Pake or Hillbrick??

[xcamx]

Hey guys, looking to start out at having a go at track riding.
Don't want to spend too much (400 or so if possible), at the moment am tossing up between these two:

Pake Rum Runner - Steel frame, Velocity Aerohead rims on Velocity hubs, comes with track bars so ignore the risers.


Hillbrick Pista - Alloy frame, carbon fork parts are all stock I believe


At the moment the Hillbrick is a lil more expensive but think I can talk him down to about the same price as the Pake.
One advantage the Pake has (to me, anyway) is fork is drilled for a brake so could also ride it on the street if I wanted (not crazy/skilled enough for brakeless).
Any and all opinions welcome, cheers.

[Derny Driver]

Chalk and cheese for me ...Hillbrick by a mile. Hillbrick track bikes have excellent geometry and have proven themselves as great race machines for many years. Don't even consider the steely unless you want a cheap fixie.

[steeldoken]

You can get a steel frame for cheap on gumtree, strip the brakes, dump the wheels, keep the tubes and tyres & then buy a flip flop wheelset from reid for $99 (link below) then think about dumping the inner ring on the crankset and...ta-da, you have a budget fixie on your hands, simply re-install the brakes if you want to ride on the street?

I only mention this so that you have further options in terms of obtaining nicer steel frames that are too far gone to undergo a complete restoration to their original state. As such, I would choose the hillbrick. If you go to a track night for beginners, you'll see a LOT of hillbrick's around, I have never tried one but based off the quantity you see around the track I would agree with Derny in that they probably have excellent geometry for the track and are obviously very popular on the track, let us know what you get!

http://www.reidcycles.com.au/j13-deep-v-wheelset.html

[steeldoken]

You can also search around on ebay for giant omnium's they are also quite popular, i did a quick search for you, there's one in brunswick (not sure if that's close - from syd here) starting at $450 but looks good

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Bicycle-Trac ... 43d0d9a615

[xcamx]

Yeah I saw the Omnium but assumed it would probably end up going for more than my modest budget allows, will keep an eye on it though.
Also came across this one http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/seddon/b ... 1058820504, looks ok aside from the ugly colour and this stock 2012 Avanti Pista.

[dalai47]

If you want to race, Hillbrick (or Avanti) hands down!

[KGB]

From the original choice, Hillbrick any day of the week.

[xcamx]

Thanks for the opinions guys, ended up going with Hillbrick but a different one.

[foo on patrol]

Nice.

Foo

[Derny Driver]

Yep ...very nice