Hi, I am a complete newbie to fix geared bikes. I have a well worn Malvern Star Excel bike, the derailers are shot, the cassette at the back is shot, so I had the bright idea to turn it into fixie. I mainly just have a short commute that I do on the bike, nothing serious. I have never tried a fix gear bike but since this one seems to be on the way out and I have it on hand I thought I might as well give it a shot, it is screwed anyways.
However I have a couple of questions, I have read some articles by Sheldon Brown and I am wondering whether the dropouts are suitable or whether they are too vertical, I have tried to embed the image so I could get your opinions.
The first steps I was going to do was change the hub, replace the BB (I will have learn about BBs first), and the chain and the sprockets. Then see how things are going, if everything is going well, then try and work on the looks of the bike. Any ideas, suggestions most welcome.
Drop outs are good, all your going to need is the rear wheel and BB, they’re probably shimano cranks so a 107mm will bring that chainline into whack nicely.
If your hub is a cassette type that’s good but I’m guessing that it’s a screw on cluster arrangement. Anyway if you want to go fixed your going to need a track hub.
Not necessarily. As Sheldon says (see “Conventional Freewheel-type Hubs”), if your hub had a screw-on freewheel, you can also take this much cheaper approach:
Get hold of a BB lockring (cheap at your LBS if you don’t have one lying around).
Apply a thread locker (e.g. Loctite, of which there are several kinds) to your new cog and screw it on.
Crank it up nice and tight (e.g. in a vice with a short length of chain wrapped around it), being careful not to strip the aluminium threads of the hub.
Apply thread locker to your lockring and do it up tight with a lockring tool.
This is the setup I’ve been using on my conversion for the last few months, and I’ve had no issues. Then again I use a front brake and I don’t skid, so I’m not applying much unscrewing force to the cog. Just letting you know you have cheaper options than a whole new hub/wheel, depending on what kind of riding you intend doing.
Thanks everybody for the replies, it is good to know the dropouts are ok, so it looks like this project is a goer.
The hub is a the freewheel type not a cluster (I haven’t taken it apart but just looking at I would say it is the freewheel type).
I was planning to pull out the BB and replace it with a new one (that matched the old one) is there anything I should watch out for, or should be modifying?
Just another quick question, should you replace the chain when you replace the sprockets? if so do you need to be careful to get ones that match ie shimano with shimano?
