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Fixed Gear on the Cheap/Additional Thoughts on Bike Selection
From WikiPedalia
Original article: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/deakins/bikeselection.html on sheldonbrown.com
- Reproduced with the permission of John Allen and Harriet Fell — all rights reserved. The version on sheldonbrown.com is authoritative.
- Mirrored: 2026-10-11 · Last update of the original: see original
Some additional thoughts on bike selection:
- Find a bike with chainrings that can be unbolted from the crankset,
- useable (no broken spokes, spins easily) wheels.
- Check the crank's bolt circle diameter (BCD). Replacement chainrings are available for many bolt circle diameters. BUT NOT ALL. You HAVE to get the same BCD for any replacement chainrings you want to use.
- If you decide to increase or decrease the number of teeth on the chainring, it will have to be replaceed with one of equal BCD. The most common BCD's you are likely to find are 110 mm (the older touring standard ) and 130 mm ( the current road standard ). Our project bike's crankset has the old SR dimension of 118 mm (see pict). So for our project bike, we are stuck with the 42 tooth inner ring. If I didn't want that size, I'd have to install a different crankset. But I'm happy with that toothcount, so we'll keep it for this bike.
The drivetrain
