27 months

The wheels that I negotiated with the frame purchase were in bad shape but, for Cameroon, they were a find. The rear hub lacked an axle, bearings, cones and the wheel itself was missing a third of its 36 spokes. The rim had a bad flat spot and the seam was split. It looked like it had been hammered back into shape more than once. Moreover, the hub’s cassette body was gone which made attaching a track cog a real engineering challenge, particularly given the typical 2-3 month wait time for parts mail ordered from the States. The front wheel was in better shape but still needed a thorough going over. Salvaging the few remaining DT Swiss spokes from the rear, I replaced the bent and missing spokes in the front wheel and managed to true it well enough. Next, I focused my attention on arranging something for the rear. The week before I’d rescued a 700c alloy rear wheel with an old freewheel hub from a donor bike at the Limbe shop. It was also badly out of true and missing spokes but after an hour or two of patient work I had it straightened and re-dished with about as good a chain line as I could possibly ask for.

And now for the pièce de résistance. With great satisfaction, I removed the 16-tooth Dura Ace track cog (how many of these exist in Cameroon? I wondered) from its box and spun it onto the hub, torquing it down with the chain whip with all my might. On top of it went the FSA lock ring. I would have felt better with some Lock-Tite Blue, but my local hardware guy sells mostly rope, light bulbs and machetes.

Satisfied with the wheels, I started into the drivetrain. I wanted to replace the bottom bracket with the new 103mm Sugino cartridge model I had shipped from Harris Cyclery. Lacking a complete set of tools, I wasn’t looking forward to removing the fixed cup of the old one. Judging from the relative ease with which it turned, however, I guessed that it had been replaced recently. With the old adjustable bottom bracket out, I cleaned the threads of the shell and gave it a thin smear of Phil Wood grease. Imagine my disappointment when I pushed the new bottom bracket straight into the shell. Of course—I was dealing with an Italian thread. The Sugino was British/ISO. It was impossible to know what kind of frame I’d end up with at the time I ordered it, so I didn’t feel too badly about it (if anyone reading this is in W. Africa and wants a great deal on a nice component, let me know). Inspecting the original spindle, bearings and cups, I found them to be in acceptable shape so I cleaned and repacked everything with fresh grease and called it good.

From then on my fixie took shape quickly. At this point it was sometime after 3am but there was no stopping now. I had waited patiently for six long months for this. Besides, I didn’t have to work the next day. My small salon had been transformed into a bike shop with every available horizontal space used as a work surface. The typical smells of Africa had been replaced with the familiar earthy tang of Tenacious Oil and the sweet, banana-like scent of Tri-Flo. My fingers were raw, knuckles bloodied and hands black with grease. I made a fresh cup of Nescafé, queued up a new playlist on the iPod and dug deep.

On went the Sugino crankset and KHS pedals, all bright polished alloy. Taking a fresh chain from its box, I sized, cut and hung it on. Centering the rear wheel in the frame, I adjusted the chain tension, tightened the locknuts and gave the pedals a crank. Success. I still had to arrange a brake, but who has time? In the empty, dead quiet of pre-dawn, I took my brake-less fixie out for a test ride around the neighborhood. To my surprise, everything felt reasonably tight. The 170mm crank arms left me with about a centimeter of clearance between my shoe and the front tire. Gaining speed down a short hill, I resisted the urge to try skipping the back tire for fear that I’d spin the cog off and wake up in a ditch.

Back at home, I rebuilt and lubed the Modolo caliper and was reminded that I needed a longer bolt to fit it to the front. It was just as well. Outside the cacophony of another African morning was just beginning; roosters crowing, dogs barking, babies wailing, taxi horns. I slept for about an hour before my usual morning visitors began knocking on the front door.