Maiden Fixie Ride

Since completing my fixie build, I've been gagging to get out on the new rig. Finally the weather and family gods (or is that stars?) aligned and I was able to get out for the maiden ride. Since I'd never ridden a fixed gear bike before, I took the conservative (read: wimpish) approach and drove the bike to Centennial Park on the back of my car to avoid traffic and hills.

Once safely in CP, I could learn how to start and stop in peace, as well as confirm that I had put the bike together properly. As it turned out, starting off was easy, especially with the double-sided SPD pedals; it was the same technique that I use on my geared bikes. The only snag is getting the first pedal (in my case, the right) into the power position to push off. I ended up using two different techniques on different occasions:

• Lift up the saddle with my hand to allow my right foot to move the pedal
• Squeeze the brake and push forward on the bars to lift the rear wheel, then move the pedal (Sheldon's idea).

Once rolling, it's just a case of remembering not to stop pedalling. On the couple of occasions when I did, it wasn't bitumen-eating time, my legs just got yanked around a bit (no doubt it's worse if you're going faster than I was).

I found stopping to be pretty easy too, thanks to my front brake. My first attempts at stopping without using the brake resulted in no deceleration at all; it was unnatural trying to use my legs to resist the pedals after a lifetime of encouraging them to go forward. But using the brake, the only thing to master was stopping with my right pedal down so that I could unclip my left foot and step down.

Once out and rolling on Grand Drive (which for those who don't know, is pretty flat), I found my 42 x 16 gear to have been a good choice (thanks again to Sheldon). What felt odd was how little my hands had to do; with one brake instead of two brakes and two shifters, they just sat there like the Devil's tools.

As for the bike in general, the QR axles gave no problems (again, as Sheldon says) and the chain tension seemed to be OK too. I had to adjust the saddle height in order to be able to ride no-hands, but that was about it. I haven't checked whether my lockring and sprocket are still tight, but I didn't feel any looseness through the pedals.

Now I can't wait for my next ride. I'm going to seek out some more challenging conditions like hills and corners to improve my skills.

Fixie Project - Part VII

This is the final instalment in my series of posts about building a fixed-gear bike. It's the final one because ... drum roll ... it's finished! Here's what it looks like:

In the meantime, here's what else I had to do along the way:

First was modifying my rear sprocket so that the lockring would fit next to it on the hub. This basically involved removing a couple of mm from the sprocket flange with the angle grinder. The new face isn't perfectly flat, but I figure this doesn't really matter.

Next I noticed that the rear wheel bearing was a bit rough, so I dismantled it and sure enough, the LH cone was pitted. $20 at my LBS bought me an axle rebuild kit from which I used the new cones and bearing balls (I had to reuse my old axle and spacers in order to keep the same overall width). After re-greasing and re-mantling it, it now runs nice and smooth. It helped that I got a 15mm cone spanner for my birthday.

Next was fitting the sprocket and lockring to the hub. Many people on fixed.org.au recommend rotafixing the sprocket instead of using a chain whip. I used a hybrid approach: wrapping the sprocket in a short length of an old chain, clamping the wrapped sprocket into the vice, and screwing the wheel into the sprocket using the rim for leverage. I tried to get it as tight as possible without stripping the threads of the aluminium hub. Next I fitted the lockring from a bottom bracket. I used thread locker on both the sprocket and the lockring; I guess I'll find out the effectiveness of this setup once I actually get to ride the bike. If worst comes to worst, I can always buy a proper track hub for the rear wheel (or even a whole new wheel). Here's how it looks for now:

With the sprocket in its final position on the hub, it was time to check the chainline (as per Sheldon Brown's conversion article). All I needed to do was swap the wide spacer (10mm?) on the drive side (where the 7-speed freewheel used to be) with the narrow spacer (5mm?) on the non-drive side. This moved the sprocket 5mm outwards, giving a near-perfect chainline.

Respacing the rear axle meant that the rear rim was no longer on the centreline of the bike, which would make for some very interesting handling indeed. Using the process described by Tom Deakins, I only had to tighten the RH spokes (and loosen the LH spokes) a total of about 1.75 turns in order to move the rim back to the centreline. I verified this by measuring the lateral distance to the chainstays on each side of the rim. The wheel didn't seem to lose any of its trueness in the process.

