velodrome track race - kissena queens new york

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Fixed gear bicycle de-conversion, 8 gears for cyclocross!

The trend is to take remove brakes and multiple gear mechanism from a bike, install a fixed gear cog on the rear wheel, and ride the original bike "fixed." This is commonly referred to as a conversion. About two years ago I converted an old Peugeot as a fixed gear beater because it was simpler, less maintenance, easier to lock up, and I had the parts laying around. The PX10 was a very nice bike in it's day, sold as peugeot's top of the line racing bike.



This weekend I "de-converted" my 1970's peugeot "conversion" bike to a cyclocross bike. I rode the horse trails in prospect park last night and had a blast. I even fell off once and couldn't stop laughing about the absurdity of riding a road bike on horse trails going at full speed. So I picked up some serious tread cyclocross tires and will try my hand at cross racing.

Despite having spent a lot of money on a new carbon fiber road bike recently, this is now officially my favorite bike.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice job. It looks really cool. I'm in the process of converting my old Panasonic to cyclocross. Your bike is one of the nicer ones I've seen online. How do the forks hold up? Mine's got a very similar set.

40x14 said...

Thanks Lunar! ...I think they're quite good on fire roads, grass, cobblestones, and moderate terrain due to the curved shape. On really bumpy terrain they feel a bit noodly, but that's acceptable for now -- especially they're only 724grams (weight with crown race). That's about the same as a midrange carbon fork. Good luck with your project.