Is it difficult to turn a road bike into a fixie? I have an old Canondale in the garage that I'd like to try. It has those old school down tube shifters, so those would have to be removed and plugged. But what about the gearing? Are there spacers, etc? Is it something the avg. joe can do in his spare time or should the LBS only be the ones setting it up? Thanks for the advice. Oh ya...any shops close to Huntington Beach if I have take it to a shop?
You need to run without a derailleur or chain tensioner. If your bike has track ends you can slide the rear wheel until the chain is taut. If you have vertical drops you just have to be lucky to find a magic gear ratio. If you can't then the task is impossible. Other than that it's easy to make a fixie. Get a Surly Fixxer. It replaces the Shimano freehub with a mount for track cogs. I did it for my Unit, but that is an SS with sliders to adjust the chainstay length (no tensioner needed).
Your better off getting a White Industries ENO hub easy set super quality,works on any dropout, Oh drop by Bill Rons bike shop he has everything you will ever need but keeps odd hours. good luck.
There's that one in Seal Beach on PCH that is supposed to be hip to the fixies - Kings? I think it was maybe Chelle that had been there?
Kings Home while in Seal Beach....stop by The Abbey on Main Street for a pint! Good Belgians and pizza.....mmm........beer....
It's a twice a month place for me! Love the Heiffe :beer: and happy hour pizzas. My wife wanted me to take to Walt's Warf last week and I was like come on let's go to The Abbey (knowing the game was on and I could see it from anywhere in the bar) and she was like no let's go someplace "nice". We used to go there all the time when we lived in HB. Ended up Walt's had a 45 min wait and I said hell no to that and got a table at the Abbey right away. Someone's on my side[-o-]
Fixie / single-speed Hey, just saying kudos on you digging out the old road bike and making a single-speed out of it. I just got an old Schwinn set up for both fixie and single speed and it's so pleasant to ride. While I loved the idea of building one up, I found a smokin' deal on a complete bike so I just dropped for it. But I didn't already have an old road bike kicking around like you do. I think it's good to have a bike like this so you're more likely to use it for short, local, casual rides where you might otherwise just hop in the car. Plus, they're not the theft target your "true" road bike might be. Good luck on the build-up, whether you get shop help or not.
I was just in Kings tonight. On PCH between Seal Beach Blvd and Main Street. Very nice little shop with some serious bike bling. They had some very sweet fixies, some cool XC bikes, a little bit of touring and tandem, and some pretty Scott 15lb-ers. There was a tourer with racks from Co-Motion that had some 8" Avids (A bicycle for the heavier rider: Co-Motion's "Mazama"), very interesting. I spent some time speaking with a shop guy named Michael. Nice guy. He said that Scott is coming out with a 22lb MTB with on the handlebar, on the fly adjustment between, 0, 2.5 and 4.5 rear travel. Sounds like a racer's wet dream. I'm glad to have a quality shop in the area.
