Hi everyone,
I am a newby to fixie conversion. I did have a nice 27" wheeled bike I had stripped back etc. But being for 27" wheels and a bare frame… well it’s getting very time consuming and time outside working on my bike isn’t what I have right now.
But, my old man is donating this to me!
I don’t actually have it with me yet, just some crappy iPhone photos.
My question is should I strip it bare and repaint in black or leave it as it is? Does a Malvern star like this carry much street cred? I personally don’t like Malvern Stars much…
Whilst I am here, seeing as it will be a single speed I wont be needing those down tube gear bosses, what do I do with them?
very good points everyone! I actually didn’t see it from the perspective of it being different and that being good.
Any advice on the gear bosses?
Out of interest does anyone know where these sat in the Malvern Star order of bikes?
Cos this has been done to death. It’s best not to touch bosses cos you might want to gear it later down the track. Why pretend the frame is something it’s not? There is something lovely about a tasteful conversion. There is something awful about a road frame hacked at with an angle grinder then painted purple.
The groupset looks to be Shimano Exage which is basic middle range stuff. The frame is Triple-butted which is pretty good for chrome-moly but i havent seen that brand of it before “dynaloy”.
Its basic but a good steed. Reliable and solid. Decent for a conversion, but for the love of god dont remove braze ons or cable guides. Apart from being sacraligious, if youre new to it, youre most likely to just damage the frame.
Keep it as is I reckon it’s actually quite a nice paint job. If you ride it fixed for a while and find yourself falling in love with bikes you can always upgrade to a track specific frame and convert it back to a road bike. I’m regretting hacking the cable bosses off my old conversion now that I have a proper “fixie”. Different bikes for different applications.
I say paint and hack away as much as you want. This is not a rare frame – there are hundreds of 80s-90s mid-range road frames around. If you want it black and with cleaner lines then do whatever you want to it, I say.