help building up a single speed bike

Back by popular demand, the general all-things Road forum!

Moderator: robbosmans

joec
Posts: 100
Joined: Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:20 pm

by joec

ah, thats a shame,

good point from jekyll about the brake holes, these were also pre drilled in the felt, but a lot of track frames dont have this,

I work in gear inches, and ride 66" for general stuff (48x19) the 42x17 does sound good as its slightly lower (64")

atlasspeaks
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 3:35 am

by atlasspeaks

joec wrote:easy thing is to pick up a full track bike and add the brakes, I recently did this with a felt TK3, 2nd hand barely used 350GBP with a an extra front wheel ( spinergy rev x)

couple of things to catch ou out though, the felt handlebars slim down right next to the stem so you cant easily add a finger brake, not an issue for me as I added road levers, but would have liked the option to ad clipon tt bars...

track bikes ususally dont have bottle cage mounts, again no problem as I just drilled the frame and put rivinuts in... also no brake cable bosses, so its either tape, stick on bosses or zipties.

Oh and dont forget about the 120mm rear spacing!



hi joec, sorry if i sound stupid, but what 120mm rear spacing are you talking about? as far as my understanding about how to build up the rear wheel is this: attach the cog onto the hub and then the lock ring on top to lock it down. then bolt the wheel into the drop outs. not sure where the spacing is.

cheers.

by Weenie


Visit starbike.com Online Retailer for HighEnd cycling components
Great Prices ✓    Broad Selection ✓    Worldwide Delivery ✓

www.starbike.com



User avatar
jekyll man
Posts: 1570
Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2007 10:23 am
Location: Pack filler

by jekyll man

atlasspeaks wrote:
joec wrote:easy thing is to pick up a full track bike and add the brakes, I recently did this with a felt TK3, 2nd hand barely used 350GBP with a an extra front wheel ( spinergy rev x)

couple of things to catch ou out though, the felt handlebars slim down right next to the stem so you cant easily add a finger brake, not an issue for me as I added road levers, but would have liked the option to ad clipon tt bars...

track bikes ususally dont have bottle cage mounts, again no problem as I just drilled the frame and put rivinuts in... also no brake cable bosses, so its either tape, stick on bosses or zipties.

Oh and dont forget about the 120mm rear spacing!



hi joec, sorry if i sound stupid, but what 120mm rear spacing are you talking about? as far as my understanding about how to build up the rear wheel is this: attach the cog onto the hub and then the lock ring on top to lock it down. then bolt the wheel into the drop outs. not sure where the spacing is.

cheers.



Track frames have 120mm wide dropouts, whereas road is 130mm even with rear facing ends.
Official cafe stop tester

zwingz
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 4:37 am

by zwingz

Bianchi made a frame called the Fremont in 2007. It is a single speed, 120 spacing but has road bike geometry. I dont know how many are out there, but it is reasonably light. Mine is a 59cm and weighs 1448g. The fork is 425g uncut.

I've been using mine as my commuter/all around bike since 2008 and have had no complaints, even did some light touring with it.

rms13
Posts: 114
Joined: Mon Aug 10, 2015 10:05 pm

by rms13

jekyll man wrote:
joec wrote:easy thing is to pick up a full track bike and add the brakes, I recently did this with a felt TK3, 2nd hand barely used 350GBP with a an extra front wheel ( spinergy rev x)

couple of things to catch ou out though, the felt handlebars slim down right next to the stem so you cant easily add a finger brake, not an issue for me as I added road levers, but would have liked the option to ad clipon tt bars...

track bikes ususally dont have bottle cage mounts, again no problem as I just drilled the frame and put rivinuts in... also no brake cable bosses, so its either tape, stick on bosses or zipties.

Oh and dont forget about the 120mm rear spacing!



Dolan pre cursa comes with bottle bosses and also a fork drilled for a brake.


I ride one on the road quite a lot, and i have to be honest, it rides really well, on 42*17 :thumbup:

Its the rear hub and solid axle thats normally a porker unless you spend stupid money. I just use a halo rear wheel.


I used to have a Pre Cursa and there were no bottle bosses. According to website there still isn't as its a pure track frame
http://www.dolan-bikes.com/dolan-pre-cu ... -bike.html

There is an option for fork drilled for brake but no rear brakes

rms13
Posts: 114
Joined: Mon Aug 10, 2015 10:05 pm

by rms13

atlasspeaks wrote:hey guys, thanks for the input. so far i'm looking at:

frame: dolan pre cursa or tc1 (approx 2kg and 293/514usd)

wheels: wabi sub 15 (1475g, 275usd) or farsport carbon wheels (1370g, 568usd)

tyres: continental gatorskin (440g, 62usd)

crank and bb: sram s300 (830g, 135usd)

pedals: speedplay zero (210g total, 151usd)

bars: nitto rb-021 (240g, 52usd)

stem: Deda Elementi Superleggero (99g, 94usd) OR Ritchey Adjustable Stem (219g, 45usd, i know it's heavy but i REALLY like it's flexibility. i may have to make a concession here...)

