Single Speed Wheel Commuting bike idea

Epoch

Hi
I am considering building my own single speed commuting bike

1. Where do i get a single speed wheel from?
2. Do i need an eccentric bottom bracket or will a Truative firex or similar be ok in conjunction with a single speed frame

Im just slightly confused anybody point me in the right direction other than a prebuilt bike?

cheers

amt27

1. I would recommend you buy a single speed conversion kit for a normal cassette freehub,
the kit will include spacers and sprockets

2. You need to align the front sprocket with the rear wheel sprocket, therefore a change in bottom brack width might be required, however the spacers with the kit for 1. will give you alot of alignment settings so I doubt you will need this.

pader

try btec who built me a gotldtec hub on which you can fix or free wheel according to what you stick on it. dont think an eccentric BB is necessary - you can usualy get it right with different widths of BB to get the best chainline.

John C.

If you have on old rear wheel that uses a freewheel gear cluster or have a friend that has one you can have, then all you need is a chain and sprocket, which will set you back about 20 quid. Ideally you will use a double chain set with only the inner ring on, but you could use a triple with just the middle ring although you may need a shorter bottom bracket. The rear wheel will then need fettling which will involve removing the axle and spacers, take this opportunity to re grease and then reset the spacers so the hub is in the center of the axle, this will push the rim way over to the right hand side of the bike, to rectify this put the wheel in the bike frame and slacken all the spokes on the right hand side by one turn and tighten all of the spokes on the left hand side, repeat this until the rim is central and fine tune with quarter turns.
Sad as I am I quite enjoyed the project, probably more than that of riding fixed, although I must admit it taught me a lot about riding hills. I now know I can get up any hill on a double chain set although why I would want to is another matter.