I live in a city far away from any hills and not that close to trails.

I get everywhere by bike and I used to ride my MTB about. Which was a chore! But for the past year and a half ive been on 700c and ive been loving it. Riding the 'traffic' is as fun as mtb or bmx, its just so awesome being able to confidently ride real fast (safely) and not even get tired. Been riding fixed for a year and thats even better, have developed loads more confidence, fitness & skill on the road. have enjoyed building and destroying one bike, this is my second.

Just want to say I thoroughly reccomend building a fast street specific bike, or a nice work/shopping bike with mudguards & a basket. Really turns a chore into a lot of fun. I see so many mtb'ers plodding along slowly often on the pavement because they cant keep up with cars, just feel sorry for em!



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needs at least mud guards , and probably a rack to be any use as a commuter/shopper ...

unless you only commute in fair weather ...

got a similar bike with rack , guards etc does the job and i can leave it anywhere !

Nothing beats flying inbetween cars at rush hour in the city

ha i love the flat bars. I had a go on my friends roadie and hated the strange bars they use. Good work dude.

very nice indeed....

I've always got my eye out for a super cheap road bike for building to fixie...

PS...lots of mad fixies here:
http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/

i am seriously considering a charge stove or plug for rocking to work and back! wouldn't like to spend more but for the job they look sound as a pound! i used to ride a 40lb+ Dh bike to work and around between sites... god that was hard work! even a geared 4x HT is slow!

but at least i could take all the short cuts down the hills... blasting down staircases was great fun on the fully!

I don't have a road bike, but the other day I built this bike for uni. Its made from absoulte crap I had in the shed, but works a treat. I didn't have any working rear hubs so I got a broken one and welded it up so its got no freehub, and then cut out and welded on some horizontal dropouts for simple singlespeed. Also, the rear rim is one I practised rim grinding on, so it stops better than my M4's!

much like squats in the gym , fixed gear done right is very benificial ..

several big name roadie coaches make their students log a couple thousand fixed miles before allowing them to use the road bike , this strengthens the knees but the problems occur when people try not to fit brakes and use there legs to bring them selfs to a stop , this pushes the shin into the knee , not a problem if you stop consistantly and gently like the track boys do , but in the street thats not always possible and its the locking and jarring of the braking motion that causes the damage !

used to get knee pains during hard sessions or races , havnt had knee pains for a long time , spent last winter on 42:14 fixed !