All Single All The Time

[50 Mission Cap]

Am thinking of selling both of my geared mtb's for a single speed. Am attracted by the simplicity and low maintenance. Do any of you ride ss all the time?

[myron]

Am thinking of selling both of my geared mtb's for a single speed. Am attracted by the simplicity and low maintenance. Do any of you ride ss all the time?

come find out....

[hophead]

Am thinking of selling both of my geared mtb's for a single speed. Am attracted by the simplicity and low maintenance. Do any of you ride ss all the time?
I've been known to sip a little Koolaid every once in a while.

[rocko]

Currently, all my bikes are one speed. Some are fixed, some are single free, some are coasters.

The wife's bike has gears though.

[2dumb4gears]

I ride single-only on the dirt, fixed only on the road, and have a 9-speed cross bike (which gets converted to single for racing).

Do it. Why not? I live in one of the "worst" places for singlespeeding, and with a good cog choice, it's still awesome.

Of course, if you go with an eccentric BB and leave a derailleur hanger on the bike, you always have a bail-out.

[jerman]

Get a 29er SS. Just add it to the quiver. You can get a Redline Monocog 29er for less than $500. If you like it, you can upgrade using money from selling your geared bikes.:D

[davkatreb]

Let's see-There's the Monocog. And the fixie. And the SS cruiser. And the Singleated HooKoo. But it's getting all the parts off my geared hybrid if those dunces in Minneapolis ever send me the right brakes. Sort of an all-round utility/touring kind of deal.

And I would not be without my geared road bike. It's nothing special, just an '04 Fuji League that I stripped down to the frame, fork and headset and outfitted with parts that work for me. Shimano 600 crank, 7 speed freewheel hub and barcons-Friction, thankyouverymuch.

[myron]

Sort of an all-round utility/touring kind of deal.
Go Dave go!! (http://www.errolmorris.com/commercials/miller/miller_altfuel.html)

[markie]

I have not ridden a geared bike in two years. Cannot say I miss them, their maintenance or the missed shifts, chainsuck, or skipping gears.

[davkatreb]

Go Dave go!! (http://www.errolmorris.com/commercials/miller/miller_altfuel.html)
Been there, done that. But that's what the fixie's for.

And I damned sure wasn't hauling Miller. Dogfish head, maybe, or Guinness. In a backpack.

But that granny basket got me thinking-Bet that barley pop would be nice and cold when Bubba gets back to the doublewide.

Hey, do you suppose he's on that beach cruiser to stick it to the man, or from too many DWIs?:rolleyes:

[Xteife]

I have not ridden a geared bike in two years. Cannot say I miss them, their maintenance or the missed shifts, chainsuck, or skipping gears.

Ditto. (+4 more characters to meet the minimum message limit)

[50 Mission Cap]

Speaking of SS... I am riding this afternoon in Columbia Missouri. Perfect day. Not hot, not humid - completely unique for Missouri this time of year. I'm riding well, bike is great, until I ran over a branch and it some how got jammed in my rear wheel and tore my deraillure clean off. So pissed. Ripped out my deraillure hanger and everything. Divine revelation? Perhaps I should just leave it off and SS it.

[adam12]

don't you have a cool old school bridgestone? If that's the bike I'd do it in a heartbeat. Look up noggy. he'll hook you up.

[50 Mission Cap]

don't you have a cool old school bridgestone? If that's the bike I'd do it in a heartbeat. Look up noggy. he'll hook you up.

Who's noggy?

[adam12]

nogearshere...he is Misfit Psycles (http://www.psyclestore.com/)

[myron]

Who's noggy?

all the cool kids have one this year

[real_ss_budgie]

ive got a big one...

yep they refer to me as "noggy" which is short for 'nogglington earl of rostrevor'

[PutAwayWet]

I bought my SS two years ago, and have ridden the geared bike a total of 4 times since then: 1) When I went out with my GF, brother, and brother's GF two of whom were riding for the first time; 2) When I rode with my GF on the Carriage Roads in Acadia Nat'l Park (http://www.acadia.net/anp/w95026aq.html), because I would have had to ditch her on the hills; 3) On a snow ride for the hell of it, on which I promptly ripped the derailleur off thanks to a wicked cool stick; and 4) Around the block for its final geared ride before I put the ENO Eccentric hub on it this weekend. :D

But I do have a geared 'cross bike that I use for road riding.

