A singlespeed is a one-gear bike that allows coasting. A fixie is a one-gear bike that does not – i.e. if the back wheel is turning, so are the pedals. (A little scary, that idea, but still intriguing.) With what’s called a flip-flop hub on the back wheel, you can have both. Turn the hub one way, it’s a fixie; turn it the other, it’s a singlespeed. Cool.
I like the idea of this super-efficient type of bicycle. No shifters or derailleurs. Only one gear. Only one brake (on the front, necessary for when it’s in SS mode). Simple. Clean. Neat.
Here’s a beautiful one to take a look at:
You can buy them brand new for less than $1000 -- or in the case of high end stuff, much, much more than that. You can buy previous conversions for as little as a couple hundred. There’s a guy in the area who converts and sells them. He actually has one that is the exact Panasonic frame I bought in high school. Which would be kinda nostalgic. But I didn’t want to just buy one.
For one, I can’t spend the money on it.
But also, I like the challenge of building one up from found and cheaply acquired parts. It’ll help me learn more about bike mechanics, it’ll be a good project to keep my hands busy (which helps in working out screenplay issues) and if it works it’ll give me a cool bike at the end. And hopefully it’ll be a good story along the way.
I’ve been trolling craigslist, looking for old frames. (Older frames are easier to convert to fixies because they usually have what’s called horizontal drop-outs, the grooves that the rear axle fits into, as opposed to the vertical ones on most modern frames – and you need the horizontal movement to adjust chain tension…)
On Friday, this ‘70s-era Schwinn was offered for $15 on craiglist. A good candidate for conversion. Pretty cool, right?
The ad said to call after 3:30, so I set my phone to sound an alarm at that time. When it beeped I was in a business meeting and pretended it was an important call I had to take – stepped outside and called by 3:32. It had been sold earlier that day. Dammit.
Craigslist Lesson: Don’t follow the rules.
On Saturday morning, Amy and I took the kids to hit the yard sales. There was a sweet old Peugeot at one place but the downtube had rusted through where the shifters attached and I know nothing about patching steel like that. But Declan got some cool toys on the cheap – so, score!
On Sunday morning at 9:15, I was sipping coffee while checking craigslist again. This time I saw this:
Free '79 Raleigh of America Rampar R-2 (Newport News)
Date: 2008-06-15, 8:23AM EDT
I have a cool vintage 10-speed R-2 on my curb, free for the taking. It has some rust and needs rear brake and gear work, but rides. 105 Spring Trace Lane.
Posted not an hour earlier. There was a chance.
“Amy, get the kids in the car!”
We piled in and drove 25 miles to Spring Trace Lane in Newport News. Had someone taken it already?
No. We get to the end of the cul-de-sac and there she stands, on her glorious rusted kickstand. Gorgeous, despite the rust. Or because of it. Even has its 1978-80 Minnesota bicycle license decal on it.
Happy Father’s Day.
It’s quite small for me and so probably won’t be very comfortable. But I’ll give it a shot. If I get it all done and it feels too small, I’ll just look for another frame and swap out the components.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Some BEFORE pics…
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