Convert or not. Sorted

[Andrew1971]

Hi All
I am tempted to convert my winter bike to single speed. I am at the moment 50/50.
Bike is a voodoo limba. I have what is needed in the spares box. I will be using the orginal front chainring.
so should I or not. What do you think !!
Andrew

 

[Cycleops]

Depends what sort of journeys you'll be doing and the terrain.

 

[Andrew1971]

I know the terrain and journeys I will be doing.
It's just a case of do I or don't i.
Andrew

 

[chriswoody]

Two of my bikes are single speed, they're great fun to ride and simple to maintain. Being as you have all the bits you need, just go ahead and do it, as long as you don't do anything silly like cutting off chunks of frame you no longer need, then you can easily convert it back again.

 

[ColinJ]

Assuming that there no huge hills to be ridden, probably 'yes'. If there are huge hills to be ridden, probably 'no'.

 

[MichaelW2]

Running singlespeed with a spring chain tensioner defeats a lot of the advantages. Does your bike have alternative chain tensioning system?

 

[Milkfloat]

Stick your bike in one gear and leave it there for a few months, if you like it then why not.

 

[Sharky]

If it ain't broke don't fix it or should I say SS it.

If the gears are playing up, getting rid of all the mechs is refreshing, but without a simple chain tension method, varying sprocket combinations could be tedious.

I've been riding my geared bike thru the winter, but will soon be getting my SS out to toughen me up before the TT season starts.

 

[Drago]

Leave it as it is but don't change gear.

 

[ColinJ]

Leave it as it is but don't change gear.

That's what I did to choose my singlespeed gear ratio. I made a shortlist of 3 ratios and picked the best compromise. It turned out that 52/17 was too high uphill. 52/21 was too low on the flat. I went for 52/19.

It is nice to have the perfect chainline of a singlespeed and the simplification of the chain path. It feels better than riding the same gear on my multi-geared bikes***.



*** Yes, I might well fail to identify the type of bike in a blind test - I haven't tried, for obvious reasons - it is hard to randomly get on one of 2 bikes without knowing which one you are riding! The thing is - I was not expecting there to be a noticeable difference when I built the ss, so my feeling is not confirmation bias.

 

[Andrew1971]

Hi All
thank you your replies. I have come back from a 35 mile ride and was the decision
on converting it is a no because it would limit where I can go. I use my SS to toughen me
up for the geared bike. I live in Yorkshire some lovely hills. Thank You everyone.
Andrew

 

[biggs682]

So you're not going to do it ?

 

[ColinJ]

Andrew - I was just looking at where you live. I wouldn't want to do the big local hills on singlespeed but I used cycle.travel to plot a route down to the flatlands of the Vale of York and you'd only have to tackle one challenging hill - between Northallerton and Thirsk. If you got fit enough you could get over that on singlespeed (especially if you chose a gear slightly lower than mine) - worst case scenario about 800 metres of walking on the way out and the same on the way back. Alternatively, if you were willing to do a few short stints on A-roads you could (for example) do a flat 50 mile to Easingwold (and back) or a 100 mile ride to Ripon (and back). I wouldn't dismiss singlespeed just yet!

 

[Andrew1971]

On my single speed i going to up the gearing by 1 tooth from 46/18 to 46/17 and see how
that goes. I have done York and ripon good ride. Decided not to do the voodoo limba
so I have a bike for the hills.
Andrew

 

[ColinJ]

Ah - I had overlooked the fact that you already had another singlespeed bike!