Cycling UK Forum

I've been tempted to build a fixie for a while.

So I get an old road bike (complete with 12 speed - all working tip top) for £26 on ebay.

Except it needs some track wheels and a single front crank (possibly a chain)

why are they so stupidly expensive?

I had a fixed bike when I was a kid because we couldn't afford the a freewheel equipped bike , let alone gears!

On Evans the cheapest fixed is nearly £400! - Fully derailleured bikes are cheaper

what's going on Pat? (as MIke Read used to say)

They're trendy.... apparently. So anything that can be labelled 'fixed' or 'singlespeed' at the moment comes at a premium.

They don't often come in the aluminium, slopey tubed, road form that sells by the million, hence higher cost. I agree that a nice old 531 route is the way to go but if you get wheels built for you on quality hubs, a new Brooks, maybe a set of bars, you'll be back up to new fixie prices anyway.

"So I get an old road bike (complete with 12 speed - all working tip top) for £26 on ebay.

Except it needs some track wheels and a single front crank (possibly a chain)...."

If 12 speed then a screw on rear - so screw on a fixed sprocket (bang it up TIGHT, it'll be OK!). Re-space hub, re-dish wheel. And if removeable rings, then remove one!

They were "all" done that way in the early days of the fixed revival 10-12 years ago. Should be able to knock up a useable one for say a ton.

And yes, the ready mades are over-priced! Often built around a 30 quid at the factory gate frameset.

Presumably a lot less £££ is being made from the sale of "Campy" so they've had to recoup that from the sale of "fixies."

I have always found that old 10 speeds work best, re-use as much of the old bike as possible. A cheap ish wheelset for around £120. But you have to factor in a few consumables such as bar tape, new tyres and tubes etc. Its like anything in life theres a low limit that you can't probably get below but the sky is the limit on the higher end. I started with an OTP fixed gear but soon found I didn't like the modern mass produced look of it and prefered instead to go for an old conversion. And as previously said Fixed Gear is trendy at the moment so people will charge what the market will bear.

The simple answer is, they're expensive because that's what people are willing to pay for them. Why this is so, is a whole different question.

At the same time, you need to be careful to compare like to like. I spent £550 on mine, but should I compare it to cheap bikes with generic or bottom of the range components, or something more upmarket? For what it's worth, I preferred the ride quality of mine to the Focus Cayo (which now sells for £1400 or something silly).

I think this needs to be put in context. After a dozen years of prudence from Gordon - and a rather inconvenient 'downturn' we can blame on everybody else - the £ is now worth only 2/3 of last year's value against the € and it's not done much better against the $. (I've no symbols for other leading currencies but you get the idea.)

Look at bike prices generally and they have gone up a lot in the last year. (I suppose there's also an apparent shortage of old bike frames with horizontal drop outs but if this becomes a national emergency, a public information appeal to check all garages and sheds in the national interest should be enough to save the nation from disaster )

In the meantime, deflation is the problem, prices are tumbling, what's all the fuss about?

rgc_911 wrote:I've been tempted to build a fixie for a while...........
...........On Evans the cheapest fixed is nearly £400! - Fully derailleured bikes are cheaper

what's going on Pat? (as MIke Read used to say)

Fashion dear, fashion!

"At the same time, you need to be careful to compare like to like. I spent £550 on mine, but should I compare it to cheap bikes with generic or bottom of the range components, or something more upmarket? "

Just so! My most expensive fixed cost over 800 quid - second-hand and had cost the seller a lot more. Fair enough compared to top end geared machine, but it's at the bottom end where prices don't "match".

thirdcrank wrote:I think this needs to be put in context. After a dozen years of prudence from Gordon - and a rather inconvenient 'downturn' we can blame on everybody else - the £ is now worth only 2/3 of last year's value against the € and it's not done much better against the $. (I've no symbols for other leading currencies but you get the idea.)

It's currently down 20% against the dollar from its peak and 10% against the euro, but let's not the facts get in the way of a political point

rogerzilla wrote:

thirdcrank wrote:I think this needs to be put in context. After a dozen years of prudence from Gordon - and a rather inconvenient 'downturn' we can blame on everybody else - the £ is now worth only 2/3 of last year's value against the € and it's not done much better against the $. (I've no symbols for other leading currencies but you get the idea.)

It's currently down 20% against the dollar from its peak and 10% against the euro, but let's not the facts get in the way of a political point

Yeah but how much is bread and milk?

Yes, I'll put my hand up to using a personal impression rather than looking it up.

I see the nosedive in the £:€ rate began in November 2007 which is rather longer ago than I thought. At its peak, the £ stood at €143 and a € cost 67p (as they like to say on the Beeb.)

The low point for the £ was 31 December last year when with the € at 97p, they were close to level pegging.

Yesterday, the £ was £1.16 or the € was 85p, depending on which way round you like it.

So, I should have said, something along the lines of, 'in a little over 18 months the pound has fallen heavily against the euro and other currencies and although it has recovered a some of its value recently, it was at its lowest at the end of last year, when importers may have been deciding their prices for this season.'

I suppose the alternative explanation is that in the middle of one of the biggest 'downturns' in living memory, bike retailers / importers have decided to launch a hike in bike prices across the board, to fleece the UK cycling public.

(This was not intended to be a political point in any party political sense. I do think that Brown has done little more in the last 12 years or so than wave a bigger plastic card than the rest of the population, many of whom were trying hard to compete with him, in their own way. I suppose I'm being selfish because as I'm retired, I fear the effect of rip roaring inflation on my life savings. And I remember the mess that Callaghan and Healey made with inflation in the 1970's. And I don't think they got involved with so-called 'quantitive easing' which seems to me to be creating money to repay government borrowing.)

djnotts wrote:"So I get an old road bike (complete with 12 speed - all working tip top) for £26 on ebay.

Except it needs some track wheels and a single front crank (possibly a chain)...."

If 12 speed then a screw on rear - so screw on a fixed sprocket (bang it up TIGHT, it'll be OK!). Re-space hub, re-dish wheel. And if removeable rings, then remove one!

They were "all" done that way in the early days of the fixed revival 10-12 years ago. Should be able to knock up a useable one for say a ton.

And yes, the ready mades are over-priced! Often built around a 30 quid at the factory gate frameset.

I've got a fixed conversion I did in the same way, I also put some loc-tite on the threads and a bottom bracket lockring (same thread as a freewheel so can be used here just fine). http://sheldonbrown.com/deakins/how-to-fixed-conversion.html has lots of great info on converting on the cheap.

£199 fixie

http://www.unipackuk.co.uk/track-bikes_roadcourier.html