Halfords are wheeling out the venerable Viking 'racing since 1908' brand name on a sub-£200 fixie called Racemaster.
The look is classic with white contrast panels against a sky-blue painted steel frame. Fixie purists will be offended by brake cable braze-ons to the top top tube but it comes with a pair of sidepulls anyway and at least the stops are tucked underneath if you insist on dispensing with the rear brake.
We're not sure at the moment whether the rear sprocket supplied is fixed or free – the latter we suspect making it strictly a 'singlespeed' – but the hub is double-sided so you could run both or two different ratios.
There are only two size options; 56cm and 59cm and a limited number of 17 Halfords branches stocking, essentially the urban and suburban London stores plus two in Manchester and Brislington in Bristol. Plus Cambridge for pretty obvious reasons. Oxford will be seething they're not getting their own shade of blue or indeed the bike at all.
Details: halfords.com.
13 thoughts on “Viking Racemaster no frills fixie from Halfords”
Good to see a sensible price
Good to see a sensible price on a fixie at last – and what looks like a leather saddle as well …
I had a flat bar fixed/ss
I had a flat bar fixed/ss from halfords, the Carrera Subway 0. Paid £199 for it in the sale, reduced from £299, and it was a great bike – not too heavy, comfortable, stable and surprisingly nippy for under £200. And being relatively cheap, I wasn’t too concerned about it getting nicked – which it did, so I replaced it (in the sale again), only to have it nicked again :”(
Anyway, apologies for rambling – my point was that Halfords have done a decent job on a cheap fixed/ss before, so I’d expect this to be pretty good. Just don’t rely on halfords to set it up properly. On my first one, the headset was so tight when i picked it up that I couldnt turn the bars #o
I’m guessing that that isn’t
I’m guessing that that isn’t a Brooks Swallow saddle on it!
Saddle looks like an Italian
Saddle looks like an Italian ‘Mont Gruppo’, I’ve got one, great hand made real leather saddle but if weight’s your thing forget it.
antonio wrote:Saddle looks
Can’t find anything on interweb about these – do you have any info? The one on the Viking doesn’t look sprung (in a Brooks sense, anyway).
amazon22 wrote:antonio
Go to ‘On One’site, sister site to Planet X. The saddle has a sprung single coil rail and unique mattress type springs under the leather top, the saddle shape is great, a bit like a ‘swift’.
Just checked on Halforde
Just checked on Halforde site, saddle is as I said, a ‘Mont Gruppo’ Italian leather saddle, it’s double sprung by the way.
What? Not going to try to
What? Not going to try to sell a single-speed for the Scottish hills? Well colour me surprised!
Nice looking bike.
Nice looking bike.
for a little more, you can
for a little more, you can have a real Brooks and nice internal cable routing:
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=48560
jezzzer wrote:for a little
‘a little more’ depends where you are coming from, the gruppo is a third the price of a ‘swift’.
dumb ass question but do 56 &
dumb ass question but do 56 & 59 cms sizes come up as 22 / 23 inch frames – ie for tall people only?
bfslxo wrote:dumb ass
Not dumb ass at all – yes they really are only coming in those sizes. Bad luck anyone under about 5’10″…