I have a year old R500 wheelset that came with my road bike. I upgrade them, so the R500 wheels are just sitting in my bike garage.

I also made up a fixed gear 1970-ish Raleigh (three speed internal gearing) road bike a few years ago when I worked at a bike store. The idea then was you couldn't put any money into the bike, only spare parts and then we raced them. It was fun, and I still have the bike.

The problem is the spare parts were crap, and therefore I haven't done any riding on it in years. I was thinking of buying a Langster or something, but I realized I have a good frame, I have most of the parts I'll need, why not build my bike myself.

So, the first and easiest step will be to do the wheels. As I said, I have the R500's, but my thinking is that I'll need to replace the hub and respoke. Is this true? How hard is it (I'm not that great with my hands).

David.

I have a year old R500 wheelset that came with my road bike. I upgrade them, so the R500 wheels are just sitting in my bike garage.

I also made up a fixed gear 1970-ish Raleigh (three speed internal gearing) road bike a few years ago when I worked at a bike store. The idea then was you couldn't put any money into the bike, only spare parts and then we raced them. It was fun, and I still have the bike.

The problem is the spare parts were crap, and therefore I haven't done any riding on it in years. I was thinking of buying a Langster or something, but I realized I have a good frame, I have most of the parts I'll need, why not build my bike myself.

So, the first and easiest step will be to do the wheels. As I said, I have the R500's, but my thinking is that I'll need to replace the hub and respoke. Is this true? How hard is it (I'm not that great with my hands).

David.
If it uses a standard Shimano freehub body (I think it does), you could use a Surly Fixxer.

http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/fixed-hubs.html

You can find them on eBay for <$40 if you are patient.

TF

Great idea. Is the Surly Fixxer the only part that would do this job? There aren't many Surly outlets in Canada, so I was curious of other options if there are any.

Great tip on the ebay!

Try Urbane Cycles on John Street in Toronto. They carrry Surly bikes and parts. I bought my singleator there. http://www.ucycle.com/

alfred e bike (alfredebike.com or something like that) -- you can find them on google -- sells new surly fixxers for about 55 bucks. I just got mine this week.

Alfred e Bike is actually at http://aebike.com/

If you remove the cassette, then remove the freehub body and look at the back side you'll see that there is an outer shell (with the splines for the cogs) and the inner body. Three zaps from the welder (I like the number three, pick what you like but no need to weld all the way around), a little grinding to make the area flat again, and reassemble. Disassemble the cassette to free the cogs and spacers. Space the cog you want on the splines where you like it using the plastic spacers and/or some suitable pipe cut to length. Take $55 minus what you had to pay the welder and mail it to your favorite charity, or to me. It's working great on my conversion for a year now.

Dennis

If you remove the cassette, then remove the freehub body and look at the back side you'll see that there is an outer shell (with the splines for the cogs) and the inner body. Three zaps from the welder (I like the number three, pick what you like but no need to weld all the way around), a little grinding to make the area flat again, and reassemble. Disassemble the cassette to free the cogs and spacers. Space the cog you want on the splines where you like it using the plastic spacers and/or some suitable pipe cut to length. Take $55 minus what you had to pay the welder and mail it to your favorite charity, or to me. It's working great on my conversion for a year now.

Dennis

that's interesting, I've wanted to try that for a couple years but haven't. it sounds like you're using a ramped cog, have you had any issues keeping the chain on?

I've had no trouble with chains jumping since I broke down and replaced my BioPace chainring!!! Seriously, it works fine. If I'm ever feeling wealthy I'll spring for a MTB SS cog, they make them with wide bases and no ramps just for this sort of thing.

I converted a wheelset for a friend.

BigRider, where did you get that cog? Did you have problems keeping the chain line straight?

That looks exactly like my setup. You can put the chainline anywhere you want! That's the beauty of the thing.

Edit: Oh, wait. Do you think all the metal in the picture is a special cog? That's a regular cog out of a regular cassette and some spacers. The lock ring clamps down on the smallest cassette cog which locks everything together. He (and I) ground the teeth off the "lockring cog", probably because they both look stupid and hurt your fingers when tensioning the chain.

Edit: Oh, wait. Do you think all the metal in the picture is a special cog? That's a regular cog out of a regular cassette and some spacers. The lock ring clamps down on the smallest cassette cog which locks everything together. He (and I) ground the teeth off the "lockring cog", probably because they both look stupid and hurt your fingers when tensioning the chain.


What he said.