The Fixie Bike Project

Awhile back, Kate and I adventured to this bicycle store in Houston. I was semi-looking for a commuter bike, but only if one popped out at me. While we at the store, one did exactly that.


After negotiating a deal and a time (shady right?) I went back to the store and picked up the bike for $35. It wasn't in very good shape and needed some work, but I was willing to put in the time.


Here were the issues with it:

1. No seat or seat post
2. Bent upper tube
3. Rear wheel's bearings loose and needed greasing
4. Tires would not inflate and needed replacing
5. No brakes*

Off I went to go work on getting the bike operational.

Two wheels, one frame, and one gear - perfect

Getting the bike grease, seat, and post were a piece of cake. There was a slight issue with the piece that held the bike seat up. Apparently my bike is a bit of an odd size and was also being stubborn and required going through about 4 different clips until finding the right one.

Seat post holder = black piece around bottom of seat post

Probably the most difficult task was getting the tires fixed up. I couldn't figure out why they weren't pumping, so I took out one of my tire levers to get the first tire off... SNAP! It broke like a twig. It was ok though, tire levers seem to come in packs of three so I had two more.

-Wrong!-

Both of them snapped just as easily as the first, with almost no progress on even seeing what's inside this tire. Next up... a metal spoon. That helped to reveal what was giving me so much trouble and why I had to resort to much more drastic measures- the bead of the tire had rusted itself onto the rim! So I attempted performing surgery....

After cutting the tire, I realized I'd need something heavy duty. I went over to my parents and, with the help of my dad, used a Dremmel tool to cut off the tire. It wasn't pretty, but got the job done. It also revealed someone had stuffed plastic bags inside the tire... makeshift tires I suppose?

Now that most of the bike was assembled, it was rideable. I've had some good rides on it so far even without brakes. It just requires extra force when attempting to stop.

Fully functional

But to make my life a little easier when biking with this bad boy... I installed brakes!

Rear Caliper

I wanted front brakes, but the pieces needed to attach the brake wouldn't fit over the front tire... so the rear I went.

Brake lever

And now I have a fixie with one semi-functional brake! How awesome :)

Thanks for reading.