Here are some photos of my new toy. It's built up from spare parts I had lying around and a few used parts that I picked up cheaply except for the wheels and chainset that are new. It's a converted road frame made from Reynolds 531c steel. The fork is not original, being from an old Peugeot Pro. The whole bike weighs in at 8.75 kg; not bad for a steel frame with mostly budget components and about the same as a Specialized Langster which has an aluminium frame. It's at least a kg heavier than my carbon-framed, geared bike but the steel frame soaks up the bumps of the rough London streets nicely and gives a really nice, comfortable ride compared to a carbon-framed bike.

The paint has a few small chips as you'd expect on a used frame but the paint job itself is really nice; beautifully uniform and I love the airbrushed penguin on the head tube.

I'd never heard of a "Winter" bicycle before and wondered if it was actually a brand or just a name that somebody had chosen for a custom paint job. There's almost no information at all on the internet but I managed to find out that Kevin Winter is an engineer and frame builder from County Durham in north-east England. He doesn't have a web site and there's very little information about him on the internet but I came across this in my search.

The frame and some of the parts came from the excellent London Fixed-Gear and Single-Speed web site, a great resource for advice on anything to do with fixed-gear and single-speed bicycles.

Main Specfications:

• Frame: Winter (Reynolds 531c)
• Fork: Peugeot Pro (Reynolds 531c)
• Headset: Shimano 600
• Wheels: On-One 32-spoke with 120mm fixed-fixed hubs.
• Chainset: Stronglight Messenger 170mm with 48T 1/8" chain ring
• Bottom Bracket: Stronglight JP400 107mm JIS
• Sprocket: Generic 18T 1/8
• Chain: Charge Masher Half Link 1/2" x 1/8"
• Bars: Trans-X bullhorns, 42cm, over-size
• Stem: ITM Alutech 11cm
• Brake: Cane Creek 200TT lever with Campagnolo Veloce caliper
• Saddle: San Marco Ponza mounted on a generic 26.4mm seat post
• Pedals: Shimano PD-M520 SPD
• Tyres: Vittoria Rubino Slick