mazdaspeed

I have a fairly decent nishiki with really long horizontal drop outs. The drivetrain is basically shot, and at this point I have $15 into the bike including new cables, housings, and grease. I know nothing about fixed gear conversions and want to make this into a fixed gear for as cheap as possible, so I can see how I like it. If I don't I can flip it for an immense profit.

Thoughts?

swif

Flip it, buy a real fixed gear.

oldfixguy

I suggest flipping it. But, since your goal is to apply a bare minimum of lowest possible price polish to a turd just to power bang someone else who might enjoy fixed gear cycling I'm afraid you'll do so without my help. Good luck in your low brow, dirtbag endeavor and I hope your immense profits serve you well. Possibly integrity, human decency or upright behavior will be on sale and you can get some along with the new bike you purchase.

skinnyland

Get a new rear wheel (one with an actual track hub). Throw it on there and try out riding fixed. DO NOT DISCARD THE GEARED PARTS. If you like it, ride it. Or, if you REALLY like it, keep that rear wheel, reassemble the Nishiki into a road bike, sell it on craigslist (10-speeds are the new hipster jam, they're starting to move past the spend-money-on-a-fg trend, and are gravitating more toward the be-rich-dress-poor thing, riding dirty 10-speed road bikes), and keep the track wheel you bought for your next bike, which will probably be a track frame.
That is, of course, if you want to be riding a track frame. Most people think they want to be riding a track frame, but they have no idea that a road frame is actually more comfortable and more suited to their needs. Nothing wrong with a conversion. At all. People who tell you otherwise are uneducated.

mazdaspeed

That's not the cheapest way, the nishiki is worth $100 tops because of the low end components, despite the fact that the frame is fairly nice.

WAT


I don't want a track frame since I won't be riding it at a track, thus a conversion would be the only way I'd go about this. Believe it or not I've owned a lot of bikes, some were even singlespeed road bikes, but not fixed.

So if I buy a generic track wheel (cost?) how can i insure the chainline will be straight?

Scrodzilla

Why must we post things like this? Regardless of whether or not I agree, I do believe it's better to say nothing at all. To say "Go right on ahead and do what you want, but you won't get my help!" followed by various attempts at insult just seems a little silly.

REMspeedwagon

Track hubs have a 42mm chainline.
You should be pretty close with the chainring on the inner-spider of your cranks.
But this really depends on the BB spindle length and cranks.

Most older 5-6 speed freehub Japanese road bike set ups are similar though.
Only it's a triple, you might need a shorter spindle.

Buy the rear wheel first, then you'll see what you need.

Dion Rides

https://sheldonbrown.com/fixed-conversion.html

END OF THREAD.

PedallingATX

get a track wheelset. Benscycle has some for like $100. You will also need cog and lockring. If your drivetrain really is "shot" then you will need a new crank. You can get a cheap one of those for $60.

Good luck w/ this. There is nothing wrong w/ selling bikes for a profit. It's called a free-market economy. If someone is willing to pay for it, then sell it to them at that price.

hairnet

just do it. Are there any co-ops near by?

oldfixguy

Mazdaspeed & Scrodzilla,

You are correct and I apologize. I decided to take offense to what I perceived to be a blatant plea to assist in creating a popular item, selling it for for much more than it is worth at the obvious expense of someone who doesn't know any better.......blah blah blah. Regardless, it was inappropriate and immature of me. Again, my apologies to you and the OP

Scrodzilla

It's cool, OFG. I've been guilty of it as well, but trying to be better. It's sometimes much more satisfying to keep on the righteous path and remain silent, you know?

LordBass

If you're looking to make it really on the cheap, and have a useable rear wheel, why not make a suicide rear hub? If you keep both brakes, a fixed cog, a lockring, and some loctite seems reasonable, though it's not really a 'proper' fixed gear..

operator

lolll

mazdaspeed

That sounds like a good idea. I'm keeping the brakes and can handle a bike so I don't think it would be much of a risk. Any good links for doing this? Like I said I'm just thinking about doing it to try it out since I happened upon a suitable frame.

You're so cool

mazdaspeed

I looked at Sheldon's site and read the overview for the suicide hub. Seems fairly straightforward, I guess I'll look into that.

kyselad

Really, that's the best option if you're really looking to go cheap. It assumes you have a freewheel rather than a freehub; if this is an older Nishiki, you should be fine. In most cases, you'll need to recenter the hub, but that's not rocket science. Just use a brake and there's nothing "suicidal" about this setup.

REMspeedwagon

For fixed, just put a cog onto the freehub threading with a left-threaded bb lockring.
Of course, you should redish the wheel also.

jakerock

change your avatar Mr sourpuss!

newoldbiker

Kinda like when you slammed that dude (twice) for making a YouTube video of his slack chain? I guess some of the members of this forum are just naturally endowed with abundance of righteousness...or does one just get that when you get good at riding fixed gear?

sunburst

I hope this was a joke. If not, consider the fact that you don't know much about bikes (or at least, fixies), and as soon as you learn a little, you want to take advantage of someone else that doesn't know much about bikes. That's bad bike karma.

Scrodzilla

I was joking...albeit sarcastically...when I "slammed" that dude and if you read my post here, I was pretty clear in my admission that I too have been guilty of firing away at someone, but I'm making an effort to improve.

chevy42083

For me, this is how it went.

Loved 80s road bike geometry.
Bought a nice complete Fuji geared bike. (less than $100)
Bought fixed wheel set from Bike island ($120)
Bought diff front ring to get the gearing I wanted ($30)

That would have been the "cheap way".... except that I kept spending on Surly cog & lockring, KMC chain, brake lever, bullhorns, this, that, etc etc... and it was no longer the cheapest way.

newoldbiker

Fair nuff. I'd be calling the kettle black if I tried to pretend that I've always taken the high road. It's just that I've been lurking on these forums for a while now and I just don't get the holier-than-thou attitude that seems to afflict some members (I don't mean you).

It's like, if someone isn't a career bicycle messenger, they are a "poser" if they care what their bike looks like. And heaven forbid they ask a question that an experienced biker would never ask. I mean seriously, what are these people compensating for?

Fortunately there are enough members here who remember that none of them were born knowing everything about bikes and are generous enough sharing without belittling. Thanks to them I've learned a ton.

Sorry for the poison arrow. It was late and I was mad.

Scrodzilla

Right on...and I agree whole-heartedly. I've been into bikes in one way or another my whole life and I've still managed to learn a lot from certain members here too. Other members...not so much.

I've been both attacked and the attacker regarding my opinions. I've found that I usually feel better...not just here on BF but in my everyday life as well...when I don't participate in the flame war that is so easy to fall into. At the end of the day, we all really like bikes.

And that's pretty damn cool.