After that it was just a case of shortening the chain to the right length, taping the bars, fitting the front brake, seatpost, saddle, tyres, etc. Here's another look at the final product:


Specs:

• Frame: Reynolds 501 (i.e. steel)
• Wheels: Velocity Aero (rear), Alex ? (front)
• Brake: Shimano RSX dual pivot caliper
• Lever: Tektro RX 2.0 cross top
  
• Bottom bracket: Shimano UN54 (107mm)
  
• Sprocket: Shimano Dura-Ace 7600: 16T x 3/32"
• Chainring: 42T x 3/32" @ 110 BCD on a 165mm crank
  
• Chain: SRAM 3/32" 8-speed
  
• Pedals: Shimano PD-M520 (two-sided SPD)
  

Costs:

• Parts: $426
• Shipping: $55
• Tools: $9

Overall, the build process was both fun and a good learning experience (e.g. re-dishing a wheel and replacing a wheel bearing). From a pure time and money point of view, it probably makes more sense to shell out a couple of hundred bucks more and buy a fixie off the shelf; this would result in a bike with track ends and a proper lockring hub. But it's not always about time and money, is it?

Fixie Project - Part VI

Wow, almost a month has elapsed since my last blog post. There's been some progress on the fixie in amongst getting the usual winter colds (day care centres should be renamed Infectious Disease Factories for the Hygienically Challenged).

The first and possibly most satisfying development has been the completion of painting the frame and fork:


The paint is in three layers: grey primer, then sky blue, then clear on top, all from rattle cans. I applied the stickers before the clear coat, hoping this would give them some protection. The stickers (from Cyclomondo) can be applied wet or dry; I applied them wet so that I could move them around if they were crooked. I'm really happy with how they turned out.

The next job was to press in the headset cups. As explained in part V, I used a home-made tool for this. Here's the top cup going in (it's also a good shot of the metal head tube badge):

The rope is just a crazy idea for protecting the bottom face of the head tube, and probably not necessary.

And here's the top and bottom cups both pressed in:






















Next up was the bottom bracket, a Shimano UN54 68x107mm job:


And then the left-hand crank and pedal (double-sided Shimano brand SPD).

It all looks so shiny now - just wait until my first ride when I forget there's no freewheel!

Fixie Project - Part V

Not much progress to report on the painting front; the weather has been too humid for spraying for the last few days, which is holding up everything else. In the meantime I've done a few odd jobs like preparing a jury-rigged head cup press, using exactly $13.30 worth of bits from my local hardware store:


The threaded rod is 3/4" x 24" with a BSW thread. A tool like this only needs a rod about 20cm long, but 24" was all they had in the shop.

I'll post a picture of the tool in action once I get up to that point (i.e. after the frame is fully painted). I got this idea from Dave Moulton's Bike Blog. If it works, I'll have saved myself some workshop costs or the price of a proper head cup press (e.g. US$50 + P&P at Ben's Cycle).

Fixie Project - Part IV

Part IV in this riveting (and grinding and painting) series of blog posts about my fixie conversion project.

I'm doing a few things at once in this project, but the most visible progress has been the painting of the frame. In a previous entry, I showed you the frame in its original paint with all the bits stripped off. Well here it is after a few coats of grey primer from a rattle can.

Below you can see it in the final colour, Dulux sky blue. These shots show the horizontal dropouts quite well; hopefully they're deep and horizontal enough to provide easy adjustment of the chain tension.



The fork has received the same attention; sanding back to bare metal (or at least old paint that's in good condition), grey primer, then the colour.

The last steps will be a final sanding with #1000 wet-and-dry, then a coat of clear spray, again from a rattle can.

Somewhere in there, I'll apply some nice frame stickers I bought on eBay.

Fixie Project - Part III

Part III (the sequel to the sequel) in this riveting series of blog posts about my fixie conversion project (you can go back and read Part I and Part II if you like doing things in order, or you can read them later if you're more of a Memento kind of person).

Ugly Bits - Out!

Next step in the conversion was to attack the frame with a range of low-tech weaponry to get rid of all the ugly bits that you don't need on a fixie.

