BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

the fixed conversion directions on sheldon brown's site is really good. there's a copy of it at free ride, and i'd always make people read it beforehand.

a big part of it is how much you are planning on trying to "convert" or use the actual parts. converting is fine, just know that you're manipulating the parts to do something that they weren't designed to do.

are you planning on putting in an actual fixed wheel, or making a wheel conversion. i recommend the former.

is your frame set up for 27" or 700? if it's 27, and you want to put 700 wheels on, you may need to either find brakes with an extended reach, or put on a fork that accepts 700 wheels on the front.

the hardest part is really with alignment of the fixed cog to the chainring. re-using stuff sometimes requires a bit of trial and error, cause things don't always line up as well as you'd like. or you could just get an actual ss crank/bb set

by "use actual parts" i mean using single speed parts as opposed to road bike parts converted to ss use

Speaking of "actual parts", it is amazing what is available now in the ss/fixie arena. 6 years ago when I scrapped together my fixie, much of what was on the market was "actually" marketed and developed for track so it was not cost effective at all to put on a $50 schwinn traveler frame. Imagine a time where cowhorn bars were something you had to cut yourself, the horror!

what are you looking to learn? if you're purchasing new parts, it's a simple matter of correct removal and replacement. if you're looking to redish the old wheel and reuse bits of it, then it gets more complicated.

The Park Tool website is very handy for maintenance and repair information.

I've got a 20" Schwinn Varsity and a 20" Vista somethingorother, both look like they can take 700cm wheels. Also, I have no wheels.

i'm assuming the varsity has horizontal drop outs, does the vista?

Yup, horizontal dropouts on both.

I converted my 1976 steel frame bike to a single/fixie using mostly the parts from the bike. I knew a fair amount about fixing bikes and had the old-style bottom bracket tools etc. on hand, but reading through Sheldon's pages helped me visualize what I needed to do. (Get short stack bolts for the chainring for example.)

If you are putting on 700c wheels on and you want to use a brake, Tektro makes an ultra-long reach caliper that will reach the rim.

I built the wheels up myself including a flip/flop rear and I used a wheelbuilding book for that, since I'd never built wheels before.

In addition to the brakes, another issue with putting 700s on a frame intended for 27" wheels is that your bottom bracket is going to ride a little lower. While this isn't a big problem on a freewheel bike, you definitely don't want to scrape a pedal while leaning into a turn on a fixed gear.

To compensate you might want to consider installing 165mm cranks.

I would have thought the Varsity, at least, used 27" wheels.

You'll want to build some jigs to make sure that everything is straight, especially if you reset the rear triangle to 120mm. You can probably get away with just pulling it in to the hub, but you won't be certain that it's precisely centered, and you might be anal like that...

Research says the varsity originally came with 27 inch wheels.

i hate the low BB clearance on conversions from 27s... i'm suffering with it right now on an otherwise perfect and beautiful bike. i should get like 160 cranks from kraynicks.

both look like they can take 700cm wheels.

dear god! a new tall bike record?

i know a guy, real good, that can help you attach a car bumper to the front if you want

I completely encourage you to do this.

You will learn a lot no matter what, both mechanically and about why bikes are the way they are. You may come out of it with a functioning bike that you didn't spend much money on, or you may come out of it with what can be called a polished turd - a Schwinn Varsity with matching Deep-Vs comes to mind.

Beyond the myriad of parts compatibility problems that will present themselves when working with older bikes, another thing to keep in mind is that just because a bicycle is old does not mean it is, or ever was, any good. There are a lot of people out there spending a lot of money on "restoring" a "vintage" road bike and making it road worthy... failing to realize or accept that their "vintage" 80's frame was a department store ten-speed 25 years ago.

HiddenVariable: I'm redefining the term "bigwheel"

BradQ: Thats exactly why I'm doing it. I hate using something without quite knowing all the bits of how it works.

yeah, seriously, to echo brad. there is no better way to learn bike mechanics than to dive in head first. one thing that you have over a lot of the people that come into free ride is that you already have a bike, so can take your time to figure it out, instead of just cobbling it together so that you'll have a bike that you barely spent money on.

HV, are you going to that zoning ordnance meeting?

BradQ, but does it matter? The difference between an 80's Colnago frame and a Schwinn Varsity is maybe two pounds. Sure that matters if you're really racing, but if you're just trying to build something that doesn't have a lot of moving parts and is going to be reliable for riding on the street ( and you're putting clinchers on it), that Varsity frame could be in better shape now than the Colnago.

My big concern would be what kind of a bottom bracket you can put in it... I think the headset is standard.

one thing i've noticed between the lower and higher end frames from the past is that the dropouts on the lower end bikes tend to be really thin, and could have some problems when bolting the fixed wheel to it. the metal seems softer on them, and after a good tightening, i've seen some drops get bruised, so to speak, and either make the bolt drop into the bruise, or make it so that even at a reasonable tension, the wheel is more apt to slip some. when the drops are thicker, as they usually are on the better bikes from the era, this doesn't seem to happen

It matters if you are going to spend a bunch of money on modern parts to get an old bike running. You can purchase a complete single gear bicycle for less than $400 these days that is of far superior quality than any Schwinn Varsity or department store road bike ever was. If you are spending even near half the amount you have to start putting that learning experience in dollar figures...

If you think the only difference between a Schwinn Varsity and an 80's Colnago frame is 2 lbs, you are quite mistaken. Frame geometry and ride quality are important to non-racers too.

If on the other hand you plan on taking your time, scavenging parts at Freeride and springing for nothing but new tires and tubes, these older bikes can be the deal of a lifetime.

700 centimeters is about 23 feet. 700 millimeters is a little under 28 inches. Big wheel, indeed.

I completely agree with Erok on the drop out thing.

Do they have cotter cranks? If they do, there is a cool trick to line up the chain using the stock crank. Pop the pin out and take the crank arm off. the spindle has a notch in it where the pin sits. Grind/file the notch wider, leave the lip at the end of the spindle now you can line the chainring up and then put tighten the pin down.