First fixed bike build thread - Help build my first singlespeed or fixed bike

nice build, what is the frame?

Dancelli, can't find an awful lot about the frame but they have been made either by colnago or Merckx in the past.

Dancelli himself rode for colnago and was Merckx right hand man apparently...

I am going to buy a fixie, need it to be under £200 really, any suggestions?

Or how much do you think I could build a fixie for, baring in mind I have a racing frame knocking about with forks so don't worry about that part!

Use the search - upper right hand corner - search for "OTP" if you want info on new bikes and then search the classifieds to get a feel for the costs of used stuff. Do your research.

Convention is to take photos of the bike from the driveside, so you can see the drivetrain. Looks good otherwise.

On the commute to work I never change gear, and I'm killing my old Trek.

I'm not rich, and I have no experience building bikes, but I have a reasonable set of tools, and I'm keen to learn.

I need a solution that's the right balance of ease of build (beginner), finance (pretty skint) and decent performance. Yeah, so that'll be the moon on a stick, right?

I'd like to buy some new wheels for my Trek, so I could hopefully use the old Bontrager Select wheels on the new build.

I was reading about Visp frames on here, and they sound fairly decent and cheap.

What else would I need and how cheaply, and simply could I build a bike?

My list so far is:

Frame: Visp (frame, fork, and seatpost), £145, or a Dolan frame on ebay for ~£80 (needs a fork)
(fork, seatpost)
Bottom Bracket
Headset
Brake
Brake Lever
Headset
cranks
pedals
chain
seat
seat clamp
brake hangers front / rear if you use cantilever brakes
stem
handlebars
(wheels/tires/tubes)

Are there any pitfalls finding parts for odd sizes.

eBay is your friend, you'd be amazed how much of what you're looking for you can pick up very reasonably on the 'bay. Or of course there's classified ads here. A great deal of everything you can assemble/attach with a set of Allen keys.

Out of interest, have you read any of the site? Answers to these questions all over. Use the search top right...

Thanks for the advice. I've been reading a bit of the site - mostly threads drooling over old frames, but I'm finding it hard to identify the common pitfalls.

I appreciate all across the interweb there's a good few points to score in your forum pointing newbies to the search option, but I did do a search for (beginners,starting,first)(build,bike) etc, but yeah, a general overview is quite hold to find.

Iif you want to do the most straightforward and simple job possible I'd get a Surly Singleator:

To provide chain tension, and a single speed cassette hub sprocket and converter:

Then you can leave the rest of the bike as is.

OR:

Flog the Trek complete, and get an OTP like a Fuji Track (or similar, I'm not up on what is current in that area of the market right now), in the long run this will be the cheaper and easier route to follow. Nothing wrong with a Langster, really, for example.

Thanks for that - very useful. Think I want to build something to rest the Trek.

Get a second hand pompino or charge plug complete or their frames and build up (teenslain had a Xlarge Pompino frame up for 100 quid)

Offer this bloke £100 for his Bianchi Pista
http://www.lfgss.com/thread70375.html#post2337601

Get a second hand pompino or charge plug complete or their frames and build up (teenslain had a large Pompino frame up for 100 quid)

This would be a good plan, just as long as you either buy from someone you know and trust, or have someone you know and trust check the bike over.

Huge saving over buying new, if you get a good bike.

I mean a brand new frame and fork is only 160. Headset,bb,seatclamp,seatpost and stem can all be bought for next to nothing. Old mtbs can be good for scavenging parts to put on a pompino...

Think I'm lprobably jst gonna get something secong hand. Not sure how to get my eye in in terms of ebay bargains. To my mind this looks like it would have been a good deal (if I'd not just forgotten about when it ended) - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260830150541&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Not concerned about looks (other than not being too keen on the really garish, or blingy stuff) and just want something in good mechanical order, than I can fettle into some semblance of steathy goodness. Any tips gratefully appreciated.

imo looks is one of the most important things when youre starting out - it keeps your ego afloat and makes you happy to know wild girls are looking at you.
uglificate later on down the line.

The thing is I have never been or will ever be cool. And if there's anything more uncool than an uncool bloke, it's an uncool bloke on a cool looking bike.

wear a hoodie!

Hi so I am totally new to the game, and i'm going to learn by having a go at converting my fucked up old road bike with 27in wheels to a singlespeed.. having to get replacement wheels tho and I want to buy second hand but I'm having a mare finding them. (I live in Berlin btw, but my German is still pretty shonky so this bike's getting built auf Englisch.)

SO my question is: if I removed the cassette from this here wheel, would I be able to convert it into a freewheel with a standard singlespeed kit?

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230516542516&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT#ht_1773wt_1002

This is the singlespeed kit I've bought btw

If that's a cassette on a shimano / SRAM compatible freehub, then yes. More likely to be a freewheel though on a bike with 27" wheels I'd guess.

Does your road bike have horizontal dropouts? Chain tension will be an issue if you don't (and don't have a tensioner)

Yeah the old road bike has horizontal dropouts, been watching plenty of youtube so as far as I can tell the conversion is simply a case of stripping the bike of all geared baggage, getting some shorter crank bolts so I can modify the existing chainset.

Just to clarify I don't own the wheel pictured, I found it for sale online and I'm trying to work out if it's suitable for me. That's the only clear picture of the rear hub on the ad.
The ad says this, roughly translated:
"The cassette is designed for 6-way circuits. The front hub is by Araya, the rear hub from Shimano."

If it is a freewheel rather than a freehub, am I going to have difficulty converting to singlespeed?

If it's a freewheel you can unscrew it but you'd need to re-dish the wheel to get a decent chainline. Plus your singlespeed kit becomes useless.

You can just leave the freewheel on and run singlespeed though

Well it's cool if the singlespeed kit becomes useless, I've got a frame that I"m planning to build my main bike from which canuse the kit.

How does the running singlespeed by leaving the freewheel on work, tho?