General: track frame inflation

i'm not sure if this has been discussed yet but i was wondering what track frames were going for 2-3 years ago. i know a lot of people on this site have been riding for a while, as have i although i am new to riding fixed(long story..see below..haha), and i'm sure you guys can share some info on this. i've been looking for a track frame recently after getting more involved in my riding but it seems most are astronomical in price. maybe i'm just poor(probably it) or maybe this new 'movement' of fixed riders is jacking up prices. thanks for the input in advance. ride fast.

long story - i started riding bikes at 2 years old. i am now 25. my dad told me stories about him growing up in jamaica and riding fixed because they were easy to fix and cheap to maintain seeing as how less can go wrong. i've rode bmx, mtb, road bike and now fixed. i crashed my car in late april and in my dad's garage was an old schwinn fixed conversion with a sweet burgundy paint job. he told me some crackhead, for lack of a better term, left it behind the apt. he was living in. he took it and had a friend who owed him convert it into a fixed gear. he told me that i could ride it as long as i fixed whatever i broke and kept the front brake on. the gearing was a 38/16, which after riding my 52/16 seems way to easy to spin for my tastes, and its quite a big bike. anyways, i started riding this bike, after making sure everything was in order, one night and haven't looked back. it was fun, easy to control and felt different from riding any other bike i had ever been on. after getting over not being able to coast, by being lifted out of my seat a couple of times, i was sold on the idea of getting a fixed of my own. i have since bought a conversion of my own, which i have posted on this site. i can honestly say that riding this bike made me feel like i was a kid again, flying down the street with no thoughts outside of going faster and faster. i love not hearing anything but the sound of my breathing and the wind. the non stop pedal motion is great for keeping me motivated to keep going until the 'finish line' wherever that may be. i also play soccer so it's good for keeping my fitness intact as well. thats my rant. cheers.

that's interesting. funny how a new bike store opened in nyc with used njs frames going for $900+. guess they're milking it for all its worth. thanks for the input wes m.

"...flying down the street with no thoughts outside of going faster and faster."

YES!

I would recommend the kilo tt for 349 shipped at bikedirect.com that 349 is for the complete bike minus brakes. sounds good to me...

Posted By: cyclecrazyjamesI would recommend the kilo tt

seconded.

i would skip the new pistas, i reckon they slackened the geometry for the new model year. there are plenty of better, or cheaper slack geometry "track" bikes that aren't nearly as gnarish.

i remember when anything track that was a color was a hot commodity. blue campy bmx cranks pulled $400 and anything gold....well, it may as well have been pure. now everything and anything is colored

Posted By: Aaron Ci would skip the new pistas, i reckon they slackened the geometry for the new model year.

this started with the 2009 pistas

Is the Bianchi Pista that good... $700? I'm saving my money for an Alien frame. Does anyone have a suggestion?

5 years ago I got my KHS Aerotrack used for $75 frame, fork, headset, and seatpost.

With the Bianchi Pista you are paying a about $300 for the name and it's popularity. In my opinion they have totally assed themselves out by ruining the frame geometry and making that bike worthless for the track, and probably worthless for doing tricks. About all it's good for now is poking along at 5 mph and posing.

I talked to a guy at my LBS and he is a big fan of the vintage Bianchi's... said the new frames are soulless, generic, nothing worth holding on too....

Posted By: the rabbi

Posted By: Aaron Ci would skip the new pistas, i reckon they slackened the geometry for the new model year.

this started with the 2009 pistas

ah ha!

Well, modern 1" headsets use a 26.4mm race, this being the International Organization for Standardization's standard. Whoever Alien is sourcing from uses the Japanese Industrial Standard size, which is 27.0mm. JIS headsets are produced, but not especially common.
Chris King does not make a JIS race, and I think their custom machined races are 26.4 +/- .4. If I want to use a CK GripNut I will have to either beg them to custom machine one or file the race down. Which is why I wish them shits were ISO.
I know robothouse is using a CK headset on his Alien, but I don't know how he made it work. I asked, but he doesn't seem to be around anymore.

i fully understand the difference, thanks. i was pointing at why alien's r&d would go such a silly rout, as they most likely could have requested iso.

Posted By: suicide_doorsYeah, kinda dumb, huh?

yeah...

we kinda thread-jacked his didn't we?

I love jerking it. That's why I like time trials.

There's plenty of deals out there for bike parts, y'all just gotta dig.

Guy's! Basically you'll pay more for a vintage re-known builders name track frame. That's where the hefty price tag of $500. to $900. factor for a used frame comes in. I've been building and riding track bikes since 1984 and back then a new Italian track steel lugged frame cost in the $600 vicinity and also back then they didn't made many frames like the made in Taiwan's track frames of today or if it can be called "track frame". Again you pay for what you want and get. The less you pay the cheaper the frame will be. There is no comparison with a Bianchi concept from today versus a Bianchi from the early 80's, none!

Posted By: ohsodistantI hear a bareknuckle frame does the trick

true story