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By Johnny, June 13, 2008 1:39 pm

My bike is finally featured on the fixedgeargallery.com page. This site was the reason why I wanted to build a fixie to ride. Not the fact that I wanted to be featured on the site but rather the beautiful bikes that is featured on there. Some bikes are a work of art!

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By Johnny, June 1, 2008 5:50 pm

I’m finally done with my fixed gear conversion of a Nishiki International road bike. I’m not going to lie and tell you that this was close to even being a cheap ordeal. Here’s the list costs that was necessary for this complete build:

• 19 teeth cog and new bicycle chain = $48.71
• Bar tape & 3 inner tubes (1 for spare) = $19.78
• Nitto bullhorn handlebar = $54.89
• 2 Panaracer Strada Pro tires, front brake pad , and White Lightening chain lube = $80.18
• 2 rim tape = $8.64
• White Specialized Alias 143 seat & brake cable = $72.09
• Spray paint & electric tape (extra bar tape) = $5.80
• Cyclocomputer, front & rear lights, wedge bag, mini pump, and miscellaneous items = $149.32
• Donations for stand time @ Bike Oven = $65.00

Grand Total = $504.41

I guess I could have went real cheap and buy the plain black tires with no puncture protection or no red stripe sidewall or even gone with a bulky wired cyclocomputer or big no name front lights. This bike, in my opinion, deserved a better assortment of accessories. Hence the expensive bill.

I did gain 3 things from all this:

1. Being comfortable with taking bikes apart and working on it.
2. Owning a kick ass fixed gear bike to ride.
3. Fixed gear riding is sooo different than regular free gear riding.

Converting the bike felt like when I first got into computers in college. I was obsessed and was laser focused on the task. I was thinking about the bike when I wasn’t around it. And when I was working on it, I felt at peace. The time working on it went by very quick. I think I’m going to actively volunteer at the Bike Oven to learn and work on bicycling. This is so fun that I’m actually considering selling my motorcycle so I can use that to buy a very nice road bike. Yes, I am that into it.

Here’s the before picture of the bike when I picked it up:

Here is the finished conversion with new white toe clips and all.

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By Johnny, May 21, 2008 12:36 pm

I’ve been fascinated with the idea of building my own fixed-gear bicycle for a couple of months now. I first caught sight of one when I was looking around for ways to improve my current commuter. I came across a beautiful bike with no brake levers and no derailleurs. It was just a bike with one chain around the wheel and nothing else. A fixed-gear bike does not have a free wheel. This means that when you pedal backwards on a complete stop, you actually can go backwards. It makes it challenging if you ride around hills both going up and going down. You can simply pedal backwards if you wanted to stop. There’s plenty of people who uses fixed-gear bikes for tricks and stunts. You can find clips on YouTube. Track bikes that are used in competitive racing are all fixed-gear. It’s suppose to improve your riding and is good for training. I’m going to be doing a triathlon in September and thought that this would be neat to ride.

A friend of my gave me his old Nishiki International road bike. It’s a pretty old bike but still in very good shape. I took it to the Bike Oven in Highland Park to begin my project last night. The folks at Bike Oven were awesome. They were very friendly, receptive, and most importantly patient. I spent about 3 hours taking parts off of my bike, rebuilt the headset and bottom bracket. Things I thought would be hard wasn’t too bad. Of course I was spoiled by the plethora of tools that was available around me. What remains is buying a cog for my rear wheel and a new chain. Hopefully I’ll have it completed by this Saturday so I can take it out to ride during the upcoming holiday weekend. The before and after pictures will come shortly.