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@mooks
Hi there - long time lurker, first time poster yada yada yada...
I've been riding a converted '90s Raleigh for about 8 months now. It was never an ideal frame - 60cm when 56-58cm would have been more appropriate - but I wanted something cheap I could build up and see if I had a taste for riding fixed or if it was just a passing fancy.
Well, I'm still here, and still riding. Now I want to sort myself out with a proper fixed - the right size and with track ends, but I have a dilemma - hopefully you can help.
Looking around (eBay, here, LBS, council dump etc...) I have a choice - either buy a track frame or stick with the converted road frame approach. Most of the track frames I've seen are stupidly expensive, unless you go down the Ribble/Dolan route and deal with the associated quality control issues. Either that, or I could get hold of a Fuji or Surly or something similar, but again, cost is an issue - I'm not that keen on spending £300 on a frame that, let's be honest, could be knobbled at any time.
The most interesting option for me seems to be buying a cheap/vintage road frame and sending it away to get track ends fitted. I'm guessing that the road geometry would be better suited to general thrashing about town. I don't know if I could deal with the guilt of killing all those puppies by converting an old Holdsworth, Mercian or Witcomb like that, but it looks like it would work out as being cheaper.
In brief, I just want to know what would be the better option - bite the bullet and spend a few hundred on a proper frame, get a half decent vintage frame and get the ends swapped, or forget about the track ends and just get a decent vintage and run it with the original dropouts?
Apologies if this comes across sounding confused - that's probably because it is, but hopefully you can see what I'm getting at. Appreciate any help.