Newbie

ilovesherbet

Ok i gave up riding road bike when I was 15, too much like effort, and have now spent the last 11 years riding BMX. I've decided to start road biking again and the simplicity of a fixie looks fun. I'm thinking about building one from scratch from an 1980's steel frame. Is this a good way to go if you enjoy spending hours building things? I dont mind cutting the drop outs off the frame and welding on horizontal dropouts but I've seen jump mountain bikes with a little dog leg thing that lets you run single speed on verticle drops, could I fit this on a road bike?

jonnywilkinson

the 'dog leg' think you refer to is a chain tensioner and will allow you to run single speed but not fixed.

your instinct to buy an old 80s road bike is good as far as i'm concerned. most likely it will have horizontal dropouts and this will allow you to tension the chain by slipping the wheel back. go for it. you'll love it dude

knucklehead

This is what your talking about. It will not let you convert a bike to fixed but will work to pick up slack on the chain of a single speed.
http://www.surlybikes.com/parts/images/ ... _1x1On.jpg
This will allow you to convert the road wheels into fixed wheel, but you will need use a freewheel if you go down the singulator route.
http://www.surlybikes.com/parts/images/ ... ixxer2.jpg

Monty Dog

Singleator+fixed gear=death or painful injury. You frame probably has forward facing, long diagonal drop-outs know as 'horizontal' and give plenty of fore-and-aft adjustement for a fixed/singlespeed. Check the internal width of the drop-outs - they may be 126mm and depending on what hub you use, may need to be reset to the right width - fixed/track hubs are generally 120mm.

dreamlx10

"...the simplicity of a fixie..."

It's very simple it's called a "FIXED"