Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The unfixable fixie...

So, in an effort to keep everyone posted about my trials and tribulations modifying my GT Ricochet MTB to a fixed gear, here goes. I am mostly done the process. I couldn’t cheaply do a fixed gear as I am running a freehub with a cassette so opted to go for the S/S. A $25 investment in a spacer kit and 16T cog as well as a new crank that my neighbor gave me provided me everything I needed to convert to singlespeed. I ran into a foreseen problem when the chain was too slack and the vertical dropouts prevented me from compensating for that. An eccentric hub would cost about $150 and that’s about $100 more than it’s worth to me. None of my area bike shops had any half links in stock, so I opted for a more drastic solution. I filed the dropouts back a few centimeters so I could slide the rear hub to where it needed to be. I still have a few more cm to go, but I think it’s passable for now. I need to put the brakes back on it now and some pedals and it should be mostly finished. I’m having more chain issues though. As the chain engages the rear cog, it gets stuck and has difficulty releasing the teeth of the cog. I don’t know why this is happening or how to fix it, but I’ll see what I can do and keep you updated as I progress. Hopefully it’ll be roadworthy by this weekend!




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1 comment:

Mark said...

If you still want to try a fixie and your are running a disc hub in the rear, try a TomiCog! Here is the URL where you can get them:
http://tomicog.blogspot.com/
I put one on my 69er and it rocks!
http://ctmtblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/fixed-fixation.html