A mix of parts on an old Trek racing frame, built with the help of a lot of people.
At the formation of Fixed Touring, I was the only member who did not actually own a fixed gear bike. For (what would become the inaugural tour of Fixed Touring) SXSF3, I was borrowing Timmy’s Dawes, which i had to give back after the ride. After a few months, when I had saved an small amount of money, It was time to get my own bike. I wanted to build something from scratch so that i could learn to more about how bikes a put together and be able to do more maintenance myself. Also, since I had been talking with the rest of the FXT guys about the project, they had said to just find a frame, and they would have enough spare parts to complete it. So, after many hours digging through Craigslist, i found a guy in Denton selling a frame. It was 58cm and lugged steel, which were the only parameters i was really looking for.
Since it was in Denton, and i live in Deep Ellum without a car, i had a friend pick it up for me and i took a weekend to go up to Denton on the train with my 5 speed Motobecane. Saw friends, hung out, picked up the frame. To get it back to the train to head home I had to throw it around my neck and ride my Motobecane about 4 miles from my friends house to the train, which was slow, very uncomfortable, and attracted a lot of strange looks. But, I got on the train and headed back home. And since the train would piratically take me all the way to Collin’s doorstep at Switching Gears Cyclery I figured it would be a good idea to take it in and show them my new project. I walked into the shop and presented the frame to Collin. He looked it over quickly, picked it up to feel the weight, set it down and walked to the back of the shop without saying much of anything. He returned a moment later holding a another frame and said “this one’s much better, you should use this one.” Andee tried to defend my hours of work and travel to acquire my frame, but Collin was right, It was a much better, much lighter frame. I would have saved myself a heap of trouble and some money had I just gone to my local bike shop first.
Now it was time to cash in on all the free parts that I had been promised. I got a bottom bracket, crankset, chainring, lockring and rear cog, from Gabe; Timmy gave me a wheelset and a lot of parts that i didn’t end up using, a saddle, a front brake, lever and cable housing, and some handlebars and bar tape. I picked up some new parts from Transit; Headset, front brake, rear hub, a chain, tubes and tires and a seatpost. Fran gave me the Stem and handlebars I ended up using. Transit also rebuilt the rear wheel with the new fixed hub. I had all the parts needed to put something together.
Now in steps two more people to volunteer and a third bike shope. Thiago was excited and offered to drive me and my pile of parts up to the (now closed) Performance Bike where Miles was working, and the three of us put everything together. I was trying to take my time and do everything myself, but since the shop was closing and Miles had other paying customers, Thiago and Miles ended up taking over a lot to get things done quickly. I did still get to do a bit of work I hadn’t done before and got to see the rest of the process, so i was happy.
We had built a complete working bike, and I was grateful for all the assistance I had received in the process. It was nice to know I had a large support team I could rely on. However, the bike wasn’t quite the finished product I was hoping for yet and that’s where my strict budget had crumbled and I bought a new Brooks Saddle, matching leather bar tape, and a set of silver Nitto bar end plugs to finish it off.