In the picture above, you can see the bosses for the rear cantilever brake (the two little grey posts). You can also see the angle grinder I used to cut them off. Angle grinders are not only dangerous, but also great fun. Their strength is also their weakness - they can remove a lot of material (especially thin or soft material) very quickly. So if you go this way yourself, be very conservative with your first few cuts; you can easily grind more off, but putting it back is a lot harder. I've done a lot of angle grinding over the years and (patronising rant continues...).

Now the right-hand (driver's side) post has been completely removed. I didn't go all the way down to the tube with the grinder. I stopped a mm or so short and used a flat bastard file (a fair dinkum technical term) to remove the rest. Next (after the photo) I used a fine file to take out the marks left by the bastard file. Lastly I went over the general area with garnet paper (coarse wet and dry would be OK too). That one week basic fitting course I did during my industrial training was sure coming in handy.





In the photo at right, both bosses have been ground and filed off, as has the cable stop for the rear brake (the upper pair of shiny patches).

All that's left on the seatstays is the brake bridge with the mounting boss in the middle. I'll leave this in place, as unlike the cable stop, it contributes stiffness and strength to the frame.

Paint

Although I'm trying to build this fixie on the cheap, I still want it to look half-decent. My plan is:

1. Strip the original paint using that goopy citrus paint stripper.
2. Spray a couple of coats of grey primer from a rattle can.
3. Sand with #600 wet and dry to smooth down the primer.
4. Spray with the final colour (still a secret, but it's not black) also using a rattle can.
5. Apply stickers (I've bought the main ones for the down tube from Cyclomondo, and am still trying to decide whether to put on some others or remain minimalist).
6. Spray on a clear coat from a rattle can.

Like most plans, it didn't survive first contact with the enemy. The you-beaut citrus stripper was laughed off by the doughty Nottinghamshire paint. The paint stripped off the fork OK, but that was a fork I'd painted myself a few years ago. The frame wasn't having any of it. So I reasoned that if the original frame paint was that intent on staying put, I'd leave it in place as a base coat. Instead of trying to remove it, I'd just key it up with some very rough sandpaper. Where there were any chips or scratches, I'd sand them out, trying to remove as little paint as possible in the process.

So then I sprayed the whole frame with a very rough coat of primer, for two reasons:

• to stop the bare metal rusting while other things like job and family got in the way of a perfectly good project, and
  
• to act as a guide coat so that I could more easily find any scratches or chips that I had yet to sand out

The result was very encouraging; despite the new "westie grey" colour scheme, having the frame in a single uniform colour made it look a lot more attractive. Motivation is important in ad-hoc projects like this, where obstacles are always cropping up.

New Bits

Although I was able to reuse several bits off the old bikes, such as frame, fork, headset, stem, wheels, seat, and bars, I was going to have to get some new stuff as well, either because the old stuff simply wouldn't work (e.g. wrong gear ratio) or because it was too rusted to look presentable (e.g. the seatpost and its clamp bolt).

At the end of the project I'll post a full list of what I had to buy, where I got it from, and what it cost me, but the first things I wanted to fit were the drivetrain components:

• bottom bracket
• cranks
• chainring
• rear sprocket
• chain

These parts were a priority because they would allow me to check and adjust the chainline of my new ride. The new Shimano BB was initially hard to fit, and I had all sorts of theories about my frame having been made in Timbuktu and thereby having a BB thread unseen anywhere else in the world. It couldn't possibly have been that I had it around the wrong way, could it now. Either way, it fits nicely now.

Next were the new 165mm crank and 42T chainring, which went on without a hitch. My new 16T sprocket hadn't arrived yet, so I screwed on a BB lockring where the sprocket would go, just to give me a rough idea of the chainline. It soon became obvious I would have to do two things to get it anywhere near straight:

• Mount the chainring on the inside of the crank (with the new short chainring bolts I had bought), and
  
• Respace the rear hub to the right. Sometimes things just work out nicely; on the right was a 15mm spacer, while the left was a 5mm one. Swapping them around would move the hub 10mm to the right.
  

That was all good until the real sprocket (a Shimano 7600) turned up and had a big flange on it; so big that the locking I was going to use won't also fit onto the hub (see pic).

