I'm slowly building up a fixie on a fairly nice old Peugeot frame. It'll be my first - I just wanted to find out what all the fuss was about, but I'm too cheap to buy one new. And they say that half the fun is building your own anyway.
I want to do the thing properly, so I've swapped the rear drop outs for track ends. Then I found that the track ends put the rear axle at the same height as the ends of the chain stays, while the drop outs had them half an inch lower. That meant I had to raise the rear brake bridge to clear the rear wheel, so there's been altogether more metalwork involved than I envisaged. It looks a bit messy now, but a little more tidying with a file and some emery cloth and I think it'll look OK. Plus the paint always makes everything look 100% better. Sometimes misleadingly...
I'll post some pics of the progress when I have them handy.
I got some fixed wheels from
these guys - with the exchange rate as it is, it seemed a good deal. The rear needed a little truing, though of course I haven't ridden them yet... The bearings are
very smooth.
I've got all the bits I need, including a 48 tooth 165mm chainset (cheapish 1980s SR), except for brake cables. I've got an 18 tooth fixed sprocket - is that going to be a bit of a low gear for my flat commute, anyone?