My fixed gear project

[jrenaut]

In my experience, if you can refer to something as a “thingy”, it’s probably not a vital part of your bike.

[DismalScientist]

@dkel 97512 wrote:

How important would it be to keep these on there, since there are no flared edges to hold the wheel in if the skewer loosens up? Seems like those washers aren’t very substantial to hold the wheel in the fork ends, and with track hubs, the wheels will be held on with regular old nuts, which are easy to crank down.

You may soon find yourself with a rude surprise. When obtaining a bolt-on wheelset for my conversion, I found that the front axle was too wide to fit in the designated slot on the fork. What to do? Take out the front axle of the bolt-on wheel and rebuild the hub with the old skewer and quick release axle. You might as well keep the old washers, although my conversion is so old that its quick release doesn’t have this “safety” feature.

[vvill]

@dkel 97512 wrote:

I’ve just been looking at these. I’m intrigued by the fixed/fixed rear hub, and I like the machined braking surface. Black is nice, too, and so is the price on these. Does anyone have thoughts? I believe vvill recommended the fixed/fixed configuration; there’s more flexibility to that in the long run, isn’t there?

I believe so, yes, although I don’t have any experience with them. I only have fixed/free wheels. Although the ultimate statement in simplicity is the one-sided fixed hub

I don’t know much about hub brands, but I do like the H Plus Son rims a lot (I have a set build with the Archetypes that I bought used from hozn). That wheelset seems a bit heavy but I’m sure it’s solid. I think with those rims the black ano sidewalls will fade (to alloy) quickly if you use the braking surface.

[dkel]

@DismalScientist 97548 wrote:

You may soon find yourself with a rude surprise. When obtaining a bolt-on wheelset for my conversion, I found that the front axle was too wide to fit in the designated slot on the fork. What to do? Take out the front axle of the bolt-on wheel and rebuild the hub with the old skewer and quick release axle. You might as well keep the old washers, although my conversion is so old that its quick release doesn’t have this “safety” feature.

Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!! 😡 Just for fun, I took the wheel off my commuter and tried to put it in the old Schwinn fork: not only do the fork ends not fit around the hub axle, but the spacing is only about 95mm instead of 100mm. I can barely stretch the thing to get around the hub, and then it won’t go around the axle!?! Ugh!

Sheldon Brown says this:

Higher quality bikes have used 100 mm spacing for the front fork for a long time, and there’s no reason to change this, but lower-end bikes of the ’70s and earlier sometimes used 96 mm spacing. You can generally fit a 100 mm hub into a 96 mm fork, with a bit of force (but don’t do this with a cartridge-bearing hub). A traditional steel fork also can be respaced. Older bikes that didn’t come with quick-release wheels may have axle slots that are too narrow to fit a quick release axle. If so, it isn’t too hard to file the slots out to fit.

I suppose there’s hope. I don’t know about cartridge hubs on the wheelset I was looking at. I might be inclined to file away on the fork rather than rebuilding the hub. Either way: :mad:.

[dkel]

@ShawnoftheDread 97544 wrote:

You don’t need the retaining washers. Unless you’re a lawyer, in which case bikes are very dangerous and the washers are a vital safety feature that I would never suggest you remove because you might die.

I did find out this about retaining washers and the like.

[dkel]

@vvill 97551 wrote:

I believe so, yes, although I don’t have any experience with them. I only have fixed/free wheels. Although the ultimate statement in simplicity is the one-sided fixed hub

I don’t know much about hub brands, but I do like the H Plus Son rims a lot (I have a set build with the Archetypes that I bought used from hozn). That wheelset seems a bit heavy but I’m sure it’s solid. I think with those rims the black ano sidewalls will fade (to alloy) quickly if you use the braking surface.

I thought you told me once you had fixed/fixed. My bad. The implication I surmised from fixed/fixed was that you could could still put a freewheel on a fixed hub with stepped thread, but there’s no way to make a free hub run fixed. I find the whole thing confusing, though, so correct me if I’m wrong.

Good point about the braking surface losing it’s color. I don’t think that bothers me too much. Suffice it to say that, as this is my first FG, I’ll probably be using the brakes! I’m leaning towards not installing a rear brake, but I may chicken out and do it, especially if the brakes I get come as a pair.