I'm still undecided what to do about this ... find out in a future blog post (or a past one if you're Guy Pearce).

Fixie Project - Part II

OK, here's some photographic proof that I'm actually doing this thing! Here are the two donor bikes:

(L) a Giant Peloton 7000 road bike; bought new as my first club racing bike c. 1999; steel frame with vertical dropouts, QR wheels, drop bars, 1" threaded headset, triple chainring with 175mm cranks, RSX groupset with 7-speed screw-on freewheel, two sets of bottle cage mounts, no frame or mudguard mounts, STI combined gear/brake levers; known affectionately (if unimaginatively) as "Golden Boy".

• (R) a c. 1992 Raleigh Pioneer Spirit 18; apparently one of the first hybrid bikes in the UK; Reynolds 501 (steel) double-butted frame, nutted (non-QR) axles, flat bar, 1" threaded headset, 6-speed screw-on freewheel, front and rear mudguard mounts; known as "Blue Boy" (which is problematic because my current road bike is much bluer, but never mind)

The first step was to pick which frame to use. Golden Boy's frame is probably lighter, but the vertical dropouts make it impractical for a fixie conversion. You CAN convert a vertical dropout bike to a fixie, but you need to use either a chain tensioner, which looks ugly and adds weight and friction, or one of those White Industries hubs that Sheldon Brown talks about on his web site, which are a very expensive item that also necessitate a complete wheel build, something beyond the budget of this project.

Luckily Blue Boy's frame has the horizontal dropouts required for an easy fixie conversion:

Blue Boy's frame has some other nice features too; a retro-looking raised metal Raleigh badge on the head tube, and lugs instead of welds where the frame tubes meet.

The next step was to strip Blue Boy down to his component parts, which was mostly straightforward. The first exception was the bottom bracket - I didn't have the right tool to grip onto the Raleigh-style end cups. In the end I carefully clamped them in my bench vice and rotated the frame to unscrew them. The other hard things to remove were the two headset races, which had been pressed into the head tube upon manufacture and stayed there ever since. I did some Googling to find out how to remove these things, and came up with a few options:

• Sheldon says to use a hammer and screwdriver, doing each side a little at a time. I couldn't get this to work; the screwdriver kept slipping off the race.
• Then I found out there's a special tool you can buy to push them out; like the one from Park. The downside is that the tool costs a lot for the number of times you use it, especially (and it saddens me to say this) if you buy it in Australia. So this option was ruled out.
  
• I'm sure my LBSes can do it, but apart from the time and money aspect, it's also more satisfying to complete a project using your own skills as much as possible.
• You can make your own tool out of steel rods, but this looked like way too much work for a tool I'd hardly ever use (plus the effort and cost of sourcing and cutting the steel).
• Finally I learned about another option, the homemade "tube with slits" tool. I bought a 1m x 25mm x 1mm aluminium tube from my LHS (local hardware store!) for about $8.50, cut a 30cm length, made two cuts crossways in the end, and presto! The first version died after driving out 2.5 cups (of 2 bikes with 2 cups each), so I made another version in about two minutes that completed the job:

At the left-hand end of the tool you can see two of the four slits, which are about 6cm long. The right-hand end of the tool is burred over from repeated hammer blows. Below the tool you can see the races from Golden Boy (L) and Blue Boy (R). The former were in better nick and also used enclosed roller bearings, so I decided to use them even though cosmetically they don't suit the frame as well as the original ones.





Once the disassembly was complete, my former pride and joy was now a pile of transplant donor organs on the garage floor (missing from the photo are the 170mm cranks and the triple chainrings riveted [not bolted] to them):















Which bike's wheels to use was an easy choice; Blue Boy's axles are non-QR (quick release), which means you have to use a spanner to remove the wheel, even to fix a puncture. Also his bearings were trashed from years of neglect and maladjustment (and that's just mine I'm referring to). Both bikes' rear wheels have screw-on freewheels that take a track sprocket, so using Golden Boy's wheels was an obvious decision.

I could have used the bars from either bike, but because I like the bullhorn style, I used the "chop and flip" technique (and a hacksaw) to convert Golden Boy's drop bars; I'm pretty happy with how they turned out:

















More pics and blithering about my progress (or lack thereof) in part III.