First Fixie

G’day All;
First “proper” post here, so here goes!
I’ve been building/rebuilding bikes for a little while now, & thought I should have a go at building a fixie. So I did, & for better or for worse, here it is. My first contribution to the fixie world.

Its a bit of a bitsa - $5.00 Standish frame/forks from a local scrap dealer, cut down racer bars, stem, front brake, seat & wheels from the “bits box”, chain ring/BB combo, cheap track cog & chain from E-bay.
Because I used a “normal” racer rear wheel,I had to re-dish it to move the rim over, so I could get a straight chain line & central rim - first time I have tried this & it seems to have worked!

I’ve never ridden a fixie before this so it was quite different not having gears or any freewheel. I’ve only been around the block so far, but it was good fun, so I’m looking forward to getting out for a much longer ride. It has turned out to be a really smooth & quiet bike to ride.
An interesting build - probably not the last fixie I make! (I’ll take some better pics too!)

Good on ya mate. Good bit of fun eh.

Welcome. It’s a slippery slope…

It’s not even warm yet and I’m feeling those #sotb vibes already

Yeah…good fun! Tomorrow I’m planning on going for a ride into town & back-about 20km round trip. Should be good!

It’s probably obvious, but I’ll ask anyway…what’s “#sotb”? Possibly “sun on the back”? (I’ve been thinking about it for a while!)

http://www.fixed.org.au/forums/showthread.php?t=32572&highlight=%23sotb

Ahhh…I see! Cheers mate!

too much time ‘vibing’ out to triple j, Lorday.

Well, the weather was nice this morning so I took the fixie out for it’s first run. Probably did about 25km all up, & I’m happy to say all went well. The 48f/16r felt like a good mix for my basically flat ride-I’d read elsewhere that a 3:1 ratio was a good place to start, so that’s what I went with. The bike is smooth & quiet & quite comfortable to ride. A head wind on the way home made me put a bit more effort into it. A great ride-cant wait to get out on a much longer ride (maybe up into the hills around here…that’ll sort me out!).

In the morning sun on the river bank

Paringa Bridge-One place where the Sturt Highway crosses the Murray

Nearly home

Hmm…might have to start looking at a few up-grades…recon I’ve got some alloy wheels in the shed somewhere…& some alloy bars…!

I reckon maybe some toe straps too

this looks really close to the first one I built too, although mine was a deathtrap built with non-existent skills

Beautiful country out there, my inlaws live in Renmark West, I’ve bought my fixed and ridden to Woolshed Brewery once and plan to do again.
Good stuff :slight_smile:

Ha Ha certainly is a small world sometimes-I would look after your inlaws water supply then! Let me know if you want some company on your next Woolshed run!

Yeah mate, I did wonder about straps, but the ones that were with these clips were perished. I did find though, that the clips alone held my feet to the pedals quite firm & secure.

These FTW

Thanks Pete, I’d never heard of Bogear before, & can only find good reviews about these straps. Might have to keep 'em in mind when funds permit! Their other stuff looks pretty good too.

bit of a crowd favourite round here.

G’day all;

I have a couple of questions for all the fixie experts out there, (& those who actually know something…ha ha!), probably newby (i.e. muppet) questions or maybe just a “trap for young players”.

I’ve just bought a pair of cheap Reid fixie wheels (they had them at 1/2 price, $50 delivered-can’t argue with that!), and I’ve just found out that the axel on the front wheel is to thick to fit into the fork dropout. The rear wheel axel is fine-it is thinner & goes straight into the rear dropout. My questions are - is this normal in track bike wheels to have a thicker front axel (I’m using an old 10 speed frame/forks), can I just replace the axel (& cones, nuts etc.) with a thinner one, or do I just grind out the dropouts a bit? To me, this seems to be the easiest solution!

(I’m a bit of a lazy bugger - I thought I’d ask the question before I pulled things apart!)

Those cheap wheels have 3/8" front axles instead of 9mm. So the 9.5mm axle won’t fit.

A few file strokes to the dropout will sort you out. Unless the form is quite nice in which case get a different front wheel.

Hey Mitch, get these: http://www.fixed.org.au/forums/threads/36044-BO-Strap-ons?p=627017#post627017

Don’t do this, but if I was in that exact situation, except for chucking everything and starting again, I’d carefully file a slot in the axles to fit the dropouts.