Hi, I'm new. Stumbled across this site yesterday.

here's my situation:

I'm looking for a single speed bike for getting around London in September, I'm 6'6" and weigh a correspondingly large amount (16 and a bit stone). I currently have a 23" carlton 531 Reynolds from I think 1979 with 27" wheels (brown ish frame with chrome forks) in a fairly poor state of repair which I inherited from my dad. too small, and consequently I haven't really bothered trying to do anything to it. I don't know what my budget is (i don't really know what's realistic, I'm a student, so I guess as little as possible!! Anyway, I can't do anything much until September as I'm not in London for most of the summer.

If anyone had any thoughts or suggestions they'd be greatly appreciated, thanks Hovis Brown for help so far!

T

That frame might not be too small for me...

no problem t.o. i'll help wherever i can

Life could be worse.

You could be 5' 11" and 16st.

buy this bad boy and convert it:



linky

get a job, save up, find a nice road frame around your area, then go to cyclebasket order the hubs, rims and get you best local bike shop to build the wheel, shop around on forums to see if anyone in your area knows a good wheelbuilder or call Harry Rowland he'll build you very good wheels and source the parts for you. And source the parts for an honest price, if you do call him assk hib to use ambrosio parts.
get stronlight crank and chainset from cyclebasket .
The rest on e-bay but i reccomend that you show the frame to someone with experience so they would be able to tell you which parts to get, i can tell you now you'll want 165 mm track cranks. This is one way...
The other way is to get in touch with Odge or Andy from fixedgearLondon and ask them to build you a bike,you probably still have to find the frame due to your size but they'll take care of the build.

Buying cheap now because you're a student is a false economy because you'll be forever replacing parts.

Buy cheap, buy twice.

There's cheap and there's 'best bang for buck'.
Buy 'good' but not 'best' that kind of thing.
Buy parts you know to be reliable.