seatpost: included with frame(s) and their weight totals

brake: front shimano R561 (160g, 40usd)

brake lever: trp rl951 (38g, 32usd)

headset: ird techno glide (110g, 55usd)

saddle: fizik aliante delta manganese (271g, already own)


so lowest total weight so far is 5.76kg. add a sprocket, inner tubes, spacers, chain and i estimate it'll end up being close to 6.2-6.5kg. the total cost for the lighest build will be 1482usd, which is way over what i wanted to spend. i can shave money off by going with the wabi wheels over the carbon ones, but i could use some help with part suggestions that save money in other areas while maintaining or lowering weight.


the people over on the fixie subreddit have been incredibly unhelpful, but then again they don't seem to care about weight as much as you lot. if there's any other suggestions for part replacements on this list that would save weight and money, i'd love to hear them!


Why not cinsider a Wabi frame? . The Lightning made of Columbus Spirit is probably close to or lighter then many track frames and it has road bike geometry with 120mm track drop outs and bottle bosses and drilled for front and rear brake

atlasspeaks
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 3:35 am

by atlasspeaks

rms13 wrote:Why not cinsider a Wabi frame? . The Lightning made of Columbus Spirit is probably close to or lighter then many track frames and it has road bike geometry with 120mm track drop outs and bottle bosses and drilled for front and rear brake


i looked at them actually but they seem to be heavier by a fair margin than both the pre cursa and black label. i couldn't find a weight for the frameset on their website but their pre-builts weigh much more than the prebuilts from other companies so i figured the frame was also very heavy. any definitive weight numbers for their 58 frameset?

User avatar
jekyll man
Posts: 1570
Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2007 10:23 am
Location: Pack filler

by jekyll man

@ rms13
I must have a hybrid mix of Pre cursa and FXE then.

Its only got 1 set of bottle bosses, which I guess could have been fitted afterwards but they look well done and nothing else that's been "modified" does (i'm not the 1st owner), but it doesn't have the clearance and mudguard eyelets a fxe should have.

I'm pretty certain when I looked at the Dolan website that it was offered with them, but can't find evidence of that now.

Whatever, its a cheap blast to ride :thumbup:
Official cafe stop tester

atlasspeaks
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 3:35 am

by atlasspeaks

okay, so after looking at parts and not finding exactly what i wanted in terms of a frameset that i could get my hands on that would work for what i wanted, i decided to go in a completely different direction. the price cap went out the window and instead of a featherlight, i decided to build for beauty.

this is what happened after the dust settled. gonna switch out the saddle for a white one and get some white electrical tape on the bars to get rid of the black, but it's about finished.

Image

Image

Raccooningtanuki
Posts: 155
Joined: Mon Aug 22, 2016 7:30 am

by Raccooningtanuki

atlasspeaks wrote:hey guys, thanks for the input. so far i'm looking at:

frame: dolan pre cursa or tc1 (approx 2kg and 293/514usd)

wheels: wabi sub 15 (1475g, 275usd) or farsport carbon wheels (1370g, 568usd)

tyres: continental gatorskin (440g, 62usd)

crank and bb: sram s300 (830g, 135usd)

pedals: speedplay zero (210g total, 151usd)

bars: nitto rb-021 (240g, 52usd)

stem: Deda Elementi Superleggero (99g, 94usd) OR Ritchey Adjustable Stem (219g, 45usd, i know it's heavy but i REALLY like it's flexibility. i may have to make a concession here...)

seatpost: included with frame(s) and their weight totals

brake: front shimano R561 (160g, 40usd)

brake lever: trp rl951 (38g, 32usd)

headset: ird techno glide (110g, 55usd)

saddle: fizik aliante delta manganese (271g, already own)


so lowest total weight so far is 5.76kg. add a sprocket, inner tubes, spacers, chain and i estimate it'll end up being close to 6.2-6.5kg. the total cost for the lighest build will be 1482usd, which is way over what i wanted to spend. i can shave money off by going with the wabi wheels over the carbon ones, but i could use some help with part suggestions that save money in other areas while maintaining or lowering weight.


the people over on the fixie subreddit have been incredibly unhelpful, but then again they don't seem to care about weight as much as you lot. if there's any other suggestions for part replacements on this list that would save weight and money, i'd love to hear them!

Velo build frame will shave you 500 grams or so. SRAM Red crankset can be found for around 200. You can find a Chinese saddle for around 20$. Depending on seat clamp hardware a tennis ball can save you 40g or so there.
Spring propel viewtopic.php?t=140915
Fall guru merus viewtopic.php?t=155877
Summer carver nonsense viewtopic.php?t=156795

bremerradkurier
Posts: 419
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2016 4:18 pm

by bremerradkurier

If you can find one, a Suntour Superbe pro freewheel rear hub builds a great dishless rear wheel by simply moving an axle spacer from the right to the left side.

Post Reply