Tried converting my old mountain bike to fixed-gear and discovered I hate my life choices

I had this old 90s mountain bike frame sitting in my garage for about 6 months. I got the idea to turn it into a cheap fixed-gear for riding around town after watching some YouTube videos. So I bought a conversion kit from Amazon for about 35 bucks and spent last Saturday putting it all together. The chainline ended up being way off, no matter how many spacers I stacked on the freewheel hub. I took it for a test ride around the block and the chain kept popping off at every bump. After messing with it for another 2 hours I realized the dropouts on that old frame just aren't designed for this. Has anyone else had trouble trying to make a geared frame work as a fixed gear or did I just pick the worst possible frame to start with?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_logan1mo agoTop Commenter

Those horizontal dropouts are hard to beat, but track chain tugs saved my last conversion.

evan_campbell1mo ago

Wait have you actually used those bolt on tugs? I messed around with a pair from Surly a couple years back on a track conversion and they saved my bacon too. The dropout alignment on that old frame was way off, like visibly crooked, but the tugs pulled the wheel straight enough to ride. I never got chain slip after that, which was a huge upgrade from the old "kick the wheel and hope" method. Plus they let me run a tight chain without worrying about the axle walking forward under hard sprints. Honestly I don't know why more people don't use them, especially for city riding where you're stomping on the pedals at every stoplight.

james_kim1mo agoTop Commenter

@evan_campbell man that bit about running a tight chain without worrying about axle walk is exactly it. I used to think tugs were just for track bikes, but after snapping a chain doing a sprint from a stoplight on my beater I finally grabbed a pair. Never going back to the kick the wheel method haha, felt like a fool for waiting so long.