Does anyone ride bikes?
Either that, or it will throw you to the ground! 
refuze, you can pop a wheelie with that ginormous gear?
Riding a fixie has definitely made me a better cyclist. Any cycling enthusiast should try one at least once.
yea!! i’ll tell you the trick… what you have to do is be in a no handed track stand lean back and push down with your leading foot and pull up with the fott in the back… be carefull though cause too much power will put you on your back… you can do it while holding your bars as well but its harder on your front tire when you land … its also harder period… i can also do it while riding but riding very slow. its hella fun you should try it… i have clips though cause i like being able to et out fast… my friend does it with clippless too though. k good luck!
I see. It’s all about getting your weight way back over the rear wheel. I guess I’ll have to learn a no handed track stand better first, and then I’ll find a nice patch of grass to practice.
These track bikes sound like a lot of fun! I have a few older bike frames (which have regular freewheeling rear wheels) and I would like to convert them to track bikes.
I’m planning on using a 17 tooth cog and a 49 tooth chainring, because that seems to be the norm.
Can I just buy the non-freewheeling 17t cog at my lbs?
What else should I know before building this bike?
if you have these raod bikes make sure that the have campy style drop outs(kinda slanted not verticle)… verticle drop ous wont work… well they will but it is not safe and you run the risk of your chain popping off. you neeed either campy style or horizantal, so that you can tighten your chain. you are also going to buy or build a track wheel… with a fixed hub, because on a fixed there is room for a cog, and then there is a smaller thread for your lock ring, which keeps the cog on… if you didnt have this then your legs will act as a wrench when slowing down and will spin your cog right off(unless you weld it … but you could still break the weld) you can get a wheel set for about 150- 200 dollars on ebay. i will warn you also about some track bikes bing sold on ebay… dont get the “mercier” or the “windsor hour” "alfa"and here is one more but i cant reemember the name… these are all bad bieks and will more then likley break very fast…crappy hubs and crankset… i know people that got these bikes and had to replace pretty much every thing but the frame within a month of commuting with it… so essentially you have paid $350 for a crappy frame… i know a good bit about track bikes or fixies, so run it by here if you have any more qustions
There’s lots of info here, and you can buy the parts (track hub, cog, lock ring) from him too.
Also, it is possible to use vertical dropouts (as mine does) as long as you get a perfect fit using the proper gear ratio. Being the math nerd that I am, I measured my frame and did the calculations myself to arrive at the 39x16 that I use, but you could also a use calculator like this one to figure out which gear to use. Or, if you have plenty of gears at your disposal, you could just try a bunch until you find the ones that work.
http://www.machinehead-software.co.uk/bike/gears/fixed_wheel_gear_calculator.html
here is my bike 1970’s viner pistoia cicili track bike … and behind mine is my old fuji(now my roomates) and my girlfriends fuji track bike, and in the front is my busted unicycle…:o
I have an old ROSS bike that I decided I would bring to the bike shop to have looked at. The guy there said that he would quote me a price on Monday, so I have a few days to figure out whether or not I want to build this myself, or pay a professional* to do it. I think that I want it to be a 49t drivesprocket-to-17t cog (unless someone has a better suggestion?).
Is this something that I could put together myself? I have access to various tools and I’m pretty good at figuring out how things should be put together when given a bunch of parts. - If not, I have all of you to ask.
I have a regular freewheeling hub and I know that I need a cog. Is there anyway to get the hub/sprockets to lock in place without spending money on a new wheelset?
My uncle made one just recently. It’s a pain in the butt to get started with those evil pedals on it (:)) but once it’s going it’s great fun to ride. It has WAY more control than a normal bike.
EDIT: I forgot the picture.
Here’s a link to the bike spudboy mentioned.
I really don’t get the track frame thing.
I have no beef with anyone that chooses to ride em, I know alot of guys who do, they have been big in pittsburgh for the last 2.5 years and been getting stronger.
What I dont get is why choose a frame geometry that is good for sprinting but sucks for long distances. 99% of the people I have heard who ride fixie track bikes never even intend to make it out to a velodrome and probably 1/2 of them never even sprint or ride them like a track bike is designed for.