[hozn]

There at silver H+ Son Archetype rims; they are beautiful. I built a set for Lena awhile back. They only come in 28h or 32h drilling, but that is probably fine for your purposes.

There are also hard anodized rims; I have never seen them in person, but the internets say that don’t wear as obviously as black ano.

Archetypes are my favorite rim that I have built. Great quality at a relatively great price.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@dkel 97512 wrote:

Back on topic…

I’ve just been looking at these. I’m intrigued by the fixed/fixed rear hub, and I like the machined braking surface. Black is nice, too, and so is the price on these. Does anyone have thoughts? I believe vvill recommended the fixed/fixed configuration; there’s more flexibility to that in the long run, isn’t there?

I have practically the same wheel config on my Cinelli (my rims are H+Son SL42s, but the hubs are the same Origin8s) and I run fixed/fixed (although of course you can run fixed/free on that setup). Frankly, I thought I wanted the flexibility of a flip-flop hub, which I have on both my fixed gear bikes, but I’ve never once flipped the wheels on either bike. When I eventually upgrade the wheelset on my Cinelli, I’ll probably go with single-sided Phil hubs…at this point I can change a cog in my shop in negligibly more time than it takes to flip a wheel.

Also, I had a good experience with Velomine, and the whieelset has performed flawlessly for at least 1,500 miles so far…my only complaint is that the track nuts don’t hold the rear wheel very well, which necessitated a set of tensioners since I was sick of re-tensioning my rear wheel every couple of rides.

[OneEighth]

Surly tugnuts are great for extending the time between retensioning your chain. I also bought Phil hubbed wheels through Velomine and have been happy with them. I went fixed/fixed but in retrospect I would probably just go with a single sided fixed, too.

[vvill]

@dkel 97554 wrote:

I thought you told me once you had fixed/fixed. My bad. The implication I surmised from fixed/fixed was that you could could still put a freewheel on a fixed hub with stepped thread, but there’s no way to make a free hub run fixed. I find the whole thing confusing, though, so correct me if I’m wrong.

I probably just mumbled something like “I would be fine with having fixed/fixed”, because yeah you can run a freewheel on a fixed hub from what I’ve read. I think the threading isn’t quite as complete as it would be but it’s not an issue.

I have flipped the rear wheels on my two FG/SS bikes a few times, but I’m a constant tinkerer.

[Phatboing]

Y’know, I’ve toyed with the idea on and off about swapping out my IGH wheel with a singlespeed, and because my Pompino has 120mm spacing, my only options are fixed/free hubs. Now I’m thinking “hm, might as well try fixed. And it’s not a new bike, so doesn’t violate s-1”.

This can only end in glorious flaming disaster.

[dkel]

@Phatboing 97597 wrote:

This can only end in glorious flaming disaster.

This is how I’m feeling about my fork spacing problems right now. I had bad dreams about it all night! I pulled the axle out of the old wheel, and put it in the fork with the nuts on the inside, then tightened the nuts to spread the fork. I may have gained a millimeter by doing that. I pushed it even farther this morning, and left it under tension. We’ll see what it looks like when I get home. Pretty sure it won’t be at 100mm, and I’m out of axle length to spread it further. This is starting to be annoying. A $300, brand new FG bike is looking pretty good right now.

[DismalScientist]

You may not want to do that if you end up using the old axle. Spreading a steel fork 5mm shouldn’t be an issue.

[dkel]

@DismalScientist 97612 wrote:

You may not want to do that if you end up using the old axle. Spreading a steel fork 5mm shouldn’t be an issue.

The hubs I was looking at have cartridge bearings, and those are a bit more sensitive to being squeezed by the fork than regular bearings, I’m told.

The issues of pairing old parts with new parts is frustrating, and the cost plus the frustration does start to make the whole thing seem ridiculous. Maybe I’ll give up on adjusting the fork, and get the cheapest wheelset I can get, with regular old bearings. That will still likely cost $150.

I feel like such a whiner.

[mcfarton]

If it makes you feel better I a spent around 800 on my fixie. But it did come ready to go. And I started out wanting to spend less than 400 lol.

sent from your mom’s house

[Author]

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