I have a few questions....I ride/race a road bike and am (i think) pretty experienced with working on bikes. I am going to college next year and would like a bike to ride around campus and to leave locked up outside and not have it be one of my race bikes, so i thought it would be a good idea to investigate a fixed gear. I know pretty much nothing about fixed bikes but i want to build one. Where could I get a very inexpensive frame? I want a real beater that no one would even consider stealing and it costs next to nothing....something in a 58-60 Also, Im not good at wheelbuilding so I need the rear wheel with the fixed hub, where can I get one of these really cheap? I dont want anything fancy and im poor so ya know.... I appreciate any advice andhappy thanksgiving!

-eric

I have found the best way to go is to find an old used complete bike boom bike (late 70's thru early 90's) and take off what you don't need. You want to look for something with horiz dropouts to adjust chain tension. You can find a pre-built wheel on line for about $100. Cog and lockring is an additional $35. I built mine up for about $200 total but I had extra parts in the bin. For helpful info check out https://www.sheldonbrown.com/fixed-conversion.html . This is the bible for most of us. also there is a lot of very experianced people on this board so check back.


Good Luck

You don't need to be good at wheel building to convert a threaded freewheel to fixed.

If you get a bike-boom era ride, chances are, it'll have a threaded freewheel, in which case you can just take of the freewheel and thread on a fixed cog (maybe with some loctite). You will need to redish the wheel, so as the center the hub against the rim. This is as simple as loosening spokes, centering the hub (with a dishing tool!) and tightening them again. If you don't feel comfortable, you can have your LBS do it for you in about 10 minutes. Mine did it for me for $15. That brings your total fixed-wheel cost to $40 (about $20-25 for the cog and a little loctite). Other than that, you'll probably just need to replace brake cables and saddles.

Sheldon Brown's fixed conversion page (mentioned above) is an invaluable resource, as is the rest of his site.

Good luck, and don't forget to post beaucoup pictures when you're done!

Watch out, you might find you don't want to ride your clickety-clak racers anymore.

thanks for the help guys, if I do the threaded freewheel thing where ya put on a cog and redish it would that be able to pedal backward? That looks really hardcore and i want to learn how It seems like the cog would come off.... I have an old schwinn traveller that I could use. Its got horizontal dropouts and stuff but it dosent have a headset, how do i figure out what kind of headset it uses? (ive got the fork) Also, what are your suggestions for cog and chainring # of teeth?The schwinn has a crankset with two chainrings on it....the big one has 53 teeth and the small one has 40 but like i said, I race and am a crosscountry skier so im reasonably strong, but not the best by anymeans. thanks again

Well, if you want to do a lot of backpedaling, I would recommend some loctite on there, and optionally, a BB lockring (english threaded).

A lot of people don't even loctite, but if you want that extra security, loctite red will keep that thing on there forever.

As for gearing, that depends on you, and your terrain. Ride around the area and try to find a gear you're most comfortable in. For my area (hilly parts of Los Angeles), I'm running a 48/16, but again, that's no indicator of what you should run.

I just converted an old bike I had laying around, watch out your probally going to get hooked on riding a fixed. Getting a new rear wheel is probally the way to go but I wanted to use up as much of my old parts as much as possible. I took a cassette and had a freind of mine tig-weld the outer hub body to the inner to make it solid and then used spacers to hold the cog onto the cassette. Works really nice but it looks kinda funky, the line up with the front chain ring and the rear cog is easy to set now and it runs really quiet. I am using a 42x14 and it works pretty good here with the hilly roads but with this set-up it's easy to change gearing. I bought a set of bullhorns from Nashbar(14 bucks) put a front brake on the right side and have rode about a hundred miles since, it's a fun bike to ride and don't really care if I get back on the road bike or not.

I got that bar from nashbar too...i have a pair of TT levers to go on too, im excited. now i need to get a cog and a headset......oh and a chain too...so if nayone knows anything about schwinn travelers i would appreciate it

to add my two cents, my method was just to thread the cog on really tight with a chainwhip. then i changed some axle spacers around and progressively tightened and loosened spokes until it "looked right." so far, so good... and so cheap.

if you plan to always use a front brake, the bb lockring and loctite should be fine; however, if you eventually plan to ride brakeless, get yourself a track hub (as this will be your means to stop). the lockring for a track hub threads on counterclockwise, therefore will not loosen from backpedalling. iro cycle has a rear wheel with a track hub for $100.

Just wondering... Does loctite really help afix the cog? I thought loctite was more to keep things from loosening under low torque/vibration, yet still allow removal with high torque. So I would think if you put enough back pressure to remove a cog (that was torqued on hard w/ forward pedaling), Loctite would make little difference. Eh?

"You will need to redish the wheel so...."

you MAY need to redish the wheel. prolly not, in my experience.