Fixed/Single Speed Commuting

edhornby

jds_1981 wrote:

SimonAH wrote:

<bangs head on table> of course! That's why I can't skid except on wet grass with my gearing! Think I'd just use bodyweight rather than front brake to lift the rear end, but that should work!

<tries to recall where the elbow and kneepads are stored before giving it a go later>

I always had to get forwards at 48*16 to skid. Prefer to just use my brakes though.

dude you are brave - i run 48*16 and the cruising speed on that gear is way too fast to skid stop for me...

iPete

dhope wrote:

iPete wrote:

correct answer!

don't s'pose you can assist with project 'purchase justification'. What seatpost, headset and crank system does your condor take? can't seem to see a proper spec on their website!

Am running 27.2 seatpost, standard 1 1/8 stems/bars [i think] and a some kind of truvative crank with SRAM GXP external bb. if it ticks all the above i'll be hiding my plastic.

I've got Campag Record Pista [English] BB and crankset. 27.2 Thomson layback seatpost.
Bars - http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/HBD ... _handlebar
Stem - Easton EA90
Whatever the Condor standard headset is. 1 1/8 I think offhand.

But if it helps then I can edit the above to say is entirely non standard and you need to buy new stuff


I'm tempted to get a track bike, shift the fancy wheels and campag pista to that, then put the normal Condor stuff I have back on the commuter and have a proper racy track bike for sunny days and Herne Hill, and a normal nice fixed commuter with guards etc but not quite as OTT as it is now
So, y'know - what you're doing but in reverse

no no, I've already purchased all new stuff for the current bike

Riding a proper track bike is awesome fun but there isn't much room for compromise, clearly owning both is the only way...

Came across a guy on a Planet X track on embankment, look awesome in the flesh. massive bike envy.

iPete

Hi Peter

Thank you for your email.

The new range will be on display for the first time at the Cycle Show at NEC in October. The cream Pista is remaining unchanged, and the olive is being replaced.

Kind regards

Condor Cycles

It has begun

Gussio

edhornby wrote:

jds_1981 wrote:

SimonAH wrote:

<bangs head on table> of course! That's why I can't skid except on wet grass with my gearing! Think I'd just use bodyweight rather than front brake to lift the rear end, but that should work!

<tries to recall where the elbow and kneepads are stored before giving it a go later>

I always had to get forwards at 48*16 to skid. Prefer to just use my brakes though.

dude you are brave - i run 48*16 and the cruising speed on that gear is way too fast to skid stop for me...

Quite. 48*17 and I know for a fact that my knees will give out way before any rubber is deposited on the road...

iPete

Running 51x17 & spinning along at 24mph I'm pretty sure without brake assist my stopping distance in the same as Heathrows main runway.

SimonAH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIICQOyy-Yg

:-)

Gussio

That video made me laugh.

Here is a guy with real skidding skills....up and down the Stelvio on a brakeless fixeh....

http://vimeo.com/14930896

:shock:

tomlockbart

Hi,

Been on lurking here for ages so thought i would drop a line and say hi. i ride a steel 1940s brown "hobbs of barbican" SS with 46*16 gearing. don't know how i ended up with that ratio though. used to be fixed but my knees didn't like me. ride from kings cross to chancery lane but go via a loop down city road, shoreditch high street and old street/clerkenwell road.

anyway, hello all

nickd01

iPete wrote:

Ar you running fixed nick, usually in lycra? might have seen you once or twice although that's quite a vague description!

I'm going to cut my toes off. The sudden massive increase in traffic is making fixed a right pain at times. Think I'm gonna buy myself a condor pista frameset for crimbo, move all the Trek parts over, shift the frame and run SS.

Yep, running fixed and normally wearing in 3/4 lycra leggings, black helmet and whatever top doesn't smell too bad!

It's getting much busier on the ride in now, I wish the Olympics and school holidays were back - that was so good!

iPete

As my brake hand is a mess I rode the Spesh Allez today, horrible realisation that the bike is the wrong size [21,000 later!], there is NO power transfer, acceleration is pathetic and free wheels are the work of the devil!! I'm officially a FG convert, there is no going back to the roadie.

clarkey cat

too big?

iPete

Yup! might bling out an wait for a 54cm tarmac frame to come up. Need to build it into a proper weekend bike & FGSS commute.

itboffin

Jeez this thread was gathering some serious dust.

