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2020-10-21
In this post a would like to document my first (fixed gear) bicycle project. It is a long story filled with sighs.
Here is a picture from one the few rides I managed to get out of this bike:
My original motivation to start riding single-speed bicycles was to reduce maintenance.
I had an older mountain bike that I was mostly using to commute to work (30-40km round-trip). The most annoying thing about it was the noise — it was running smoothly for a little while after cleaning but soon it would start rattling like crazy. Additionally the derailleurs required frequent adjusting or they would shift randomly (especially on higher gears). And why would I need a mountain bike in a city anyway? My route is mostly smooth and level.
So I decided to get myself a single-speed bike to solve all of the above problems.
I was contemplating buying a new bike for a long time, but in August 2019 I finally went for it.
I found a person selling a nice refurbished Favorit[a] for about EUR130. The bicycle was stripped of most components, repainted and converted into a single speed with a coaster brake. It looked OK so we shook on it.
The problems started immediately on the ride home. After about 5km I got a flat tire. So I walked the bike to the closest repair shop (another 5km) and got it replaced. After another 5km it was flat again. I gave up and just took the subway.
It turned out, that the inner tube was too small for the tires and the valve stem was getting sheared off by the rim. I bought several different tubes before getting the right size.
Following are other modifications and repairs I had to do. They all took place in the following six months or so and are listed in no particular order.
I was riding happily for a week or so before another problem arrived. The cranks were made out of some soft steel and I ripped the spindle of the pedal out of the thread just by pushing too hard (when riding uphill). The pedals were plastic they cracked too. So I had to replace the left crank and the pedals.
After another week of riding, the cranks started to squeak so much I was embarrassed to ride in public. It was the old cotter-pin[b] design and there was no way to fix it. I had to replace the bottom bracket.
The bottom bracket was the old loose-bearing, cotter-pin type. I decided to replace it with a more modern but still basic "cartridge" bracket with a square tapered spindle.
As an aside — there is and endless number of different bottom brackets[c] and you can spend an eternity researching (this is also true for other parts).
Long story short, turns out, the old frame is not machined very well and the BB didn't fit. I was able to force it in (usually not a great idea when it comes to threads) but the bearings seized and the spindle was not turning smoothly. Also, the spindle was way to long and the chain ring was nowhere near the chain-line (it was not aligned with the rear sprocket). Sigh.
So I had to buy a new loose bearing bottom bracket (and some special tools). This time I was able to get it in (though I still had to force it — either I damaged the thread or it was just bad from the beginning).
The spindle was still too long. I was not able to find a shorter one so I just had to put the chain-ring on the opposite side of the crank arms, which worked OK.
Still, everything is not perfect, because the spindle has some give and is visibly moving up and down when pedaling with force. I have not found a solution for that.
The original wheels were wider than I wanted — about 35mm (I can't be bothered to look up the proper designation). I wanted to have thinner road wheels and also a proper fixed gear hub.
I did some (inadequate) research and found wheels that were in my price range and looked OK. I ordered them from some fixie-bike oriented shop on-line.
Boy was I disappointed by the quality! The wheels were obviously cheaply made and were just crappy. In retrospect, they were just too cheap, a proper complete wheel set (rims, spokes and hubs) is easily twice as expensive. More on this topic later.
The rims caused me endless pain. First, there was no tape inside of the rim (I didn't realize it's there for a reason) so I got two flats in the middle of a ride one day — the tubes had punctured by the sharp edge of the spoke hole.
Another problem was tires popping out of the rim when pumped to a high pressure. I'm not sure if the problem was in the rims or if I bought wrong tires.
Anyway I got maybe four rides after replacing the wheels.
A problem that I had not anticipated is with the dropouts/fork-ends[d]. Turns out, real single speed bicycles have a so called "fork-end" instead of a dropout. This allows to tensions the chain by moving the wheel axle forward or backward and then fixing it in place with a "chaintug" (or just small bolt threaded into the fork-end).
Bicycles with multiple gears don't need that — the chain is tensioned by the spring in the rear derailleur. Such bicycles have a dropout instead of a for-end. This leads to "axle-creep" because there is no way to fix the axle in place and the chain is pulling on it with a lot of force. It didn't help that my wheel axle was slightly shorter and the chainstays were bent inward, which in turn caused the dropouts to not be parallel to each other and the axle nuts didn't have a good grip.
I have not found a solution other than fastening the axle nuts really tight and then the axle would sill move over time.
I love the idea of a clean bike with no dangling bits but I didn't want to die just yet so I decided to add a front brake to the bike just in case (though in practice, on the couple of rides a took I was almost never using it).
This was pretty straightforward but I bought a wrong size of the brake and brake leaver at first and had to buy another set.
From August 2019 I was riding maybe a couple of months. Then in the spring of 2020 I tried to modify the bike but in the end I got only a couple of rides out of it.
In total, I spent EUR130 on the bike, another EUR130 on the crappy wheels and probably another EUR150 on tools and parts. In the end I don't have a working bike to show for it. But at least I learned a lot and the tools will last me a lifetime.
Besides just increasing my knowledge of bicycles in general, there are several things I learned.
A lot of my problems were caused by the low quality frame I was using. I would probably have a better time if I got an old Copagnolo or at least Peugeot frame. But those are not readily available here.
Road bikes have a different design and that also contributed to the pain.
And the internet is full of crappy sellers selling cheap bikes and parts catering to this fad. If you are serious about riding/building a fixed-gear, look for good track bike parts. Don't buy anything from e-bay/amazon from no-name sellers.
Parts from well-known brands are very expensive, but it is possible to find cheaper but good parts (or buy second-hand). Just make sure it's made from good materials and with correct manufacturing techniques (CNC, not laser cutting and stamping). With bike parts every 0.001 of a millimeter counts.
I've found a great little shop[f] in UK that specializes in fixed-gear/track bicycle parts. Their website looks like it's was last updated in 2000 and they have no social media accounts — I liked that. I'm waiting for the parts right now but the shop looks like exactly like what I was searching for! A small shop that sells affordable but well manufactured parts. We exchanged a couple of e-mails and the communication is excellent so far.
There are so many different parts on a bicycle and for each one there are many different variants, standards and brands. A lot of time these are not interchangeable. Spend time to learn this stuff so you don't spend money on buying the wrong parts.
And just because it says ChroMoly doesn't mean it's high quality. Research the materials before buying. Good manufacturers will specify the exact type of material and which parts of the frame are made from it.
Despite all of the above, I enjoyed learning and working on the bike. I was not discouraged by my failure, on the contrary — I was even more convinced that I want a single-speed (and fixed-gear) road bike. And this summer I got my new bicycle, which I will talk about in a later post.
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[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favorit_(bicycle)
[b] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotter_(pin)
[c] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottom_bracket#Bottom_bracket_types
[d] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_end
[e] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_end#Chaintugs
[f] https://www.velosolo.co.uk/