If you want to do the fixie thing thats cool but get a frame that is more suited toward your riding style (most often than not a cromo road frame would be 100 times better than a track specific frame and alot cheaper)
Personally I’ll be out there on a freewheelin’ SS road bike, or my SS freeride bomber.
I recently put a freeweel on the other side of my hub… Its ok, might me better if I had more than one brake. 
What freeride bike do you ride? I’m guessing its a hardtail
I’ve been riding fixies since 1997. I started out with beat up road bike conversions, then bought my Bianchi Pista track bike 6 years ago. Sadly, I don’t ride it any more… it just hangs in the garage. Fixed gears and singlespeed mountain bikes are what got me into muni in the first place.
When I first got into fixies, there was very little info on the web about them. Sheldon Brown and the iBOB list were the only sources and cheap track parts and frames were hard to find. Now even Nashbar makes hubs and a lot of manufacturers make affordable track bikes.
Mojoe
I ride a trek bruiser, its not the best but it’ll do. Its a hardtail with a cromo fork, I have been meaning to get a DJ fork for it but everytime I have the money something else comes up.
I actually am in the market for a new road bike, I’m not sure what I’m going to go with but if I cant find a good old frame to build something up around I think the Scott Speedster looks like a good choice for the price.
Sounds like the over 90% of mountain bike owners who have never ridden them on dirt (I read that in a bike industry magazine many years ago). Or all those jeeps and pickup trucks out there that have been “lowered” so much that they can barely clear a speed bump, let alone be driven off pavement.
Or all those $2000 mountain bikes being ridden on the trails by weekend warriors without a whit of offroading skills. Or, last but not least, all those people insisting on splined hubs and overbuilt parts on unicycles that they seldom hop or do drops on.
Maybe some of those are bad examples. How about those people driving Corvettes and Porches and Ferraris who have to obey the speed limit almost all the time because the cars are too noticeable and will attract speeding tickets? Or all those women who buy shoes that they know will hurt their feet after 10 minutes, but just look so fabulous!
I guess it boils down to people liking to pretend.
I don’t think anyone directly answered this question.
You can have a fixed gear or a fixed wheel.
A fixed gear is just a single speed bicycle. No derailleur, no hub gear. Just choose a combination of wheel, cranks, chainring and sprocket, and live with it.
The fixed wheel is exactly the same except it has no freewheel. In theory, you could pedal it backwards, like a unicycle.
In both cases, you can choose the size of chain ring (front cog) and the sprocket (back cog) to get exactly the ratio you want. As you only get one choice, this is a matter of careful selection!
It is possible to buy hubs with a sprocket on each side. Sometimes, one of the sprockets has a freewheel and the other doesn’t. The idea is that you can turn the wheel round in the frame to select one “gear” or the other. This is about as practical as taking a spare set of shorter (or longer) cranks with you on a unicycle ride.
With a fixed wheel (no freewheel) you can brake by putting back pressure on the pedals, just like on a unicycle. In the UK, the law requires two independent brakes on a bicycle used on the road. A fixed wheel counts as one brake, but you should also have a calliper brake of some sort.
In the old days, hardcore riders used to grip their front tyre with their gloved hand as an emergency brake. You could stop from 20 mph in around 300 yards, but would have no fingers left.
The advantages? Slightly lighter, simpler to operate, less to go wrong, more durable, less maintenance… on a fixed wheel you also have much better control especially at low speed.
Other advantages are more to do with kudos or machismo, or the simple enjoyment of a purist’s machine. There is a huge similarity here with unicycling. As a unicyclist, I love the way that wheel size, crank length and tyre section interract to make a compromise - a unicycle optimised for one type of riding or another. So my road unicycle has a 700c skinny tyre and short cranks. If my route includes some rough ground, it becomes a special challenge! Likewise, to cover a long distance on a MUni with a smaller wheel and longer cranks becomes a challenge.
ride one uphill, and you will find another advantage.