First project, single speed

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.

You've got yourself an excellent deal for 20 quid no doubt. Nice frame with a rag-tag mix up of parts which don't look too glamorous.

May I suggest one thing, however, the frame doesn't need repainting. In fact, it's the best feature of the bike. Lovely colour scheme and doesn't look too damaged - a good clean and it would look great. Also, I've repainted frames myself in the past (I presume you plant to rattle can it?) and it turns our surprisingly expensive, takes a lot of time and effort to do properly and after all that is usually soft and prone too chipping. Just my opinion of course.

+1 on not reprinting the frame, it looks lovely. It wi cost you about £50 to £60 even rattlecanning it, spend that money on some single speed specific wheels and crankset.
f you are looking for wheels check out v sprint, made by Varno from this parish, code on this thread to get some money off http://www.lfgss.com/thread90468.html. Other wise get some nice stuff second hand from the classifieds here.

Thanks for the input guys. I think I could definitely be tempted to leave the paint but I'm not sure how I would fix the parts of the paintwork where things are removed such as shifters and dérailleur attachment points? Some of the marks left could be polished out I guess.

Thanks for the heads up on the v sprint site. Going to have a look there now

Just leave them on. Not hurting being there (and give you options should you choose to resell or put gears on)

^agree
When you remove the downtube shifters you will have the studs left, not a hole. Dot worry about it, you/other people will never notice they are there when you actually use it. Same with derailleur hanger, it will be fine to just leave it. Just don't go grinding stuff off!

+1 please don't do it. you'll regret it later. Also I'd stay away from parts that are any colour other than silver or black, you might regret that too. I know I did, had to put up with my white rims that I hated for too long.

If you choose to replace te bars you can sell the bottom ones to me :)

Thanks for all the advice. I think the new plan then will be to get it apart so that I can give the current paint some tlc and then go from there. Decals could do with replacing/removing I think though. Is there a good way to do that?

I will be changing the bars and will be selling the current ones but I'm pretty sure they're all one piece. I'll have a look later.

If you want to remove the decals go for it. I hate to burst your bubble but Looking closer at your bike I think some/most of the decals have been put on after purchase. In particular the Dura Ace decals (those cranks are ex along with the rest of the gruppo) and the 531 decal. These frames were infact Reynolds 501 and i am afraid the 531 sticker you have there isn't genuine. 501 frames are still great and you still have an incredible deal at £20. So if you plump for new decals, get the right ones!

Thanks for that, I'm under no illusions about the dura ace decals.

I found a raleigh brochure on line though that said the frame is 531 although not the fork. Can you confirm for sure?

I cannot confirm for sure... It's just that that decal does not look genuine and I know of 501 raleigh vittesses, I could be wrong. If its in a raleigh brochure then I guess it is 531! Sorry to have confused you!

No worries. I checked the brochure again and the sticker is shown in there and it's the same. As I say though, it's only the 3 frame tubes which are 531.

So this evening I started taking the bike apart. Got the brakes off, bars/stem, front derailleur, rea derailleur and some of the decals off.

Getting the decals off has revealed a problem though, they were added for a reason! They are hiding some pretty nasty scuffs in the paint. Even the ones that weren't hiding scratches have caused problems as the paint has faded around the lettering so their is still a ghost of the decal on the paint! Other than Respray the bike I'm not sure what can be done. Although I'm not going to be building a show stopping beauty I also don't want it to look rubbish.

After the comments about keeping the original paint this is pretty disappointing but I really think a Respray is the only way to get around this. I'm thinking of using hammerite spray as this should be tougher than halfords car spray. I searched for people who have used it in the past and results seem ok. They do a satin black which might look quite cool.....has anyone used the product before?

It's your first conversion, I wouldn't worry about how the paint looks. I'm not saying this to be nasty, a first conversion is never going to look amazing and rattle canning will often look worse. Spend your time and money getting it up an running, riding and having fun. I think the first build is all about learning and the experience, you'll probably end up wanting to change a lot of stuff down the line and as loctez said, its more worth while to put your money into some decent parts starting off. Just my two cents.

Bargain! Stick with that paint job it's nice, i'd clean up the whole groupset & sell it on to fund some singlespeed cranks & possibly look at one of these that i recently came across so that your chain line is nice - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fixed-Wheel-Hub-Adaptor-Converter-Correct-Chainline-Singlespeed-FIXIE-/151046454418?pt=UK_sportsleisure_cycling_bikeparts_SR&hash=item232b11fc92

The mistake i always made with my singlespeeds is bodging the chain line & it always makes the rear wheel feel horrible when going fast.

the paint is rad, leave it. You wont regret that, i speak from experience like many other on here. i say for starters keep as much as you can original/cheap and go fixed! you wont look back..

The paint is staying. I will get it looking as good as I can though.

Thinking of keeping the bars too and just retaping them. Haven't decided on a colour yet but nothing outrageous.

Thanks for the ebay link. Will check it out.

Sorry if this has been a bit of a non event thread so far. I hope to have some proper progress soon!

You would probabally be best going with black tape, saddle and tyres. Then the colors of the frame will really show. Too much colour and it can be a bit yuck.

You would probabally be best going with black tape, saddle and tyres. Then the colors of the frame will really show. Too much colour and it can be a bit yuck.

This, so much.
Oh and just a little info, on bullhorns it's common and often preferred to wrap the bars the opposite way to that you'd wrap drops.

Just a note on colour. I'm afraid I'm not with the "leave the colour, it's great" gang. I've had a couple of fairly standard steel frames that I've converted to single speed and I've got to say there's nothing better than a crisp coat of beautifully applied paint - that saying, there's nothing worse than a badly applied coat of paint like I did on my first one! After that experience I had it done professionally by Armourtex in Hackney, about £80 for a brilliant powder coat job.......

So history and character<"A crisp coat" ?

Nahh, also £80 where he spent £25 on the whole build, why not just do an awesome sub £100 build?

To get rid of decal ghosting, get down to Halfords and buy some Meguiar's Scratch-X or Auto Glym Paint Renovator. Light polishing (followed up with some wax or sealant) should do wonders for it.

Thanks for the ghosting tip. I'll get some of that on it .

I've got it back to the frame now (although fork and bb are still on). Paint is looking alright, few scratches but looks fine from a few feet away!

He is where it's at:

I take it this sort of thing is cheap for a reason? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Single-Speed-Fixie-Steel-Crankset-46T-Teeth-Fixed-Gear-Chrome-Crank-/251278648992?pt=UK_sportsleisure_cycling_bikeparts_SR&hash=item3a815fe6a0

Yeah stay away from those...

On one external BB track cranks are great and can be had for £75, is that too much for you at the moment?