Ready to dive in and get fixed
 

OK So i had a curb find and I think I'm ready to dive in. I picked up an old Mongoose MTB w/o any wheels with vertical dropouts. OK it was stuck in the snowbank on the curb. I had thought about converting an older road bike but just could see it.

OK so if I'm going to do this I'm going to do a Flip flop. I need to find some wheels as well as a hub. Since I'm just getting started would I be better with 32 or 36 hole rims to make the hub search easier?

Thanks

Your first problem is the virtical dropouts. There is only one hub mfgr. who makes a hub that will work with vertical dropouts, White Industries ENO hubs. They are available from Harris Cyclery for $160. or so. You may get lucky and be able to use a combination of Chainring/cog combination that will allow you to go with any hub but it will not allow you to account for chain elongation due to wear. Think long and hard about using this frame as it will involve accepting many compromises due to the vertical rear dropouts. Maybe better to wait until you get a frame that is better suited to fixed gear conversion without all the trouble of vertical dropouts. This frame might be a candidate for s/s conversion.

fixedgearhead

Or just get the ENO Eccentric hub that he mentioned and build that sucker up. Won't be a cheap fixie, but it'll work great.

but....it is horizontal
 

No it already has horizontal dropouts.

Now this a cheapo Mongoose with no wheels and crap for cranks.

I guess the question should get wheels or a hub first? May I should just keep checking the curbs!

If I do this right I won't just be throwing $ away but will be able to repurpose the parts if this doesn't work out.

Here's why we were talking about the ENO hub.

Sorry about the confusion. Wait, you started it! :p