft, and occasionally try to ride a BMX I have, but I never feel the need to go very far on it!

K, bad example. The De Rosa really really hurts me for some reason :(

http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/2005...isAndersen.htm
http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/2003/bignotti.htm
http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/2006...wBlackwell.htm

That bike is a beauty. Looks like a well treated fixed gear road trainer for a serious cyclist. Which I bet it is. He probably got bored of riding his other colnago's geared.

Yeah, you are probably right, I shouldn't be so pessimistic.

That de rosa is bad because they tossed on ******** cheap components.
Change the chainring, stem, sadddle, seatpost, rims, handlebars and tape, levers and chain and that would be a mighty fine bike. Also lose the dumb looking water bottle and get something classier.

i don't see a problem using a nice road frame for a fixed conversion. however, it seems a bit wrong to take a fully functional geared bike in nice condition and convert it. a while back i picked up a really nice trek 400 elance with the thought of converting it, but once i saw how great of shape it was in i changed my mind. it was also a bit small. now a friend of mine is riding it as a geared bike and i'm really happy i didn't convert it.

my conversions have been with older bikes that need a second lease on life. first it was an older trek and now i'm riding an old mercian. i'm not crazy about having the shifter mounts and the cable guides on there, but it's a nice fixed ride. to me it seems to make more sense to convert and old road frame than to ride a track bike on the street. that's just my opinion though.....

Hmm, I have 2 vey nice track bikes now, yet my true love, steel conversion which got a new lease of life with new wheels, new track ends, a new fork and a new seatopst this last summer still gets 99.99% of road time.

WAIT
I'm not saying that conversion are worthless, but if your conversion is cheap and you ride hard you're going to break it.

If you have or find a nice old road frame in good condition is better to spend some money in good parts

definitely. i think "conversions make good starters" is limited to people who generally won't demand too much of a bike. is also geared toward people who may not know about what will/won't make a good conversion, which will lead to a bunch of not-so-awesome final products.