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

Shorten the chain, remove the derailers and Robert's your father's brother. Put the chain on one of the cogs on the freewheel and leave it there.

That looks like it could be an older Uniglide freehub under those sprockets, but the sprockets are neither Uniglide (twist tooth) nor the later Hyperglide (with ramps).

I'd maybe avoid. Germany is great for getting good value bike parts. Tonnes on eBay.

Yeah I've been looking for weeks but a used freehub 27 wheel is rare as hen's teeth..

Would it be impossible to install 28 wheels on a bike that formerly had 27s? Can imagine I'd at least run into issues positioning the brakes

28s? You'd be more likely to replace 27s with 700c which are smaller but not significantly. You'll need longer drop brakes but perfectly doable provided the clearances aren't already huge. Much wider election of tyres (and indeed wheels) in 700c

Just came across this "buying and selling bikes on ebay" website:

http://www.mytenspeeds.com/My_TenSpeeds_1/Site%20Contents/Bicycle_Basics/Ebay_Bicycle_Purchase/Buying_Bicycles_Ebay_1_Introduction.htm

I thought it might be useful for anyone building their first bike, especially cheap/budget conversions.

this hub could be OK. it has splines like a modern cassette hub but instead of a lockring, it uses the smallest gear as a lockring (the cassette body is threaded).
So in theory you could unscrew the unwanted gears, and then just fit one of the gears (teh one you want) and fill the rest of the space with washers (cheap) and a nut on the end to secure.
If the wheel is like £5-10 it might be OK.
27" wheels are the biggest, then 700c (28"), then 650c (26") etc etc. With 700c/28" wheels on a 27" frame you will then probably need new brakes etc.
27" tyres are not hard to get hold of, most of the Netherlands & Denmark still roll on 27" so you can get cheap city tyres (£5 each) from bike shops quite easily. Upmarket tyres you only have Continenal Ultra & Gatorskin to choose from, which are OK.

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.

Pictures please and we will be the judge.

Ok, so I now have begged, borrowed or bought:
Groupset
Frame & forks (powder coated Rossin, 'eddie fit' geometry in Comp. Cyclist parlance)
Rims, Hubs, Tyres, inners
Seatpost
bars
Stem
Saddle
Zinn and the art of roadbike maintenance
Haynes bike book
Big stock of tools, tarp & bike stand (which anyone in EC is welcome to come use if they're stuck ;-P)

I.e: Everything I need to build my bike, and maintain it going forwards.

I figure I'll get the LBS to fit the headset and the cups, as I'm going to get the headtube and BB both faced & the BB chased anyway, given the powdercoat may have coated the edge slightly. I'll get the wheels assembled by Arup for now, and take one of his classes to learn how to do it myself in future.

Beyond go-slow slow patience, does anyone have any recommendations? I'm using the 'cycle fit' list here for advice on sizing of parts & angle of stem/bars, etc, and figure I'll avoid wrapping the bars for a while until I'm sure I have the ergos & angles comfy (I'll just use gloves at first)

Anything I should read or do first? Anything I should leave to the professionals as insane for a first try outside the headset?

Ta ;-p I'm rather nervous of making something that's either going to clown-car disassemble on its first ride, or give me numb horrible arms and back pain while I fiddle with the ten zillion settings.

Matt

Good idea on the headset. There are some good instructional videos on youtube. One called "bicycle tutor" comes to mind. There are several on different types of bottom bracket installation. In general, grease your threads and don't overtighten fasteners. It's not as hard as it might seem the first time. Work slowly and use common sense. Good luck. Cheers

recently came across an carlton 531c, like this: http://www.lfgss.com/thread64891.html

planned out a fixie conversion in my head. it has a 52t on the front so ill likely buy a 20t rear fixed cog and obviously a new fixed rear wheel then ill have fun stripping everything off and taking out a few chain links.

should i be worried about a completely f**ked up chainline which will mean complications? any help appreciated.

try this:

www.sheldonbrown.com

You can have a totally reliable bike with the chainline off by 3mm or so if you use a 3 3/2 chain (which your chain designed for gears will be).

ok thanks. i understand it wont matter if its 3mm out, but isnt there a possibility of it being 20mm out??

