After spending a lot of the spring and summer shooting a documentary on track racing in St. Louis, I am jumping on the fixed gear bandwagon and going to build one.
And like most, I'm going to try do it a cheaply as possible by using what I've got and selling the parts I don't need or want to buy what I do need.
I started out with this 1979 Scwhinn Continental that I got on Craigslist for $20. A good solid bike to cannibalize and sell the unwanted and unneeded parts even if it is a bit heavy.
Here are some of the parts I removed and sent off to a new home.
The one piece crank weighs a ton and neither chain ring really has the right number of teeth for a fixed gear bike so I'll replace it with a more modern 3 piece crank. Have ordered a bottom bracket adapter from my LBS that fits the unthreaded old style brackets and allows the use of a one piece tapered crank.
So far I have $20 in the bike, have sold $40 in parts and spent $20 on the BB adapter/converter so I am even. That won't get it done as I still need the new bottom bracket and crankset, wheels and more.
Next steps are to get the bike prepped for paint and to flop and chop a set of aluminum dropped bars. That won't cost anything and will allow me to root around for more stuff to sell to finance this build
And like most, I'm going to try do it a cheaply as possible by using what I've got and selling the parts I don't need or want to buy what I do need.
I started out with this 1979 Scwhinn Continental that I got on Craigslist for $20. A good solid bike to cannibalize and sell the unwanted and unneeded parts even if it is a bit heavy.
Here are some of the parts I removed and sent off to a new home.
The one piece crank weighs a ton and neither chain ring really has the right number of teeth for a fixed gear bike so I'll replace it with a more modern 3 piece crank. Have ordered a bottom bracket adapter from my LBS that fits the unthreaded old style brackets and allows the use of a one piece tapered crank.
So far I have $20 in the bike, have sold $40 in parts and spent $20 on the BB adapter/converter so I am even. That won't get it done as I still need the new bottom bracket and crankset, wheels and more.
Next steps are to get the bike prepped for paint and to flop and chop a set of aluminum dropped bars. That won't cost anything and will allow me to root around for more stuff to sell to finance this build