GeneralKrupas

Ok hear me out. I have this Fixed Gear crank just lying around and is it possible to put it on my other road bike? It sounds really dumb. I just wanna know what you guys think

veganbikes

Maybe, possibly but "yeah I have stuff does it work on thing" doesn't tell us anything useful. A typical fixed gear crank for track usage is a 144 BCD and any modern chainrings are going to generally be for single speed/fixed gear usage and old stuff is probably going to be rather expensive (Campagnolo had some 144 stuff for geared bikes back in the olden days of yore) Sometimes the cheaper stuff is 130bcd and that limits you to a low end of 38t chainrings but plenty of geared stuff. If it is square taper than you need the proper length BB and some cranks will list a road and track length for them for instance Sugino on their Messenger cranks I believe had a track at 103mm spindle and road was either 107 or 111 (I cannot remember which as I think 107 was for S75s and those are ISO tapered but they suggest differently but they make a sealed cartridge unit for it but is really just a track crank)

If for single speed and it will fit or you can get the correct bottom bracket than go for it but if using for a geared bike just get the correct crank and save the fixed gear crank for a fixed gear or single speed and if it is something of quality find a good frame and if not just save it in the parts bin for a junk bike.

Personally I prefer Specific Krupa's and really only one Gene Krupa. Without him the modern drum set might also not exist and drum solos too (though that could be argued).

acoustophile

As long as the chain ring fits a 3/32 chain then you could get away with it regardless of bcd. I ran a Sugino Messenger (130bcd, 3/32 crankset) on a road bike as a 1x10 with no issues.

Road Fan

What's the benefit of ⅛" chains and sprockets? They're hard to find and spendy, and I haven't heard much about multispeed chains breaking.

Eric F 

144bcd wasn't exclusive to Campagnolo. I have late-'70s/early-'80s era Suntour and Sugino 144bcd 2x cranksets. There are newer manufacturers still making 144bcd chainrings, too.

79pmooney

@GeneralKrupas, what are you trying to accomplish? Keep this as a road bike only now just a 1X? Turn it into a fix gear/single speed/IGH? In direct answer to your question - yes you can use it! But will it do what you want? Until we know what you want, all we can do is guess. So, tell us you goal. Tell us what model the crank is. Your bike. (Photos always help.)

Not trying to sound harsh here. I love mixing road and track gear to get bikes to do what I want. I'd love to help you do the same. (What you want, not what I want.) But until I know what that is, I cannot help.

My avatar photo is of a pure road bike designed to run fix gear. (Custom frame. Fix gear from conception. No compromise for derailleurs.) A Sugino 75 crankset with 144BC 1/8" chainrings.

79pmooney

Spendy? $25 will get you a Izumi Eco chain that is very high quality and lasts a long time. 1/8" for the simple reason that they shift so poorly. (A shift is the act of pushing the chain off one sprocket and onto the next. Shifting for any one-speed setup is simply bad!) I use chains, chainrings and cogs with plates and teeth formed as square as possible. Ie, the noisiest. Because - the less elegant, the more resistant to "shifting" - aka throwing the chain off - the more slack I can run in the chain, the less fussy setting chain slack is, the faster my on the road wheel flips to change gear are and the better my life on fix gears is. (And the less often I do the exciting but also expensive and at times terrifying high speed chain drops.)

Those Izumi Eco chains - you see them on a lot of track bikes at the velodrome ridden by riders without deep pockets. Yes, everyone lusts for the $80 gold ones but the Ecos simply work. And so well no one minds riding in close quarters with the Eco chained bikes. the place I do sp[end mopney os the cogs. I use the EurAsian 1/8" cogs. ~$35 each. Because 1) they have square cut teeth and don't throw chains, 2) are round, making chain slack easier to set and 3) hard metal and long wearing. Also good threads. (Likewise, seen a lot at velodromes.)

I rode 3/32" chain on my fix gear for 20 years. (I was unwilling to change because 1) I could keep my drivetrains compatible and 2) I had a good pool of different size cogs. Well the chain compatibility disappeared when 8, 9, 10 ... speed chains came around. Finally made the switch. 1/8" is simply better. I'll never go back. (A fun advantage of 1/8" - half links, those sweet little hermaphrodite links, outer at one end and inner at the other, are available in any old hardware store. You don't have to find the specialty bike shop that deals with fix gears. 1/2" x 1/8" chain is an industrial standard.)

Road Fan

Ok, I get the technical benefits, thanks!!

About 5 years ago I found a ⅛" silvery chain made by SRAM, and it was $21. Snagged it. 18 months ago I thought "I'm nearly ready to finish mantling the Rudge, and I could not find my stupid chain. I had spent about $65 ish for a ⅛" chainwheel 48T, and now just found an 18 T Sturmey rear gear in a forgotten Sturmey grab bag!. Another matching chain was listed at about $90, and thought this is ridiculous! Hence the spendiness comment! And as it turned out I'm only now close to Rudge drivetrain setup.

A few weeks ago I found the first ⅛ chain in its OEM box, in the Ikea box with all the other new or NOS chains.

I can certainly see the chain deraillment issue being Important! I have been anxious about getting the front and rear chainlines perfectly matched and how this could be a pain the whatever task to keep the chain tracking perfectly on those big ⅛ teeth which fill the original Reynolds chain links so well. So far I'm not planning to pedal forward and backwards, but if an ASC Sturmey hub jumps up and greets me I might have to try it, and then I'll have to have another level of Sturmey geekitude in the house!

Is Eurasian still in existence? Earle Wilde has been regaling me of tales of "How we Trained in Ancient Times - Secrets of the Ancients, aka Old F..ts," and I think I have a single fixed with an added front brake in my future, though I'm actually only a few months younger than Earle is ... But looking where it's easy to look for used or vintage or fixies in need of refurbishing (prefer tubulars, quality hubs and of course master-built frame nd fork but not envisioning spending over $45 (lol). I have a spare set or two of Campy Record hubs, but they are road hubs not pista-type. Yes, in Arbor we seem to be a little too "University" to have a good industrial supplier near town (I don't know Granger well, but McMaster Carr would be my main first choice), and Detroit is surprisingly far, especially where the massive GM laboratories are. Back in my Chicago motorcycling days I used McMaster-Carr for all sorts of motorcycle bits such as chain and bearing stuff.

I, too, like those half-links!

So who makes entry level steel track frames? I ride a 53 cm c-t in Italian steel road frames.

JohnDThompson 

Mostly tradition. One advantage of running a 1/8" chain is that it allows you to mix and match 1/8" and 3/32" sprockets and chainrings with the same chain.

JohnDThompson 

144mm BCD was a common size for race-oriented cranks BITD. Rings are still widely available, either new or vintage, although some tooth counts might be harder to find than others (e.g. 41T).