[2niner?]

What is a geared bike????

I only know of SS???

Is that a new thing coming up in las Vegas?????

[plume_mtb]

I ss exclusively but just bought an old Truth frame that I'll be building up soon. F/S and gears are nice too sometimes.

[Knuckledragger]

I love my SS On One Inbred. It's the only bike I ride. Mostly stock components (bought it as a complete bike). I took off the bashguard and replaced the craptastic 18t ACS Claws freewheel with a White Industries 16t. Never ridden a geared mtb, so I don't know the difference. I don't like maintenance, and like the simplicity of a ss, so I don't think I'll be switchin to a geared bike.

[PunkRock]

Am thinking of selling both of my geared mtb's for a single speed. Am attracted by the simplicity and low maintenance. Do any of you ride ss all the time?

This thread seems familiar... Hmmm....

[SwiftyPA5]

I have had the single speed mtn bike for 6 years. Sold the geared one last year since I wasn't riding it.

The rear shifter broke on my road bike broke last year so it is now a single speed, not a fixie yet. I will be rebuilding a set wheels soon to do that with it.

All single all the time. My wife thinks I am crazy, but she knew that when she married me. :D

[Knuckledragger]

I recently converted my Oschner geared road bike to a fixed gear. Once I got used to not being able to freewheel and being careful not to lean too far into corners, I adapted quickly. Now I've got some bb and crank issues, so I can't ride it until I fix it. I keep putting that off because I seem to spend all of my time on my On One Inbred ss.

[Wazu]

If you have to sell both geared bikes in order to get a good single speed, do it. I made the switch and I have had no regrets whatsoever. You can always sell your new single speed and get a geared bike again. You should get a single speed specific bike too. The geometry is for single speeding and it makes a difference too. As far as 29 inch wheels go.............the front wheel makes sense but the rear wheel is better off at 26. I will cut and paste something I read on mtbr.com

From Glowboy in Oregon:

Well, there are a lot of different possible reasons. And yes, people do ride them on trails. It's not as hard as you might think. I run geared some of the time (road rides, some mountain biking), and singlespeed some of the time (commuting, more and more mountain biking). Here are my reasons:


Efficiency. A singlespeed's chain runs directly from the chainring to the rear sprocket and back. A geared bike's chain snakes around two jockey pulleys to a sprocket that is out of line (left-to-right) from the chainring by much as an inch. Even without the chainline issue the improvement is at least a couple percent, and compared to some of the more crooked chainlines you might run on a multi-geared bike, the difference can be quite a bit more than that. Believe it or not, you can feel the difference. Don't believe me? Find a bike shop that sells a few singlespeed bikes, and pull both a singlespeed and a geared bike off the rack. Now crank the pedals backwards pretty hard and let go. Notice how much longer the pedals spin on the SS bike? That's the difference in efficiency, and it's even more pronounced under load.

Maintenance. No derailleurs to adjust, no jockey pulleys to lubricate, no cables to clean. Most of the maintenance most of us do, other than tires, is on the drivetrain. With a singlespeed all you have to do is take care of your chain. That's IT.

Durability. No rear derailleur to tweak on trail obstacles, no shifters to go bad, no front derailleur to jam, no 11-tooth cogs to wear out early and force you to replace your cassette before its time.

Weight savings. To be honest, I still have the rear derailleurs on my bikes so I can run gears when I want, so I'm not seeing that much weight savings. BUT even so, when I pull off my cassette and replace it with a single cog, I'm taking away about 220 grams. That's half a pound. I can easily feel the difference when I pick up the bike. Go truly singlespeed by stripping off the derailleurs, shifters and cables, and you can end up saving 2-3 POUNDS. People spend hundreds of dollars to lose that kind of weight off their bikes, but with singlespeeding you can do it for free.

