I’m tempted to buy an old road bike for riding to work and back and generally round town, but to keep things (Relatively) maintenance free I would want to convert it to singlespeed. Whats the cheapest way to do this? And what bits would I need? …even if it means doing some sort of ghetto fixing

How old is the road bike?? I’ve got a Raleigh arena with semi horizontal dropouts, came with an old type screw on freewheel, but the guy I bought it off re dished the wheel and popped a screw on shitmano freewheel and Roberts ya mothers brother

what you wanna do is type sheldon brown into your favourite search engine

http://sheldonbrown.com/singlespeed.html

as with everything, the super cheap way is labour intensive, the easy way you might as well buy off the peg, good luck finding a happy medium

frame and forks original (60s/70s) centre pull brakes were long enough drop to cope with changing the wheels down from 27&1/4 to 700, dedicated SS wheelset, one of those BBs that tightens up against itself, cos the shell was very badly cross threaded, quill to ahead adapter, 100mm 6deg mtb stem, flipped……

its a frame of sentimental value, but it would have been cheaper and easier to buy something that fits OTP

I don’t have a bike yet, im looking around ebay/gumtree/ paper etc for things sub £30 basically for something with skinny tyre’s to get around town, basically a fixie with out the skinny jeans and fixed bit 😉

I guess it’ll be a case of find a bike and work from there!

+1 for Raleigh, the semi horizontal drop outs make chain tensioning a cinch.

APF

couldnt you just take of the deraileur shorten the chain and use the cassette

check the local tip on a Sunday afternoon, I got an old Carlton for a few quid from mine.

took the dish out the back wheel, screwed on a freewheel and its the most maintenance free bike I own.

Potentially looking at this, look usable?

Need to make sure it’s got semi horizontal dropouts.

I bought a Falcon road bike off here for £18, and a fixed wheelset off ebay for £10.

Chain and cog from the parts bin, junked all the cables and levers, bought a lockring for £3, and now have a £32 fixed for going to the shop 🙂

Try Raleigh equipe or maybe a team banana??

I have a Raleigh MTV frame that has had track dropout brazed on. Free if you collect it/donation to stw. South London.

I have a Raleigh MTV frame that has had track dropout brazed on. Free if you collect it/donation to stw. South London

Thankyou very much for the offer, but I live in Derby so the journey wouldn’t really be feasable + Id rather start off with a whole bike 🙂

I have an old beater that I wanted to simplify.
It has semi-horizontal drop-outs, so I removed the front and rear mechs and shifters, decided which ratio to keep and shortened the chain accordingly.
Over the next few weeks the chain growth necessitated moving the wheel every 400 miles. With a 7-speed cassette having hyperdrive sprockets, chain retention with low tension is poor. Result is the chain skipped to a larger sprocket momentarily and bent.
Cured the problem with a new chain and a tensioner.
I will substitute the cassette for a singlespeed sprocket when worn.

So the lesson is to fit the tensioner from day one and enjoy the cheaper/simpler ride.

Look at the KMC galvanized chains for approx £7 on CRC.

I did similar with a £30 road bike but bought a new flip flop rear wheel and weighed all the rusted old stuff in for scrap.

I now have a super silent low maintenance town bike that hardly cost anything yet I love as much as my £1500+ trance

I messaged the guy with the Falcon (Link in a previous post) asking what frame size it is, but he doesn’t know. However, he did say he was 5ft 5 and could touch the floor. Does this mean, me being 6ft 1, that it would be too small for me? I wouldn’t be able to try it first as it would be my dad collecting it (It’s near where he works) so that’s not an option…

Whooo! Picked one up yesterday (Viscount) for a grand total of £50, slightly over budget, but at least its fully working 🙂 Needs a bit of a clean and im still ummm’ing and ahh’ing over whether or not to single speed it…

Here it is!

That’ll look quite cool singlespeeded.

Keep the original paint job.

The problem with converting many old road frames to single speed is their flexibility.

It’s a great and cheap way to get started, and a good way to keep a well-loved classic on the road.

But once you start building up the appropriate muscles you’ll find the limitations.

I have done lots of this sort of conversion and what you can expect is the frame to flex a lot. Where this gets tiresome is when you’re climbing and the rim starts rubbing on the brakes. You can ditch the rear brake and go fixed, but it generally won’t be long before you’re managing to make the tyre rub on the sides on the chain stays.

(If you live in flatland this may not apply)

Recommendation? Buy a Pompino.