Bit of a cheat – not being strictly road legal but I’ve never taken a photo of my langster ( one of the 2004 bikes, nice but jarring as hell with the straight aluminum forks)
I would guess that both are about the 9kg mark, the 32 front and 36 rear wheeels aren’t light but it’s an every day commuter so needs to be pothole proof and the alu track frame is comfy. I heartily recommend the Dolan frame, I got it for 200 quid !
Here’s my old 1994 Marin Indian Fire Trail mtb converted into a singlespeed road bike with my old 1994 Hope TI hub/freehub/axle, well under 18lbs with my light hutchinson tyres on it, with these specialized fat boys it’s about 18lbs, running 46 x 16 magic ratio and when the chain does get a bit slack i have a various assortment of chainrings and rear singlespeed sprockets to mess about and get the magic ratio back again.
Surprisingly nice to ride, very fast but not much forgiveness in the frame, a bit ugly to look at so i call it a fungrol which stands for F-kin Ugly moNGROL which i guess it is – a mixture of bikes and odd lightweight components i’ve gathered up over the years.
Kilo – are brakes really a legal requirement? Would the Dolan take a brake caliper or are track frames like that designed purely for track use?
To use on the road yes, two brakes are required, with fixed, the mechanism of the fixed counts as one so you need one more. Some track bikes have a drilled track or road fork fitted so a front caliper can be fitted and that makes them road legal, you whip the brake and lever off for track use. The dolan in my picture has an undrilled track fork so isn’t road legal but is only a fork away from being the one in edhornby’s picture.
Brakes – what frame is that? Looks carbon? Does it take a rear brake?
cheap chinese eBay jobby (mycycoole), about £100 for frame, forks, headset, seatpost. made from ally, but I think it looks a bit like the British track frames.
it does take a rear brake.
Finally got the langster out of the shed and photo’ed it – no idea of the weight, 66″ish fixed, the only original bits left are the frame and forks and the seatpin
Here is my new bike, cost £20 on ebay. Its not SS yet but I plan on converting it at some point in the next couple of months.
Its a mess at the moment, the brakes dont work and the tyres are 25 years old. I’m planning in the summer to strip it down and paint it including doing something with the lugs and make it look lovely.
Steel frame, mudguards and 10 kilos/22 lbs dead on. 42:16 1/8 drivetrain. Fantastic ride. Will be replacing with a lighter and shorter stem and nicer bars. But sub 20lbs, even without the mudguards will require a new frame or carbon forks. For reference, I have a quote of £1200 from Burls to make the same frame in titanium. And I REALLY like the kona steel forks.
My 531c track/hill climb bike is 18 lbs. With front brake. But it is a small frame, runs tubs and has a very steep head angle, with no bottle mounts. It’s not exactly a relaxing ride!
To be honest, getting under 20lbs with something that 1) is not a track bike and 2) is made of steel is not easy. A langster with Al frame should be OK. The upgraded wheelset and tyres on my Kona still come in at about 2200g because track hubs aren’t that light.
I was struggling to find some wheels anywhere near comparable weights to ‘normal’ geared wheels.
I did used to have a Specialized Tricross which was around 22lb.
I Ache – vaguely had in mind somekind of similar project. That was the ‘cheap’ project option. The ‘pimp’ project option is the lightweight bling fixie….
I’m surprised people are struggling to get below 20lbs. I have a stock Trek 1.2 (geared) and that was 19lbs. This is a cheap aluminium frame with carbon forks.
Hopefully going on my first ride on the Raleigh tomorrow. It was bought as a cheap roadie to get me fit while my ankle is recovering. I kept getting carried away on the MTB and trying to jump things. Not really a good idea when recovering from an operation.
This is a cheap aluminium frame with carbon forks.
Exactly… Now switch to a steel frame and forks and come back with the same conclusion.
I was struggling to find some wheels anywhere near comparable weights to ‘normal’ geared wheels.
The original wheels, comparable to the Weinmann ones on the nice Webb bike above, with durano plus training tyes, come in at about 3000g!! I wanted low flange hubs to avoid the “looks like a track bike” issue. This meant Miche Primato, which only come in 32 hole,and pairs. A conventional 24h 105 hub and a dura ace track rear would probably save another 150-200g. But overall I’m delighted with the wheels.
I’m surprised people are struggling to get below 20lbs. I have a stock Trek 1.2 (geared) and that was 19lbs. This is a cheap aluminium frame with carbon forks
Indeed. But just about everythig shown so far is steel or very cheep aluminium.
There’s nothing to stop you using a Cannondale SuperSix Evo Black Edition frame (<650g), 300g forks, bar/stem/seatpost/headset at 100g each, 500g cranks and chainring, 200g chain, 1500g wheels (novatech front, WI ENO rear, DT REv’s, carbon tub rims and some tubs) and you’d be under 8 lb excluding pedals without even getting propperly weight weenie. It’d cost £2.5 – £3k though, most people build fixies as winter bikes which means trawling for discarded track frames or old road bikes and just removing the cassette which leaves you in the 180-20lb ballpark.
Posted 11 years ago
Viewing 32 posts - 1 through 32 (of 32 total)
The topic ‘Show me your fixie / single speed road bikes especially light weight ones!’ is closed to new replies.