seriously.
I have a Matrix and I’ve never mounted anything but a Gatorskin on it and have never had a problem.
It was tight, but nothing like getting a brand new 28c gatorskin on a Mavic M113a. Holy fuck, the hardest tire mounting job I’ve ever been burdened with.
Then I got a flat on the road in the middle of nowhere in the rain and it was surprisingly easy. Maybe it was just my mindset at the time.
The matrix thing is really more about their MTB rims. Racers wanted lighter rims that could run wider tires. Lighter took the form of narrower. But narrow rims + wide tires = rolling the bead off. So they made the outer diameter of the rim slightly larger. Thus, tires are more difficult to mount because the rim was designed to make the tire difficult to remove.
I’ve found it to be true with their road wheels, continuing right on to early Bontrager stuff.
[quote=PWR BTTM]buy something with shimano 600/ultegra/dura ace components
campy is good, but usually a bit more on the expensive side
steel is real, believe the hype
look for reynolds or columbus tubing
brand names don’t matter a whole bunch, but it’s usually good to do some research.
OR
if you’re looking at building up a single speed/fixed gear bike
buy an eighth inch scrambler frame, best deal for the money
buy wheels from bicyclewheels.com
buy some sram s100s
pretty much the rest can be bought from community bike shops/used bike shops
also, eat a bag of dicks.[/quote]
I pretty much agree with this, but I would add Ishiwata and Tange to the tubing list. Unless you live in the sticks you’re not going to find anything on craigslist <$500 with Columbus, and if you do it will not be advertised as such. For $500 I would look for something Japanese from the late 80’s/early 90’s. That should be doable for $325 or less.
IMO if you only have one bike it should not be a tarck bike.
eh if you live in a city, get a front brake and some raceblade fenders and a kilo TT can go just about anywhere.
This.
Be a good influence on your friend Sol, please. [/quote]
srsly