It's possible.

If you want to use the original BB and cranks you can dish your rear wheel, and use spacers on the rear hub axle in order to line up your cog.

yeh i had hoped to leave the original BB and cranks. thanks for the help, fingers crossed it lines up nice first time

In that case it definitely wont if your using a track hub. You'll need to bring the hub out to the drive side, dish the wheel to get it sitting centrally and put an axle spacer on the non-drive side.

If its a nice Carlton geared road bike leave it as it is, they can be very nice! :D

If you just want to go SS on that then you can get a screw on adapter that allows you to put a SS freewheel on without having to re-dish the rear wheel. Saw it on ebay was about £12 maybe? Obviously not suitable for fixed cog, but fine for SS and will sort your chainline issue.

Or use a set of cranks where you can use a 40-50t chainring on the inside of the crank arms, its fine to put a series of washers under the chainring/crank spider as long as the bolts are long enough (you can maybe add 2 or 2.5mm of washers max). Having chainring on inside will make a good 10mm of difference in the first place.

As above, I have a Campag Mirage 170 52/39 chainset and was going to ask about chain rings, cogs, and wheels.

Can I dissassemble the chainset and put it back together with one of these...

http://www.velosolo.co.uk/shopcrank.html

...to sort out the chainline? The Velosolo chainring has the advantage of different widths.

Is there an advantage having a specific fixed wheel as opposed to a standard road wheel with spacers?

I've ben UTFS and coming up with oblique references to this sort of info.

With a standard road wheel (130mm, cassette etc) you can go singlespeed, but not fixed.

Your link to velosolo just goes to a page with all sorts of crank related things. What's the plan?

You don't need a 3/32 chainring if your happy with either 52 or 39 as your ring.

"The plan" (if it can be called that) is to end up ideally with a bike that can be single speed or fixed, on my fairly limited budget but with random magpie incidents.

From my post above at 258 my idea to go as cheap and functional as possible has been swayed by too much time on here. So now I have dibs on a Batavus frame, I have a cinelli stem and bars, some campag monoplanars, some tektro levers, and the campag chainset.

I'd like to convert the chainset to look like a single chainring, and the Velosolo website seems to offer a chainring that "is ideal for converting a classic Campag 53/39 square taper road crank (Centaur, Veloce, Record etc) to a single ring for fixed/singlespeed use."

I haven't a clue about wheels. I saw Varno's sets for £112 but would ideally spend half that. Not sure if wheels made specifically for single speed/fixed have advantages over normal road wheels.

Similarly, I'm not sure if there's an advantage to be had using the opportunity to stick on a wider chain.

Good stuff.

The velosolo mention of old campag is because they're (now uncommon) 135bcb. Check the bcb of your cranks before ordering. If you buying new – you might as well buy the 1/8th version as it'll wear slower.

Get some simple track wheels like those from on-one. That's about the cheapest way to get on the road with serviceable, good performing wheels unless you build your own.

Stick the wheel in, and then you can get a straight chainline by careful selection of BB (spindle length makes the difference) and/or mounting the chainring on the inside of the crank spider (a bit ugly).

When it comes to BBs, make sure you know about ISO vs JIS tapers and what they'll do with your ISO chainset.

Hope this helps.

Having that Campag double chainset gives you the advantage of placing your chosen chainring on either side of the spider, thus letting you shift your chainline by ~5mm.

Thanks for the help.

The On-One wheels - do you mean these? £170 was more than I wanted to spend tbh.

I was going to wait before asking about BB selection to try and avoid novice-question-fatigue. Haven't got a clue about what to look for to fit the Batavus frame, the campag cranks and line up with the rear cog!

I had these in mind. They're branded planet x now. The hubs are sealed (they're Novatecs), the spokes are double butted and the rims aren't heavy.

Your frame will probably have an English threaded BB shell. There is a really good page on Sheldon Brown's site about measuring your chainline if your wondering how to go about that. From there it's just getting a BB with the right length ISO spindle.

Thanks a lot Miro.