Langster vs. Fuji Track

Hi, just looking for a bit of first buyer advice -
am buying my first fixie and as i'm about to start uni my budget is not that big... Been looking for fixies at a decent price, also at bricklanebikes but so far they've all been a bit over budget. The ones i'm choosing between at the mo it seems are the langster and the fuji track - how do these two compare??

also, got an old carraro racer with campag avanti groupset that i might strip some parts from, but not sure if they're that much of an improvement to the current stuff on the two bikes mentioned... stuff i'd rip would probably be headset, front brake - not sure about the cranks as they might be too long to avoid overlap...

what's your budget and size?

i'm about a 54-56 (have been riding my friends 55 condor track and that fits beautifully) - budget would probably be about 450-ish but that should include spds and shoes and a few lose widgets...

are you looking for new or used? i'm assuming that with your budget, you're going for new? £450ish is a decent budget, especially if you're thinking of stripping your other bike for parts.

well, as it is i'm not sure if those campag bits are actually better than the standard ones - they're about 6 years old but in good condition... if there's a good used one out there i'll go for that, so far i just havent been too lucky...

Talk to Andy at Fixed Gear London. He'll be able to sort you out something really sweet for that price.

ahh ye saw that site a while ago while looking around for fixies...might chuck him an email when i get back to london... will he be able to do something with the bits i've already got or would he start from bottom??

been toying with the thought of building my own but so far it seems to me it'll end up more expensive than buying for instance a langster (£350 at the mo)

i'd agree with photoben and ask the fixed gear london guys to see what they can do for that price. £350 should be good for a nice build.

cool thanks for the input, will do that!

another quick question: what sorta lock would you suggest? will be mostly parking the bike at uni or have it at home, but need something thats a pain to break for whenever i have to park it around town...

Discussion about locks..

There's quite a lot about locks on here. Use the search at the top of the page.

If you're going to stay in halls for you're first year you'll probably find that bikes aren't allowed inside. My plan is to get a bike bag.

No one said anything about extremely large "suit cases" being prohibited :)

Fixed Brompton.

thanks - no i wont be living in halls, but planning on getting a bag at some points anyways so i don't ruin the carpet my landlady's put in my room!

hippy Fixed Brompton.

Yeah I'm beginning to think it would have been a good idea!

I'm going to save a big chunk of money from working over the summer. I got my student loan info today and I'm getting a lot more than I expected, so depending on how things are I might end up getting one.