Every now and then you’ll get somebody walking into the shop looking for a single speed bike.
Often I would look at them and think why? One gear on a bike Don’t you know that gears were invented to give us a mechanical advantage so we can climb hills with ease
and then speed of down them?
If it wasn’t a BMX or a track bike I thought it was really a crazy idea, but how do you know if you never try. So I decided to convert my hard tail mountain bike into a singlespeed.
The bike wasn’t a dedicated single speed frame so I was lacking thenecessary horizontal dropouts. I removed the cassette and replaced itwith the correct amount of spacers and the single 16 tooth rear cog.,removed the large front chain ring and got rid of the granny ring aswell leaving just the 32 tooth middle ring on the front. A chaintensioner took place of the rear derailleur and the shifters were putback in a box.
Thefirst thing I noticed about the bike was that it looked so simple,clean and fast. The removal of the 27 speed group set definatelylightened the bike however was this weight loss enough to allow me toclimb hills?
Thefirst ride was hard...the hills were too steep and you could never restpedal, pedal, pedal. I was sure these single speed riders had no idea.Now the dilemma do I put the gears back on and call it failure or do Igo for another ride?
Iwent for another ride this time it seemed to be a bit better, sure ithurt and at times my thumbs were still looking to change gears for meyet on this ride I noticed a couple of things, carry your momentum andback yourself when you come to hill and most times you will get overit.
Ithas now been 3 months that I have ridden only the single speed. I’veeven completed my first ever single speed mountain bike race, with abetter time than usual and I am definately hooked.
Thegreat things about a single speed bike is that they demand morepedaling power due to the nature of having no gear options, so you getyour fitness up quickly. They are quiet when you ride them no noisychain slap, you get cheered as you conquer hills in race and they takevery little time to maintain.
Ifyou want to convert your bike to single speed see your local shop andask what can be done. Winter is the best time for the conversion as yougroup set will be spared the wear and can be put back on when the mudclears up.
See you out on the bike soon.
Lorenzo Moro
Torquay Cycling Factory
