I'm glad nobody was around to see this

Last night my roommate came into my bedroom and said

“Hey let’s turn my bike into a fixie!”

“Right now? I asked?

“Yeah, right now, if it doesn’t happen now, well, it might not.”

“Ok”

That was around 12:30am

By 1:40am we were riding it up and down the street. Why did it take an hour? Because we’re pathetic. He rides a Specialized Langster, all stock, with a flip-flop hub, he started with it as a single speed and never made the flip before in the season he’s been riding.

It seemed obvious enough to start. We look at it, propped in a guitar stand, and see what’s between us and the rear wheel being off: 2 bolts and a chain. Easy, right?

2 bolts, off in a couple minutes with a wrench, the chain was off in another second, just lifting it off of the hub and chainring. Flip the wheel around (or flop) and that’s that. Put the bolts and chain back on, wash up and we’re done.

But, chain tension is a bitch.

After a lot of focus and watching a few videos on Youtube we got the wheel straight. Youtube was useless for that, so was google; all of the instructions we found just said you put the wheel back on, they didn’t even say “good luck” in getting in true.

It was straight, but the chain was loose, then the chain was perfect but the wheel was crooked. It took an embarrassingly long time to get it right, but it was both of our first times. – Ok, I know how that sounded, but we were both clumsy and asking each other a lot of unnecessary questions, and when it was over I cried for about 20 minutes, so it went exactly how my first time for everything went. Yep, that sounds about right, except that it took over an hour.

Riding it just proved we didn’t have the right tension, so after all of that effort he’s taking it into the shop today to make it all right.

I think I’m going to go ride to McDonalds and eat a fillet o’ fish. For the first time ever… be back in 30 seconds and 20 minutes.