Originally Posted by
79pmooney
My two Peugeots converted to fix gears. BB height around 10 3/8: Leotard "Berthet" platforms. Narrow and clean underneath. I called both of those bikes "slinkies". I hit the pedals on a regular basis and so early in turns that the strike wasn't scary. (On my fully laid over race bike, it was!) Every left pedal got it's left dustcap unscrewed with hits. (Right side screwed on tighter.)
Gee, is someone else crazy like me. Was the Peugeots singlespeed to fix convert or multiple speed to fixed converts. I converted a Specialized Allez Comp to a fix gear, amazing what you can do with angle iron. Never had a problem with dropping chains, always came off the chain ring, not once has it dropped of the cog. Then someone gave me an old Raleigh fixed gear touring bike. The first time the chain dropped while riding it was the 'last'. Bent the dropout. I may be wrong but I think they need to make the openings on fixed/singlespeed bikes narrower. Not the hub, just the opening the hub goes into. I know the opening on my Allez Comp when converted had to be slightly tweaked open each time I went to mount the wheel as the wheel wouldn't just 'drop in' like it normally does on a regular bike. The angle iron I bolted on made the opening smaller than normal and I think that must add 'tightness' to the spinning wheel and as a result it doesn't allow the chain to drop off the cog.
I don't have a tape measure handy to measure the BB depth right now but I know on the Sirrus when I have the bike fully upright and the pedals all the way down the pedal does not sit very high off the ground. Until I got the Sirrus I have used clipless road pedals for 30 years. It was joke on the first ride with the Sirrus, I went to upclip when I stopped the bike, I LOLed over my preprogrammed notion that I was still riding clipless. Now since I'm riding off-road an also since I can't get the one pedal off my other bike(broken crank arm, pedal off, but the other I can't get it off with allen wrench or pedal wrench, the usual corrosion from riding year-round in NH especially in the salt/sand of winter.