On Nov 13, 2005, at 7:07 PM, Tom Hayes wrote:
> I wonder if any on the list have converted the rear drop-outs from
> a road
> frame to track drop-outs, and if so, were there any non-anticipated
> effects
> that he or she would like to have known before the conversion.
>
> Last week I received an early 1960's Frejus that had the right rear
> drop-out
> broken while being shipped to me. I checked Matt Assenmacher's site to
> determine the cost of replacing the drop-outs. And I began to play
> with the
> idea of converting the broken road drop-outs into track ones and
> use this as
> my winter commuter to school with a fixed gear.
>
> Any thoughts on such a conversion would be appreciated.
I just had this done to a bike, but it hasn't been ridden yet. You don't really need to go to true rear facing track "dropouts" to run a fixed gear with plenty of room to adjust for different gearing. I went with Campy 1010 horizontal dropouts because it's a little easier to deal with a full fender that way and I would assume that you'd want a full fender on a winter commute bike. Though if you want to go rear facing, you you can also use the plastic "break away" parts that SKS use for the front fender to allow you to pull the fender back. You might also keep the rear derailleur hanger on the dropout so that if it's needed to return it to geared use, it will be easy to do so.
Sheldon Brown, as with so many things, has a good site on fixed
conversions at: http://sheldonbrown.com/
Baird