Well the time has come for me the replace the previously owned (Liv) FGSS wheelset, but with what?

itboffin

this weekend I performed the worst fettle bodge yet, a few weeks back some fucktards rammed their bike and d-lock into my rear wheel at the station and broke one of my spokes, I finally brought the bike home but rather than remove the tyre, tube and sprocket I just cut the spoke out - simples! :roll:

I did clean the bike and remove and refit the bottom bracket

iPete

*blows off more dust*

Is it wrong that I'm looking at a Winter build already? Actually it has just started hammering down with rain

Looking for FGSS framesets that:

Take full proper mud guards
Rack mounts optional
Steel preferable
Modern fitments, Hollowtech II, 31.8 stem etc.
Standard track wheel spacing, whatever that is, want my wheels to fit!


On the short list so far:
Condor Tempo, love the orange paint job
Pearson Touché

clarkey cat

having owned a Fratello (which is the same as a Tempo) and a Touche I can say without any shade of doubt whatsoever in my mind:

Get the Condor.

dhope

You can borrow the Tempo again btw now that you're used to fixed riding. Richmond park this week possibly.

asprilla

What GI are folks pushing these days?

I'm building up my SS at the moment and I have a suspicion that I used to run 48/18. However, I've using the original Campag double crankset and so it's a 53 at the front. I think I'm looking at 20t freehub.

dhope

Asprilla wrote:

What GI are folks pushing these days?

I'm building up my SS at the moment and I have a suspicion that I used to run 48/18. However, I've using the original Campag double crankset and so it's a 53 at the front. I think I'm looking at 20t freehub.

48/15 at the moment, around 85 GI
I'll be the one swearing at the little hills in Richmond Park this evening

iPete

Am running 46x16, about 75 GI, a bit girly next to dhope! Survived the winter winds though and can smash box hill and crawl up whitedown on it.

dhope wrote:

You can borrow the Tempo again btw now that you're used to fixed riding. Richmond park this week possibly.

Cheers, no hurry, Winter is some time away!

And nearly put a pre-order in for this ltd ed UK Vigorelli run http://urbancyclery.co.uk/frames/cinell ... -grey-pink

phy2sll2

49x17 but it's a bit big for me, if I'm honest.

Here's a question: how do people deal with the whole chain length thing?

With 49x17 my wheels are pretty much as far forward in the dropouts as they'll go.

I'd like to have one chainring and a two sprocket combination that'll give me 85"-88" for the track and 70"-72" for around town and require the same number of links for my chain. Is that possible?

iPete

n+1

phy2sll2

iPete wrote:

n+1

You're so right!

phy2sll2

Or drill the dropouts a bit deeper!

EKE_38BPM

phy2sll2 wrote:

49x17 but it's a bit big for me, if I'm honest.

Here's a question: how do people deal with the whole chain length thing?

With 49x17 my wheels are pretty much as far forward in the dropouts as they'll go.

I'd like to have one chainring and a two sprocket combination that'll give me 85"-88" for the track and 70"-72" for around town and require the same number of links for my chain. Is that possible?

I don't think so. You'd either need massively long dropouts or change the length of your chain.

phy2sll2

Can you double up quicklinks or is that asking for trouble?!

wgwarburton

phy2sll2 wrote:

49x17 but it's a bit big for me, if I'm honest.

Here's a question: how do people deal with the whole chain length thing?

With 49x17 my wheels are pretty much as far forward in the dropouts as they'll go.

I'd like to have one chainring and a two sprocket combination that'll give me 85"-88" for the track and 70"-72" for around town and require the same number of links for my chain. Is that possible?

Best bet here might be to put a double on the front and a dingle on the back, then use, say, 54x17 (84") on the outer pair and 52x19 (72") on the inner. You'd get the range you're after and good chainline but you'd have to find a chainset that would let you mount a 52t & a 54t together... Don't know one offhand but I'm not familiar with modern componentry. Vintage stuff (TA, Stronglight etc) would let you do it.

At any rate, the concept ought to be sound if you can find the parts to do what you want- dingles only come in a few sizes with 17 as the smaller sprocket, so that's probably the limiting factor. The combo above uses the same chain length- you could probably get away with a bit of difference if you shift the wheel in the dropute by half an inch or so which may increase your options.

