"Suzy Jackson" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I did a nice 70km ride on the weekend with a bunch of local troublemakers,
one of whom rode the whole time without once coasting. This strange
behaviour got me to thinking, I've got an old steel roadie in the garage
with those much sought after horizontal dropouts, and a rear triangle that
was brazed together when five speed freewheels were plentiful, that's been
quietly gathering dust since I built my go faster aluminium massively
overgeared clicky lever bike.

So I thought about it a bit, and figured it'd be lots of fun to put track
cranks and wheels on it, and throw away that nasty back brake for ever,
and
see if I can break myself of this terrible coasting habit. Further down
the
track (pun entirely intended) I could go and talk to a framebuilder and
get
a real track frame (or perhaps even a box of tubes and lugs), put my shiny
new cranks and wheels on it, and see how much I can scare myself going
around in circles (but always pedalling of course).

At least you're not jumping in with both feet, spending a lot of money, THEN
finding out that track racing is a very hard discipline. (unless you're
riding a 55cm track frame, then I lose) Hell, I was racing on an old track
frame that a redneck friend of mine unbent. I got if from a courier in DC
that had a discussion with a car. The bike cost me about $40 to put
together. Rode it till I got my first custom bike. On the track, it
usually ISN'T the bike doing the holding back.

In any case, I cast around on the net looking for suitable candidates, and
decided Record is ridiculously expensive, as is Dura-Ace. Next down the
list seems to be the Miche Primato bits, which seem at first glance to
strike a good compromise between shinyness and expense. Are they as nice
as
they look? I see they use cartridge bearings. What do I do when said
bearings disintegrate? I'm used to my nice Campy cup & cone hubs where
one
simply pulls everything apart and gives it all a scrub and some nice new
grease occasionally, and one can buy new balls and new cones should the
need
arise.

I'll second the motion further down of finding a FW hubset. I'll refine the
recommendation by saying that if you're running fixed, replace the axle with
a bolt-on and redish the wheel. My first track wheel was built out of a
MA40 rim and a Specialized FW hub. Worked great, even spinning VERY fast
going down some of the hills betweeen Alexandria and Fairfax, VA.

If you're set on riding a track hub, check out the Sugino Pro Max too.
There's always someone out there with a pair of used track hubs. I'm
running Superbe hubs on my track bike and love them.

The next issue is that the cranks are 135mm PCD, whereas most other track
cranks seem to be 144. Is this likely to cause grief?

For the first iteration of the bike, I'd recommend running whatcha got now.
Stick with the road pitch equipment till you decide that this track racing
thing's for you. I used to run a 42x17 setup most winters. Easy enough
that you can spin on the flats, but not so big you screw up your knees on
the hills. Colorado Cyclist sells road pitch track cogs in varying sizes.
Check out www.fixedgearfever.com for a gear inch chart and
www.businesscycles.com for all things track. Your LBS can also order things
from EuroAsia. They have some of the nicest track cogs these days

Finally, is it an issue squeezing the back end of a 126mm wide bike down
to
120mm? It's had 130mm wide wheels forced into it before without
significant
complaint.

Why squeeze when you can space out an axle easier? See above about the rear
wheel.

Anyways, I was hoping to con some advice out of others who use these bits.

Even though Sheldon doesn't use his rear brake, I'd still recommend keeping
it on till definitively proven that you don't need it.

I'd also recommend a single speed FW for larger group rides. Yes, this
means that you can coast. It also means that you can react to what the
idiot in front of you is doing in an emergency better. For a few friends
out for a little ride, fixed is fine.

If you can remember rule #1 of fixed gear riding: never, EVER, stop
pedaling, you'll do OK. If you do forget rule #1, relax your knees. Let
the crank turn them over for a bit. If you don't, you'll probably get
launched.

Regards,

Suzy

That help?

Mike