Here are some pics of my first fixed. It's an old Lotus Classigue that orginally had Shimano 600 6spd groupo on it. It was taken in on trade at the shop I work for and someone decided to make it indexed by putting on a Shimano Alivio rear der and some index shifters.....what were they thinking!!! I bought it for more then I should have because the frame fit well. ($60, I'm guessing we gave very little for it on trade but we had no record and I was told that was the price if I wanted it since there was time invested in cleaning it up after it came in) So I stripped all the excess junk off of it, rebuilt the BB and HS, chopped and flipped the bars and set up the 52t ring on the inside. Then I built up a rear wheel with a Surly fix/fix hub and 36h Open pros with DT Comp spokes. Have a 19t Surly cog on one side and a 20t freewheel on the other (hence the dual brakes) I used the original Shimano 600 calipers with new cables/housing and mounted some IRD cyclocross levers to the bar. The front wheel is the original Shimano hub laced to a 36h Ukai rim. The pedals were just ones we had laying around and the saddle is a Terry Fly I took of my road bike a few months ago and havn't done anything with, also got a cheap Kalloy seatpost since the original was just a little too short (harder to find 26.6 size so not much choice in posts, Kalloy or Thomson was all I could find easily) Also slapped on some Panarace T-Serv tires since I wanted something with a flat protection belt, we'll see how they do (they say T-Serv for Messengers on it.....marketing like that always makes me a little leary, like they are just trying to capitalize on the word Messenger, but they looked decent so I thought I would give them a shot)

I also got a Chris King GripNut headset for it (I love CK stuff and always use it on my bikes) because the original isn't in the best shape, thought not terrible yet. The crown on the fork was a little too big though and in trying to get the crown race on I distorted it a little so I went back to the original one for now, have a new CK race on order.

This is my project bike, as it sits in the pics I have about $250 invested (more with the CK headset, but that is just pure extravagance there ) I plan to ride it for a long while and if I end up really liking fixed riding (I think I will) then I may upgrade to a better front wheel and maybe even a frame later on. For now, I'm really happy with the ride of the bike, it's a heck of a lot of fun for only a $250 investment.

How's the gearing working out for you?

So far so good but I havn't had too much chance to ride it yet. With the 19t fixed cog it's 73.9 gear inches and with the 20t freewheel it's 69.6.

Before the conversion I ran it as a single speed for a little while with a 40/15 (71.4 gear inches) and that seemed to be a good setup for around town riding.

One of the main uses for this bike will be my campus commuter so hopefully they'll work out well for that once school starts.

I have an old Lotus that I pulled out of the garbage. It's a very nice ride. I don't have it set up as a single because the old 600 group on it has a whole bunch of retro appeal. Every time I ride that bike I laugh because I can't believe someone would throw a nice bike like that away. Yours looks nicer than mine, but you paid more too Is there a tubing sticker on yours?

There was a tubing sticker on there, but it was peeling so I just took it off. It was Tange
Number 2 butted cro-moly.

maybe they're named after the messenger company in Tokyo: https://www.t-serv.co.jp/. or maybe those guys named their company after the tire.