This page is devoted to Single Speed riders stories
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Name: Sam Ring
Story: I got my single speed together around October 1999, after months of buying cool but old kit from John Towl Cycles in Launceston, Cornwall (nice plug)where I was working and racing for. Anyway I had wanted an SS since I saw an article in MBi 'zine in '94 - Chipps Chippendale's orange Furquay was sooo cool, I wanted one. One Specialized A1 and a Scott Endorphin later, I was given the cro-mo frame (after lots of badgering, er that sounds too kinky - call it nagging), which was to become my SS ride. Slowly it came together with the old stock I could get at low costs and stuff I had lying around - SS bikes should always be salvaged as much as poss. -and so the thing got rolling, finishing with some Middleburn RS2 cranks I got for £30 at the Cheddar Challenge. Cost of SS: £130ish. The first race was in the Sport cat. among the closet roadies on a ultra hilly & technical course, in the depths of winter with only a 32x16 and no squishy forks to help me. Doh! I knew this was a dumb-ass thing to do. The start was on the bottom of a slope 150m long with a 1:5 gradient. As the whippets flew off I slowly ground up the hill, wondering, imbetween trying not to puke/pass out; why? Anyway I finished 12 out of 20 odd, narrowly missing out on 11 by 1 sec, and beating a geezer on his Merlin ti./XTR super-scoot. I also hurt almost as much as I had when I raced the Plymouth World Cup junior cat. in May - is that a lot?, I hear you say, do bears shit in the woods? My SS is still with me but is off sick due to cheapo rigid forks doing a startling impression of a foldable deck chair whilst riding off a 2 foot bridge into a soft gravelly stream bed. Sus. forks are in the pipeline, and my other geared babies are gettig dusty with neglect. SS is cool. See ya' at the 2000 Cheddar Challenge SS cat.
Name: Roxanne
Story: Just got a single-speed. I'm in heaven. Totally reminds me of my first heavenly riding experiences. Makes you strong, quick, and nimble. Viva la single-speed!!!
From Jeff Trapp, Madison Wisconsin.
Johnny, Here's an article I wrote for a regional magazine called Silent Sport.
Thought you might be interested. I have a couple of single speeds - ones an
old original Bontrager - they came with horizontal dropouts. I also have a fisher Mt Tam
that I had some track dropouts brazed on. It's rigid while the Bontrager has a Judy
on it. Singlespeeding is great fun as lots of Wisconsin trails are rolling without
steep climbs and on the steep ones I've been known to carry my other multi gear bikes so a
light singlespeed was a joy.
Does a singlespeed mountain bike sound stupid? It sure did to me. But that was only part
of it's attraction. It's also lots of fun, makes you a better biker, can put you in touch
what some of what really draws us to pedaling, and lastly you can kick some sand in the
face of an industry let alone a world that seems to think faster, bigger, more complicated
and expensive is better. . It's also just about bombproof, with few breakdowns. With one
gear the emphasis is on the riding not the equipment, But we're getting ahead of
ourselves.
In the beginning all bikes were singlespeeds, many of us probably got our start on one
speed bombers or banana bikes. Did you have any problem having fun there?That same joy is
easily found again on singlespeeds. With no gears to think about you just pedal and focus
on the best lines and the flow of it all. It isn't really as much work as it sounds. The
typical gearing is 2 to 1, say 34 tooth in front and a 17 in back. This gives you a
pedaling top speed of 15- 16 mph. This means you can coast and recover on the downhills
and spin easily on the flats. On the other end you have sort of a minimum speed limit
about 10 mph because of the effort to get back to a comfortable cadence, so to get the
speed up you are always thinking about the fast lines, staying off the brakes, keeping
that precious momentum high. The hill aren't really as horrible as you'd think, but you
must quickly evaluate them for the most efficient means of attack, short hills you can
just keep the momentum on and pop over. Steeper or longer hills your decision is whether
to keep power up or back off and save some. Steeper or longer still, and you may want to
drop your speed to a crawl and just do sort of stair stepper routine that almost allows
you to recover going uphill. Lastly super steep hills may require a hike, but what's great
there is your single speed without all that gear changing stuff only weighs 20-21 lb. so
why not throw it on a shoulder and run up. See it's great fun.
If you decide to try singlespeeding their are lots of options. Any old mtn. frame will do.
Remove the derailleurs and shifters. If you've an old freewheel hub you need a bmx
freewheel. Cassette hubs are OK, take apart the cassette to find the right cog and use
some spacers to get it in line with the front chainring. The critical thing here is
chainline it must be straight to keep the chain on. You have lots of ways to adjust it,
the spacers on a cassette hub are easy, spacers can be put behind a BMX freewheel. Up
front an adjustable bottom bracket is great, BB spindles can be changed and the chainring
can be in the inner or outer position and spacers can be added as well. To finish up the
drivetrain and keep the chain tensioned you need to use a little faux deraulleir available
from Pauls Components or 1x1 cycles. Here's where a single speed specific frameset varies,
besides lacking any shifting related braze ons, they have horizontal dropouts like a track
bike to allow for proper chain tension. Other parts are up to you though I consider riser
bars de riguer. A little sidebar on riser bars, I've found them to be more comfortable, ie
less back pain, they seem to have helped my bikes handling by centering me between the
wheels and over the cranks, the added width and leverage means I don't need barends and
allows me to power through soft sand and mud that often sent me to the mat. Pontiac is
right "wider is better". Speaking of leverage long crank arms help a lot, I
've
got 180's and they are definitely help. Skip the semi slicks you want tires that really
grab, all your traction and momentum is precious and losing any is a no-no. Many single
speeders but not all are riding with rigid forks. If you go with suspension, springs and
bumpers in shock forks seem to work better than air for bombing through the rough stuff. .
