fixie converitions

wheels 11

How do I go about converting an old road bike in a road fixie to commute on.
I have an old set of wheels with a 7 speed cassette removed, and will need to fit a new BB and crankset.
How do I adjust the wheels and what BB do I need? I know its an oversize but not sure on the details, but think I had a campo BB fitted in the past.
Any advice would be great

Cheers

andrew_s

1. What rear dropouts does your frame have? You need to be able to adjust the rear axle position forwards and backwards to get the chain tight, and keep it tight as it wears. That generally means old style horizontal dropouts.
There are other options that work - the White ENO eccentric hub or the Trickstuff Exzentriker

2. A standard sprocket uses the same thread as a screw-on freewheel, so any wheel with a screw-on freewheel ("block") can be used. If your wheel has a freehub for a cassette, you can replace the freehub with a Surly Fixxer.
Freewheel or Cassette?

3. Once you've got the frame and wheel sorted, the next step is to ensure that your chainring and sprocket line up reasonably accurately. The sprocket can screw on either way round, giving a little adjustment, you can use either the outer or middle/inner chainring position, you can pick a BB with a different axle length, you can add spacers between the BB and frame, you can fiddle with axle spacers.

If you check the links, you'll see that fixing an unsuitable bike isn't cheap or straightforward. It is often better to just go out and look for a more suitable donor bike. Generally, suitable bikes are those made before about 1985.

If your bike is suitable, it's just swap the freewheel for a sprocket, take off redundant chainrings, derailleurs and shifters, and get the chainline right.

blackhands

If your wheels are cassette (freehub) type its not cheap/easy to convert to fixed - it might be cheaper to get a new back wheel - even one for a screw-on block will be ok but you would be advised to fit a track (nutted) axle. I personally would get a proper fixed back wheel on the basis that I'd be saving money commuting by bike so the cost is soon recouped.

In theory you can use any old chainset - I use a 165mm triple with only one (1/8") chainring on my winter training bike, with a chain from ASDA (lasts OK).

What BB you need depends on a number of things - type of axle (square taper, octolink etc); chainline (how the cranks sit on the axle) - chainline is quite important on a fixed wheel, especially if you are using 1/8 chain; frame 's bottom bracket thread (usually English (RH sid is left-hand thread) and width - ulmost universally 68mm on older frames.

wheels 11

cheers guys, some things worth thinking about here. I have vertical dropouts, and may go ahead with the advice of buying a fixed rear wheel, there are some on ebay for £35 or so. Looking forward to getting started, my maintenace is not that good but thats one of the reason I want to do this.