Someone just gave me a nice old RIH Bustraan bike, with a broken rear derailer, and I want to convert it to a fixed-gear.

Not having much mechanical experience, I'm looking for somewhere/somebody in Amsterdam who can help me get the thing fixed up. I'm from Seattle, where the streets are crawling with fixies, but they are rare here and the shop guys I've talked to don't seem to be into this kind of thing.

Any advice?

take a rear wheel from a track bike and space it out to your newfound frame?

someone is bound to know about track racing in the netherlands.

Just spent a few days there and I was surprised to not see a single fixed gear. Amsterdam and Copenhagen seem to be fantastic places for fixed gears because of the bicycle lane network.

Sorry, can't help you as far as shops go though..

PM forum member "Botto".

I saw just one in Paris on my most recent trip and feared for the guy's safety as he zoomed through a busy area w/o brakes. Amsterdam, and all of the Netherlands, prides itself on road etiquette, but it still takes some sharp spacial awareness to ride most European cities. You tend to have less room for error or an unexpected stop--even with the bike lanes.

In my experience, you have to ride more predictably in Amsterdam since cars, bikes and scooters ride very close together and don't slow to a crawl just because they're within a meter of a pack of bikes. That said, drivers are more aware and their smaller cars can stop on a dime.

They're just so damned practical there that I can't fault them for not "catching on" to fixed gear bikes for the road. As they've got velodromes everywhere, I'm sure they're aware that they could ride those bikes on the street.

So, sorry for the rant-ish tone, but here's to the Dutch...

op: sheldonbrown.com

i've seen a few messengers with fixed gears in amsterdam. skinny tires on brick streets isn't much fun after a while.