What ever you use keep it light and simple.
The riding smarter part comes naturally. Think about momentum. Look farther ahead, watch
for anything that'll impede forward progress. Use your brakes later and less often. Pick
lines with an eye for traction. Carve your turns instead of sliding. Pass other riders as
soon as you come on them. Save your energy for the hills.
The other fun part of singlespeeding is the camaraderie that has developed. It might stem
from the unofficial singlespeed motto "less gears more beer" (nothing is
official is another motto). There are races, recently a singlespeed world championship was
held in Calif. pre and post race meeting were in a tavern, winners prizes were tattoos,
refuse and be disqualified, other prize winners were a fellow that rode a 50 lb a clunker
and another who hauled beer on the 30 mile route. Winners were pros Travis Brown and Marla
Streb. Besides the Wis. beer being perfect for singlespeeding so are many of the trails, 3
of my favorites are Escanaba in Vilas Cty., the singletracks at Nine mile near Wausau and
the Muir trail in the So. Kettles. There is getting to be more info on the web.
1x1cycles.com is a good place to start, check the links and their links. So I hope you
have it, one gear in front one gear in back any questions?
Jeff Trapp Madison Wisconsin
Thanks for that Jeff !
This is how I got into singlespeeds...
It started last year when I
cracked my trusty old Pace RC100 frame. Those very nice people at Pace took it back,
re-welded it and re-enamelled it and returned it. I of course needed a bike whilst my Pace
was out of action so I’d already bought a cheap hardtail to ride.
So what to do with the Pace..
I remembered that it had rearward facing drop outs, so I decided to singlespeed it. It
took a while, but with the help of Pedal Power it all came together about 4 months ago.
Everything on it (except the cranks) is either Black or Silver, so its my Stealth Single
Speed. No noise and then this black thing hurtles past....
So, my first ride....
Graham Hughes lives about 15 miles away, he has a Pace so I thought he might be interested
in seeing mine now it was re-born. I pulled out of the house and down the lane, initially
the gear felt quite big (it was 36*16) but two pedal strokes later I instinctively pushed
my thumb forward to change up.... Oops first singlespeed mistake - no shifters !
This was just a road ride, and very pleasant it was - when I was going up hill, the gear
seemed fine until I hit a flat bit of road or a downhill. I couldn’t spin fast enough
for it to be interesting... Bearing in mind I’d spent the winter doing intervals on a
turbo trainer - starting at a cadence of 100 and working up - and I was spinning out...
What was going on ? anyway - I got to Grahams in a reasonable time - about 48/50 mins. He
was out. Bugger. I rode home, but decided that I’d go up Rencell Hill in Laxey. This
is one of the steepest road climbs on the Island, and I’d be quite happy if I could
get up there. Bit of a struggle - it flattens off half way up and I circled for a min to
recover, but I made it without actually stopping ! I decided to carry on up to the Creg as
it would take in a bit more climbing which the bike seemed quite good at. Again, once
I’d hit the top of the climb I spun out within 5 secs.... Bugger again!
I hated the bloody thing. It had all the pain of climbing with none of the fun of the down
hills. I almost wanted to sell it, but decided to give it another go.
I then spun out to Peel on the road. It was even worse - the road was so flat that I
couldn’t keep a reasonable speed going - I just kept spinning out. It took me about
20 mins longer than normal for 12 miles. This was not good..
I had ordered a 34 chainring to match with a 17 hub to give me that good old 1 to 2 ratio
the magazines all recommend. I thought there would be no way I’d need it, I’ve
got thighs like tree trunks and was already spinning out, so why should I reduce the gears
?
Finally I got round to taking the thing of road..... Proper trails, not flat easy ones - I
was expecting the worst - I was therefore very surprised when it turned out to be a lot of
fun, all the tracks I have ridden for the last few years were completely different, hard
climbs turned into almost impossible climbs, difficult climbs became un-climable. I
enjoyed it, but realised I needed the right gears - sod spinning out - I want to get up
hills rather than push.
The next Cross Country race was on a reasonably flat course so I thought I’d have a
laugh and race on my SingleSpeed. On the first lap my chain unshipped and I lost about 4/5
mins putting it back on and tensioning the chain again. I was dead last. It was therefore
even more of a surprise when I finished and found out I’d won the Sports Class ! I
was talking to Kelvin who had finished second, he had let me through on the last climb and
had not been able to hang on, the look on his face when I thanked him for letting me
through “as you have to climb at a different speed on a SingleSpeed”. He
hadn’t realised I’d only had one gear.....
This was a bit of a turning point. I’ve gone back to the route which defeated me and
beaten it.
Then I tried the back of Peel Hill, its hard enough with a full complement of gears, so to
singlespeed it was going to take something special. I rode out to the base of the hill,
filled my lungs with air and flew at it. I knew the climb up the road would be difficult
enough but I hit it with enough speed to take me most of the way up. Then I slowed down
and the grind started, my heart rate peaked at about 187, but I made it to the gate. Good
job the gate was there as it gave me time to get my breath back. The next section starts
level and then the gradient increases, so this time there was no opportunity to wind up to
the steep section. Straining the chain something rotten I climbed the steepest bit of the
climb, only the long drag to the top to finish off and there I was at the top. I’d
done it.
That was it I was sold, from then on I attempted any and every climb, even ones I probably
would have not made with gears, never mind without !
So thats my story - tell
yours to the world...