i am totally new to road bikes, and i need some input from people who know what they're talking about!
i'm looking for a relatively inexpensive single-speed WITH brakes. i've been looking online consistently for days and i still have been unable to find something suitable! i would like a simple looking frame (preferably black) because i plan on fixing it up once i get it.

i think my budget is around $600, maximum, so i've been having difficulty finding something that would work for that price.

any help is appreciated!

thanks,
jessika

im pretty sure all single speeds have breaks, unless you're talking about a fixed gear bike

i would think so, but i've found a number of inexpensive single-speeds (definitely not fixed gear) with no brakes! i was pretty surprised. i could be wrong, of course... i know little-to-nothing about road bikes.

it sounds like you should really just go to a local bike shop.

thats probably your best bet

bianchi san jose or pista, surly steamroller, khs flite, schwinn madison, just to name a few, should be near your $600 range at your local bike shop. the san jose comes non-fixed, but any of the others can be done up as a braked single speed. go talk to the people at you local shop and see if they have anything in stock that, even if it's not in your price range, should help you decide on sizing and features.

thanks for your advice!

If it was me I would look for a decent used road bike as they are abundant and convert that to an SS... you could then upgrade that bike with the oodles of money you saved.

I do these kinds of conversions all the time at our shop and folks have been most pleased with their rides, especially when they know they only paid a fraction of what a new bikes costs and got an equally good bike.

Though people always seem to get a bunch of opinions when BikesDirect is mentioned I would suggest taking a look at this Motobecane (USA) SS/FG with brakes https://www.bikesdirect.com/products/.../messenger.htm
It's got a nice price tag and free shipping.

The way I got started was with a conversion I got from Craigslist. I paid $100 and the guy brought it to me. There weren't any listings in my area but I put up an ad saying I wanted a cheap SS/FG and got a reply later that day from someone who lived out of state but was driving through my area the next week. It worked out perfectly.

What you must have seen were bikes with a coaster brake. You brake by applying backpedal pressure, so no brake lever is necessary. Though a front brake is highly recommended, you can find bikes with a coaster brake only, so they would not have any brake lever on the handlebar - hence they look as if they have no brakes.

do NOT buy a bianchi pista! ugliest most boring bike ever. just find a cheap used road frame with horizontal dropouts and cobble something together with used parts or components from your LBS. buying a ready-made single speed or fixed gear bike is kind of silly.

no it's not.

why would anyone spend 500-600 dollars on a bike with the most simple drive train engineering (other than uni)?? decent 12 speeds maybe, but for something so simple the best thing to do is build your own and learn basic bike mechanics that way. otherwise you drop 600 on a bike and still don't know **** about bikes.

i'll take a clean univega or peugeot conversion over some ******** brand new babypoop green pista any day of the week.

i put my bike together piece by piece. i didn't buy it complete. i did, however, pay well over $600 (the frame alone was over six).
you're not paying money for a complete vs not, you're buying money for quality and performance and specific requirements vs. not.
when you pay $600 for a complete (not a high price whatsoever), you're (usually) foregoing the specific requirements for a packaged option at a lower price.
there's 0 wrong with buying a complete, and there's 0 wrong with paying what you can afford for a quality ride you didn't piece together yourself. it doesn't have to be a pista, or even a bianchi. there are hundreds of manufacturers out there whose names do not end i "I".

she wants a bike now though. If she has the time and energy to learn about bikes at this moment it would be great to build your own...but that takes alot of time and money (in some cases).

I have a San Jose and love it. I think its a great starter SS bike. Though I do plan on building my own (luckily they have classes in Chicago that will teach you)FG bike this spring so that I can learn everything there is about bikes...but when it comes to SS all you really need to know for the most part is how to change a tire and clean it...not much can go wrong

a san jose is a cross bike, i think OP is hunting for a road one (or track?).

yea i know...but unless she is on a track i couldnt see a reason to count it out. I think its great for commuting...and you can always throw smaller tires if need be

Probably most useful advice in this thread.

bianchi fremonts are only $600 and have road geometry (vs. track geometry). but seeing as this is your first road bike, i'd definitely go to your lbs to try one out.

It's a crazy, crazy world when the number one criteria for buying a bike is that it's a single speed.

how so?

gonna have to disagree with this stupid statement.

shall we have a look at history?

my grandpa laughed at me when i explained the bike i had just bought to him, saying he had a single speed as a kid in the 40s.

Didn't everyone have a singlespeed bike as a kid? Everyone in my neighborhood had a BMX.