Concentration. You don't have to think about what gear you're in. You don't have to plan your downshift ahead of time when you come to a stop in traffic. It's not like shifting is THAT much of a mental burden, but you'd be surprised how many brainwave cycles singlespeeding frees up for other things. Like paying more attention to traffic. Like paying more attention to your body english, line and speed when you attack that rock garden. See my writeup below under the "Inaugural SS ride at Cutthroat PaSS" for a better description of what I mean. Singlespeeding makes you a better technical rider.

Momentum. 1. On a geared bike, when you start losing speed on a climb, you downshift, and you let off the power to do it ... which slows you down even more. On a singlespeed, you stand up and hammer. You get more momentum going up the hill (although it can be exhausing at times!). 2. Because you know climbing can get tough if you bog down too much, you pay a lot more attention to preserving your momentum, and you're less likely to sap away precious momentum with your brakes when you don't need to. 3. Because you carry more momentum going uphill into difficult technical sections, you have an easier time getting through them in the uphill direction. Why is technical terrain harder going uphill than downhill? Speed.

Pride. Let's be honest here. It feels pretty good doing that bad beeotch of a climb in a gear twice as tall as you would have on a geared bike. And people that aren't ordinarily impressed by others' riding are sometimes impressed that you can ride a particular trail AT ALL on a singlespeed.

Those are the reasons that are most important to me, but singlespeeders are a diverse group (which is a good thing, in my little worldview) and here are some other potential legitimate reasons which I also respect:

Elegance. A singlespeed bike (other than mine) has a really nice clean, elegant look to it, with no derailleurs hanging off various places, shifters cluttering up the handlebars, and shift cables running along the tubes. Now if you saw my bikes you'd know I'm not exactly seeking out a "clean" look, but I can appreciate it in others' bikes, and a lot of other singlespeeders appreciate it too.

Cachet. It's a fringe activity. You're a member of a pretty exclusive club if you're a singlespeeder. There's always the danger of it being a trendy fad, which means someday it won't be cool anymore, but I don't think where anywhere near there yet.

Making a statement. There are a lot of people who are fed up with planned obsolescence, Shimano's dominance of componentry, and/or the over-engineering of today's bikes. Some people like making a statement about one of those things, or about noncomformity, stickin' it to the man, or maybe something else they think singlespeeding stands for.

Boredom. Some of the people on this forum are extremely accomplished mountain bikers. They've ridden it all. Singlespeeding is a new challenge.

[Knuckledragger]

I remember reading that on mtbr.com. Those are the very things that attracted me to the ss/fg world. SS allows you to get down to the business of riding without all that other b.s., e.g. shifting, endless maintenance, "planned obselescence", etc., etc., getting in the way. Just get on your bike and ride, that's what it's for.

[Mo0se]

After riding for the last 4 months of nothing
but rigid ss, I made a horrible mistake and
tried out a new bike with one of those long
dee-rail-yurs on it. Wow! I can't ever see
myself going to back to a geared bike.. for
some reason it felt as if I were stuck in a
molasses world for the duration of the ride.

Maybe it was the weight difference?
I think maybe my forgetting about thinkin
ahead for a bike with gears, shift timing,
etc. I dunno, call me what you will, but I liked
focusing on nothing but the trail ahead.
It's for that reason I plan on sticking with
ss. I guess as I get older, there will be be
21,22,23 tooth rear freewheels to be had
as my fitness begins to suffer. That, I can
deal with, a broken dee-rail-yur-focus
I cannot. :)

[tryandgetme]

I demo'ed a 5" bike (with gears) on a 6 hour ride the other day. Impossible to finesse anything, the bike did NOT like cornering, hitting things (what the bike was designed for) is still tiring, and the gears made me tired 3 times faster than my singlespeed. And I kept smashing my chainrings on things when the suspension would compress, NEVER a problem with my singlespeed. I even smashed my pedals on rocks more. Why would I go back!? That bike almost killed me from exhaustion...