My old ’61 bus and a bike Eric and I built from spare parts and a frame found in the trash. If I remember correctly, it had a mix of Deore LX and XT with a Manitou Mach 5 fork, the wheels that originally came with my StumpJumper M2, and Tioga Psycho K tires. The color is Rust-Oleum Stainless Steel. (2003)

The ’88 GTI 16v in the snow. Narrow 13″ snow tires are great… (2004)

An IS in KS. (2006)

The same GTI 16v autocrossing. 14 Street Modified; this time with Kumho Ecsta V700s on Corrado Speedlines, after the big brake/five-lug conversion. (2004)

The Jetta VR6 in Iowa on the way to get the Subaru Vanagon. (2005)

I built my first wheel, and it rolls. The rear wheel on the single speed was getting a little bent, and I wanted to give the fixed gear a try. I wanted a cheap durable wheel, so here is what I built: A Suzue flip-flop 36 hole hub, Shimano Dura-Ace 16t track sprocket and lock ring, ACS 16t freewheel, Sun CR18 rim, DT swiss spokes and Spline Drive red alloy nipples. The spoke pattern on this wheel is 180° of black spokes with the other 180° silver. I used The Bicycle Wheel by Jobst Brandt and the help of Karl at Klunk.

The process was easier than I anticipated. The only tough part was the final truing. Starting with a cheap rim probably made this step a little more difficult than it should have been. Whatever the case, I think I may need my own truing stand so I can fix/build my own wheels in the future.

I’ll post updates on the fixed gear learning curve. Prior to building the wheel I had ridden a fixed gear, but only briefly. I’ve took the singlespeed around the block with no problems, though my skip stops need a lot of work…

I had not ridden since November due to snow. Today I rode. The snow is still here. I only managed 3.23 miles in 21 minutes with one crash and many, many near crashes. Although I wasn’t on the bike long, the new SID seems to work well, but isn’t new and clean anymore. Oh well. I’ll wait a few more days and try again.