Let me preface this with a couple definitions.

Fixed gear: One gear. Connected to the drivetrain. No coasting, always pedaling. You pedal forward, the bike moves forward, backward, the bike goes backward. You can opt for brakes, I did not. To stop you have to resist the pedals or lock your legs and skid.

Single speed: One gear. Its a freewheel. You can coast and you need brakes to stop.

Also yada yada steel track bike LOL. too heavy, blah blah.

I'm never really been into cycling. I was always a car guy, and have owned and "built" several Hondas. A coupe, hatchback, S2000, another hatchback and my current Si. At my last job, one of my coworkers wrecked his STi and started commuting to work on a single speed bike. I asked to ride it a couple times and I got hooked. I started watching documentaries on bikes. Mostly fixed gear. Something about the clean lines just attracted me. I decided I wanted to buy a bike and start riding fixed. I didn't do much research, and ended up buying a State Bicycle Co ABACABB 2.0. Its a steel frame, no name everything pretty much. Nothing super nice, but it rode fine.







Mind you this was straight out of the box, no adjustments had been made.

Right after this, I ended up moving to Atlanta. The bike kinda got put on the back burner. I didn't ride nearly at all for about a year. I rode it fixed one time and decided I'd go single speed and add a brake to the front of the bike. I'm not a small dude at all, I'm about 5'11 and was about 250lbs. It was a struggle thats for sure.









Stopped riding again, just lost interest.







The bike sat for a couple months. At that time I decided I was a fat and wanted to do something about it. I decided to make the change back to fixed gear and ride as much as I could. This is when I started buying some stuff. Mostly little stuff.

Moved the water bottle to the rear seat, no reason really, just always thought it looked better back there. I mean aero.



I decided I wanted a carbon fiber front fork. Ended up buying a State Bicycle Co carbon fork. No reason really, other then it looked cool. I can't really tell a difference between the steel fork and the carbon other then its lighter. Its supposed to absorb the bumps a bit better.





Went and visited some family in Illinois and took my bike. I still hadn't really learned out to stop other then resisting the pedals. I wasn't strong enough to skid yet. I continued to ride when I returned to Atlanta. I slowly kept getting stronger and eventually started breaking parts.



The first to thing to go was my right side strap on my pedal. I was heading down a hill with traffic at the bottom and it snapped! I was freaking out the whole way down, trying to stop! Well I didn't die, and since I broke the nylon strap, I decided to order some leather straps.



Replaced it with some Zefal Christophe Leather straps.



I continued to ride. Riding fixed gear started taking its toll on my Vans so I opted for some Chome's. Super high quality! Love them.



eventually I built up enough leg strength to skid and that ate though my stock rear tire in a matter of about 50 miles.



I decided against replacing it with another cheap tire so I picked up a Continental GatorSkin for the rear which is about a $50 tire but I've only heard great things!



I continued to ride just basically a couple times a week and 5-10 miles each time. Nothing major. Just enough to get out on my bike and enjoy it.

During this time I started noticing my drivetrain slipping. I took it to my lbs and found out my rear hub had stripped out along with my rear cog. Ordered an Origin8 rear track hub along with an All-City Track Cog and All-City lockring.






Christmas came and went and I ended up picking up a set of drop bars, some carbon fiber spacers and a FSA headset.







I was just happy to be back in the saddle! After the second or third time out my drive side leather strap snapped going down another hill about 5 miles out. I had had it with straps and decided to go clipless. Lucky for me Chrome was having a sell and ended up snagging some SPD shoes for fairly cheap along with some Crank Brothers Eggbeater pedals.





HUGE improvement over toeclips and cages. Its so much better.

That brings us pretty much up to date on where the bike is right now. Tax return money is here though. I've done tons of research and think I'm going to purchase either an aluminum frame or a newer, lighter wheelset. Right now my bike weighs 21lbs. A new frame would shed about 3 lbs and a new wheelset about 4lbs. I'm going to try to get this bike down to under 13lbs without buying a carbon fiber frame. There is a list of parts I plan on purchasing so I'll continue to update the thread accordingly

Received a Crew carbon seatpost in the mail and decided to throw it on! Took it for a spin today and feels super nice! Softens the ride a bit!

Mail man dropped off my carbon fiber seat yesterday! Threw it on and took it for a spin and it feels amazing!