Yeah so I want to build a fixie.  I am no expert on bikes and will not claim to be.  I know many of you have extensive bike histories and a fixie sounds fun as shit.

I can get a Pake frame for around $250 without the fork and would like some of your opinions on the quality of the Pake's or maybe some suggestions on some alternatives.  Upon my inspection the Pake's seem pretty solid.  All the welds looked really clean and for the price it appears to be a solid choice.  I rode a built up with decent ($600 as it sat) components floor model at a shop locally and it had a real nice ride. 

Components are up in the air as I have no real idea/experience to what is better so I am open to ideas.  I have about a $600 budget and I know I could buy a fully built ready to roll whatever for that amount but I would really like to build one myself.  So yeah, any ideas, insight or "hey I have parts you can buy for cheap" would be greatly appreciated.

I have test rode the Langster, Madison, Pista, and a few others and for a novice like myself I don't really see to much of a difference in any of them to justify me buying one over the other and figure fuck it I might as well just build one and love it because I built it.

i got my pake for 250 with the shitty fork... mikes bikes always has em on sale

Thanks for the quick intel everyone.

I probably should just buy a complete, but at the same time building one just seems way more fun.  The upside of buying a complete is that its ready to go and as I learn more I can pick and choose the parts I like where as right now I would be more or less guessing or going off recommendation. 

I haven't been able to find a Raleigh Rush Hour anywhere to demo.  Everywhere I see Langsters.  Couple places had Bowery's but they were way to small.  Look real nice though. 

That deal on bikesdirect is insanely cheap.  Is it a decent bike?  I have seen some companies $300 offerings and they look like shit up close.  Unfortunately that one is to big for me as I am looking between 56-58 range.

Any other solid bike sites you guys could recommend for shopping?

And Weaver I found a good shop here that pretty much all they do is old stuff and Japanese bikes.  They all look great, but you could sell me a $5 frame for $500 as I don't know the details of the classic frames.  Definitely wouldn't mind one though.  I have an old Bianchi and wouldn't mind another.

Building a bike does kind of worry me that I may end up half way done and out of money.  I have a tendancy to do that with projects.

Anyone have anything to say about the Kilo TT?  http://bikesdirect.com/products/mercier/kilott.htm#specs  Seems like a good deal.  Haven't seen any in stores here so I have no idea of the quality.

Well for $349.99 w/free shipping it seems to be a pretty good deal. 

I am expecting to have to swap out the seat, tires, and handle bars asap.   And like you have all stated earlier I can always swap out other components as I go and that will allow me to experiment with what I like and what's good out there before just dropping money on parts I don't know about.

Any other sites you guys know of that feature good deals and are worth checking out?

Damn that green looks hot as shit.  To bad this one is black.  I guess thats where pulling it apart and painting it comes in.

The Mercier looks very tempting.  I think I may need to just bite the bullet because it is so hard for me to decide and at this rate I may never buy anything.

The IRO site is awesome.  Definitely alot of time went into building that site.