My neighbor's kid approached me about helping him build up a fixed gear bike. He is starting high school this coming fall and wants to get a fixed gear bike for riding to school on and for doing tricks.

I commute, do errands, and get around town via fixed gear on an old conversion...but I don't know the first thing about tricks beyond a simple track stand and general commuting type skills.

His budget is $250 or less which rules out anything new but is still enough to get a older road bike off CL and convert it with some scratch left over.

Would he be ok with a road bike conversion?
Does he need to get a special fork or wheels or anything of the sort?

If he is lookin to trick, might help to head over to https://tricktrack.org/forum/.

And Kilo TT with +100$

That is not less than $250.

I would say a conversion isn't really going to stand up to the abuse of tricking. He needs like a Scrambler or something that is reinforced to handle tricks.

There is no way he can get anything even acceptable to trick on with $250.

+1

FSFG frames are very pricey because they're built like tanks to handle the impacts of tricks, yet agile and light enough to not limit the rider much.

Yes he will need a special fork that will clear a 700c and minimize pedal overlap* (no guarantees if he puts it on a normal frame); these usually run you up $200 alone....

If he wants to do tricks, he can get a solid BMX bike for $250...especially on the used market.

Kids commute on BMX bikes every day. Plus the bikes are bomb proof and require little maintenance. Put on a large-ish gear ratio and commuting won't be so bad.

A solid BMX for $250? Even used that would be extremely hard. **** ain't cheap.

I've been off of the BMX scene for a while. How about $300?

2011 Fit Aitken 1: $300

https://www.danscomp.com/products-MIS...en_1_Bike.html

Quite a few bikes around $300: https://www.danscomp.com/shop-MISC/sg/SAVERBIKES.html

Quick look on CL:

$200 FIT: https://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv...517124372.html

Point is, 250$ wont get ****.

This gif surpasses all the others in terms of bad-assery

For BMX, you want all Chromo, sealed everything, 3 piece cranks, etc etc. With the way Fit has been doing things now, the only good bikes they make are the Pro series.

Thanks all for the information...I'll pass it on to him.

If he ends up wanting a nicer BMX bike instead, take a look at the BMX forum, should be the thread toward the top, some kid looking to get a bike. I recommended like 13 good ones to him.

If he is just starting high school, that puts him at 14. Assuming he isn't overweight I'd also assume then that he is pretty small? He would be fine tricking around on an old conversion. At 145lbs I was just fine learning to wheelie and spin around and slide around when I first got into fixed. After 3-4 months the fork started to bend from dropping hard on wheelies and such, but I just replaced that and was fine. Should he be jumping 10 stairs on it and trying to backflip, no. Will he be fine learning the ropes and messing around until he buys something more trick designed if he likes it, yes.