My First Fixie Conversion
Part Diary, Part Technical Manual, Part Tips & Tricks

Now that I have my old bike back, I began my first fixie conversion. Armed with a Bicycling Maintenance & Repair book, some tools that I've accumulated over the years, and a lot of time spent at Sheldon Brown's website, I started.

Frame: 1988 Specialized Sirrus, 54cm. Double butted Cro-moly with 126mm spacing. Original red paint with a yellow "S" at the top of the seat stays. Serial Number: GC355512-C68H10.
Fork: 1988 Specialized Sirrus 1" threaded. Cro-moly with 100mm spacing. Original red paint with a yellow "S" on the crown.
Front Wheel: Shimano 105 36 spoke hub on Wolber Super Champion Alpine rim and straight gauge spokes. Since the front wheel has such little strain on it, I figured that a solid axle track hub was not necessary, so I just kept the original hub but put on threaded skewers instead of a quick-release skewer to make theft a little more difficult.
Rear Wheel: IRO high flange flip-flop hub, silver, 36 spoke, with 126mm spacing (one 3mm spacer on each side) on Wolber Super Champion Alpine rim. At first, I considered using the Surly Fixxer converter, but I hesitated at the $80 price tag. So I decided to go with a new rear hub, which looks great and only cost $45, but having my LBC build the rear wheel ended up costing $30 in labor plus $27 for spokes and nipples. So that pushed the cost of my rear wheel up to $102. Add in tires and tubes on top of that and the Surly Fixxer wasn't so expensive afterall. I was able to find a barely used wheelset with good tires from a Bianchi Pista for only $120, which was a screaming deal. But overall, having a new hub and a professionally built wheel is a good thing, since the rear wheel is probably the most strained component on a fixie. These rims came off of my second fixie Sirrus, which I eventually put the Pista wheels on.
Cranks: Shimano 105 FC-1050, 170mm, 130mm BCD. Not 165mm, which would be ideal - but I already have them and I haven't scraped a pedal midturn yet!
Chainring: Sugino 42t, 3/32". During the mid-90s, news came out saying that oval Shimano Biopace chainrings can damage your knees, so I replaced them with regular round chainrings, which I am now using. A pack of short stack chainring bolts and everything is fine. The chainline is approximately 48mm from centerline of bike, so there is a 3mm offset to the rear cog, but in reality it looks pretty straight.
Cog: IRO 18t cog with Formula lockring on the flip, ACS Claws 18t freewheel on the flop. I live in a relatively hilly area, so I've found 42x18 a pretty good gearing for me.
Bottom Bracket: Specialized 113mm spindle, standard 1.370"l x 24TPI English thread - disassembled, cleaned, greased, adjusted, and ready to go. If you get an old bike, always repack all of the bearings, you'll be surprised how rough and dry everything can be - and that old nasty grease smell... The chainline alignment is off by 3mm, but its close enough for me. I'll worry about the chainline next time I plan on riding a century on a fixie. With a 110mm bottom bracket, things should line up perfectly.
Headset: Tange. After being rebuilt, the original headset still works like a charm.
Chain: Shimano Uniglide (UG). Orignal chain still works, its a little streched out, but since I'm not racking up tons of miles on it, I'm keeping it. For those of you that don't have a full track fork end, you'll definately want to have a chain half link handy; chances are your chain will be way too loose or you'll run out of horizontal dropout adjustment length. With the half link, it'll change the length just enough so you have a well adjusted chain.
Stem: Specialized forged aluminum, 85mm reach.
Handlebar: ITM Tema Racing Sport, 25.4mm diameter, 38mm wide. Flipped and chopped with black cork wrap. These are steel handlebars and weight a ton, but I'm sure they are strong.
Front Brake: Shimano 105, sidepull with silver Tekro RX 2.0 in-line/cyclocross levers. Cleaned of the brake and lubricated all the pivot points. The Tekro levers use the same type of brake cable with the round end, so I even used the original cable, but lightly greased it and used new black cable housing.
Pedal: Shimano SPD. My pedal platform of choice on all my bikes - road, mountain, cyclocross, and fixed.
Seatpost: Strong aluminum, 27.0mm.
Saddle: Brooks B17, black.

The original bike weighed about 23 lbs, after the fixie conversion, it weighs 21lbs 4 oz.

The following are OE parts that I am currently not using:

Chainrings: Shimano Biopace 53T and 42T
Cassette: Shimano 105, 6spd, 23T-13T
Rear Brake: Shimano 105, sidepull
Levers: Shimano 105
Front Wheel: Matrix Titan rim with Matrix sealed bearing hub, the original front Wolber GTX was stolen during college.
Rear Wheel: Wolber GTX wheels with Shimano 105 FH-1050 hub.