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26 Posts
Hey guys,
I've been wanting to build up a single speed for a long time now. The quiet simplicity has always appealed to me. I had an old Schwinn CrissCross frame that I was going to use, once I could afford a tensioner ($), a new stem ($$), and a single speed wheelset ($$$). Well the problem (which I'm sure a lot of you guys have too) is that if I even had a single $ to throw around I would probably end up blowing it on the bike I spin for 10k miles each year (my racing steed) and not an experiment. So I resolved to the notion that having a second road bike just for "fun" wasn't for me.
But wait there's a twist. Last week my wife and I picked her up a shiny new Kona Dew at the LBS to replace her old crumbling hand-me-down Peugeot road bike her mom had bought in about 1980. I convinced her to try out her first group ride so we headed up to my club's Sunday beginner ride. The guy who leads it is one of my riding buddies, and he showed up on his brand new IRO fixie. After seeing that for an hour and hearing about how cool it was I was convinced I absolutely needed one. But how with still no $s?
Later I was in the garage drinking a beer and pondering this when I swore I saw a glint of light behind me. I turned and lo and behold what was sitting there but my mother-in-law's old Peugeot, beaming right at me. I was desperate; I threw the bike on the stand and started cutting, unscrewing, snipping, cursing, bleeding, until the dust cleared and the monster of my creation rolled forth into the night.
It's a little dramatic I know, but how else am I going to spur interest in my franken-speed? (if only it were a fixie b/c "frankenfixie" sounds so much cooler
) Anyway, here are some photos, please enjoy.
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-Stephen
I've been wanting to build up a single speed for a long time now. The quiet simplicity has always appealed to me. I had an old Schwinn CrissCross frame that I was going to use, once I could afford a tensioner ($), a new stem ($$), and a single speed wheelset ($$$). Well the problem (which I'm sure a lot of you guys have too) is that if I even had a single $ to throw around I would probably end up blowing it on the bike I spin for 10k miles each year (my racing steed) and not an experiment. So I resolved to the notion that having a second road bike just for "fun" wasn't for me.
But wait there's a twist. Last week my wife and I picked her up a shiny new Kona Dew at the LBS to replace her old crumbling hand-me-down Peugeot road bike her mom had bought in about 1980. I convinced her to try out her first group ride so we headed up to my club's Sunday beginner ride. The guy who leads it is one of my riding buddies, and he showed up on his brand new IRO fixie. After seeing that for an hour and hearing about how cool it was I was convinced I absolutely needed one. But how with still no $s?
Later I was in the garage drinking a beer and pondering this when I swore I saw a glint of light behind me. I turned and lo and behold what was sitting there but my mother-in-law's old Peugeot, beaming right at me. I was desperate; I threw the bike on the stand and started cutting, unscrewing, snipping, cursing, bleeding, until the dust cleared and the monster of my creation rolled forth into the night.
It's a little dramatic I know, but how else am I going to spur interest in my franken-speed? (if only it were a fixie b/c "frankenfixie" sounds so much cooler
) Anyway, here are some photos, please enjoy.
-Stephen
