You are reading a single comment by @Rew and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@Rew
I've been road cycling for a while now and have always fancied a fixed gear bike but I'm not keen on the idea of having to always pedal and using legs to brake so I am going to do a single speed to begin with and hopefully progress from there.
I've been reading this forum and Sheldon browns site amongst others to get a good idea of what I'm getting into and today I picked up the bike for my first project. I'd been looking on ebay for a while but then thought I'd take a punt on Facebook and see if anyone I know had anything tucked away in a shed...ten minutes after posting I got a reply from someone who had an 'old road bike' and agreed to take it off their hands without seeing it. I agreed to pay £20 (they didn't want any money at all) and arranged to collect the mystery bike today.
All seems to have turned out very well as I have ended up with a Raleigh vitesse with 531 tubing and some half decent brakes for £20. Have I got a decent deal?
I intend to strip the frame back and paint it myself. Probably in a red and white scheme. A few noob questions if I may:
I'm going to get a single speed specific sprocket and some spacers for the rear but can I utilise one of the chain rings from the current set up?
What is the best way to fill the holes left when I remove gear shifters etc?
Have I missed anything silly that makes this a bad choice?
This is what I have:
Hoping to get started with the disassembly some point this week and will try to post regular updates.