BikingLasVegas.com

[danamerica]

With all my stuff but one final done as far as school goes, I needed a new hands on project. Since I have the geared bike, and both my guitars and my bass have been basically rebuilt in recently, that left me with turning the old cannondale into a fixed gear. I'm not sure about ordering the pictures, so I'm doing two posts. Here is the bike when it was started and all that good stuff. Basically the same way it was about 20 or so years ago.

In my album are before and after pics. Not too bad of a job if I do say so myself. I kept two chain rings up front, just so if I really want a bigger gear I can put together a new chain, the line should be ultra close anyway so i'm not too worried about that, and it's always easy to space it out a hair later on than it is to pull off the crank arm and put a new ring on it.

Looking at the second picture, it's obvious that the chain is too loose. Unfortunately, the nearly complete lack of adjustability means that removing a link makes it far too tight, so I'm hoping to resolve that issue by moving from a 15 to a 17 tooth out back. It was an idea I had that the late Sheldon Brown also seemed to have thought was good, since he used it on a Cannondale touring frame from the 80's.

To be honest, I'm not super concerned about the gearing. This is just going to be for messing around on, running around and things like that, and if I get a little cadence training that's fine too. By the way, the chainrings up front are 40 & 50 tooth.

If that honestly doesn't work, I'll probably do some sort of dropout alteration to give it some horizontal adjustability. I have a couple ideas as far as that goes, with the most extreme one including chopping those dropouts off and welding some track ends on. That's really last resort, but I could get it done at any place that welds for something reasonable.

Oh, and I can already see the 'Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a track bike?' arguments coming now. I'll head them off with my expenses so far to convert this:

FSA tape: $10 (and not even necessary for the conversion)
Track cog: $7 at Procyclery
Surly lock ring: $12 at Procyclery
Flip-flop track hub back wheel: Free from a pal.
Chain: Free as well
Park chain tool: $15
Park crank arm puller: $12
New 60MM presta tube for rear wheel: $7

So just over $60 so far, and just under $70 when the new 17 tooth rear cog comes in at Procyclery. I can't say that's too bad at all, and my goal was to do this as cheap as possible. I still have rent to pay this month hahaha.

[dheide]

looks pretty good! just make sure you get the chain tension right, you don't want that chain falling off while riding. i know that vertical dropouts can be a pain. i've heard that 42/17 is a good ratio that works with vertical dropouts. just a word of caution, if the 40/17 works for you as far as chain tension goes, you're gonna be spinning like a madman. i have 42/16 on my fixed gear, and i need to upgrade to a higher ratio as any downhills in town (even heading east on any one of our east/west roads from spring valley) make me spin like crazy. it's good for training, but i couldn't imagine the rpm's with 40/17!

[DrWatts]

a 40/17 would be pointless like dhiede said u would be spinning like crazy and climbing wouldn't be challenging at all. i suggest getting a 46 or so.

[danamerica]

Well it's more of a bike to mess around on than use for the serious business.....I'm also going to get another section of chain up. I kept the double chain ring, so I can also run a 50/17 and be in good shape.

I've also found that half links RULE. I got the chain tension set up nice and legit on the 40/15 with a half link.

It's funnnnnnnn. I was going down gowan and was spinning my ass off, but it's good for getting used to keeping that cadence up anyway so I'm for it.