Cheers,
W.

asprilla

WGWarburton wrote:

phy2sll2 wrote:

49x17 but it's a bit big for me, if I'm honest.

Here's a question: how do people deal with the whole chain length thing?

With 49x17 my wheels are pretty much as far forward in the dropouts as they'll go.

I'd like to have one chainring and a two sprocket combination that'll give me 85"-88" for the track and 70"-72" for around town and require the same number of links for my chain. Is that possible?

Best bet here might be to put a double on the front and a dingle on the back, then use, say, 54x17 (84") on the outer pair and 52x19 (72") on the inner. You'd get the range you're after and good chainline but you'd have to find a chainset that would let you mount a 52t & a 54t together... Don't know one offhand but I'm not familiar with modern componentry. Vintage stuff (TA, Stronglight etc) would let you do it.

At any rate, the concept ought to be sound if you can find the parts to do what you want- dingles only come in a few sizes with 17 as the smaller sprocket, so that's probably the limiting factor. The combo above uses the same chain length- you could probably get away with a bit of difference if you shift the wheel in the dropute by half an inch or so which may increase your options.

Cheers,
W.

Ooooh, that's an interesting plan

Must research.

Edit; are you saying that if I were to put TA rings on a late 80's Campag crankset I could run 50/52 on the front and 17/19 on the rear?

wgwarburton

Asprilla wrote:

WGWarburton wrote:

phy2sll2 wrote:

49x17 but it's a bit big for me, if I'm honest.

Here's a question: how do people deal with the whole chain length thing?

With 49x17 my wheels are pretty much as far forward in the dropouts as they'll go.

I'd like to have one chainring and a two sprocket combination that'll give me 85"-88" for the track and 70"-72" for around town and require the same number of links for my chain. Is that possible?

Best bet here might be to put a double on the front and a dingle on the back, then use, say, 54x17 (84") on the outer pair and 52x19 (72") on the inner. You'd get the range you're after and good chainline but you'd have to find a chainset that would let you mount a 52t & a 54t together... Don't know one offhand but I'm not familiar with modern componentry. Vintage stuff (TA, Stronglight etc) would let you do it.

At any rate, the concept ought to be sound if you can find the parts to do what you want- dingles only come in a few sizes with 17 as the smaller sprocket, so that's probably the limiting factor. The combo above uses the same chain length- you could probably get away with a bit of difference if you shift the wheel in the dropute by half an inch or so which may increase your options.

Cheers,
W.

Ooooh, that's an interesting plan

Must research.

Edit; are you saying that if I were to put TA rings on a late 80's Campag crankset I could run 50/52 on the front and 17/19 on the rear?

Yeah, that's the idea... there are a few gotcha's, though: the Dingle needs a 3/32 chain, whereas most track rings will want a 1/8" one. Ideally, you want a double with a decent PCD and straight-cut teeth, no ramps and pins.

135 sounds pretty good for this, 144 would probably be tricky to find doubles in, the old 86bcd Stronglights (and TAs) arn't as stiff, so Big Rings are hard to find (52s easy enough though, 50s are about, 54s are rare).
There are specialists who'll happily sell you suitable rings but it could get expensive... Finding combinations on ebay that make it all work for little money is the clever bit!

If you go for small chainrings you won't get track gearing, as the Dingle only comes with biggish sprockets. There may be other ways to get twin sprockets on the rear, in which case it'd be easier to get a big difference between the gears (as the percentage change would be higher).
FWIW, I ran a 52/48 front for a while with a single sprocket, which gives you two fairly close ratios, if you want a bigger gap (like the 71/85 in the earlier question) then you need to change the rear instead or as well.

Cheers,
W.

[edit] PS meant to say... be careful you don't get carried away with the idea. I've seen people try to put eight, nine, even ten or more sprockets on the rear and use fancy cable operated gizmos to move the chain around... Then you need chain tensioners and all sorts! Madness, I tell you, it'll never catch on!!

asprilla

Well, I'm looking to use my existing Record C era cranks with a White Industries free hub on a WI Eno Ecc hub. That gives a chainline of 47.5mm. I'm struggling to decide what greasing to go with and then I notices that WI do a double free hub so why not see if I can make it work.

Of course I may just end up with two gears I don't like.