# Built a singlespeed bike today...



## Bigpikle (May 21, 2007)

I've been wondering what to do with one of my old bikes, a 9 yr old Trek racing bike I used when I first started doing triathlons. Its old now and long been retired since the arrival of my CF beauty, and needed more £ spent on it than it was worth to get it back into decent condition... So, I decided to turn it into a singlespeed hack bike for general use and a bit of fun 

Singlespeeds are fun, good for developing fitness as you have only 1 choice when it comes to flats and hills and being stripped of all the excess weight of multiple chainrings, cables, bigger cassette etc are a good bit lighter. Best of all they are much more quiet and efficient than anything with a derailleur :thumb:

Took an afternoon of dismantling, cleaning years of muck and grease, stripping down and then reassembly with a little custom fettling, but by tea time it was done. Only had time for a 5 minute test ride in the dark and rain, but it rides beautifully and the basic conversion is done.


Triple chainring stripped to just the middle ring (although it has the outer still on today until some new shorter bolts arrive)
9 speed cassette removed and replaced with 18 tooth sprocket and spacers
all gear cables, derailleurs etc removed
chain tensioner fitted as the frame has vertical dropouts and thats the ony way to get the correct chain tension on these frame
Next up it will get new bars and brake levers, perhaps a respray or powder coating and some better wheels when my race wheels get upgraded next spring 

Only a couple of pics as its cramped in my garage as its dark and wet, but it shoes whats changed...





































loads of fun :thumb:


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## MattDuffy88 (Apr 6, 2009)

Looking good, i've pondered over swapping my Scrap to single speed but I use the gears more than I thought... maybe it's time for a DMR Rhythm...


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## Culainn (Sep 2, 2009)

Love this kind of post, shows creative thinking on the part of the op, rejigging something in need of care into something pretty cool.


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## RedCloudMC (Jul 19, 2008)

Nice job! Must be mad riding a single speeder though! 

Call me an old git but I need gears to get up hills! 

Cheers :thumb:


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## Bigpikle (May 21, 2007)

needs a little more tweaking...

the chain isnt quite short enough, and the crankset is obviously out of adjustment somewhere, given the noise its making, but I'm really pleased so far.

My original inspiration were these 2...

(I want the bar setup from this one)










and


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## Bigpikle (May 21, 2007)

RedCloudMC said:


> Nice job! Must be mad riding a single speeder though!
> 
> Call me an old git but I need gears to get up hills!
> 
> Cheers :thumb:


cheers - I'll tell you in a few days :lol:

I was rather worried about getting the right gear ratio as its hilly here, but a quick blast tonight up the hill in our street and the 42-18 seems reasonable. Its always a compromise of course, but at least its a freewheel and not a fixie


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## RedCloudMC (Jul 19, 2008)

Tried a fixie on the velodrome down at Welwyn a while back...GREAT fun..slowing the pedals to brake etc...good fun.

Good luck with the single speed...let us know how you get on with it on a proper ride.

Cheers :thumb:


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## ads2k (Jul 12, 2006)

Looks good mate, know nothing about bikes :lol:

But I'm amazed T let you bring it into the house ...


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## kp 115 (Mar 5, 2007)

Before you ride it I would seriously lower the stem as it's well above the safe height mark that showing.

It's got to be a fixed for single speed only need 1 brake for the road,
none on the the velodrome, excellent behind a derny 40mph & no brakes!!

kp 115


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## Ross (Apr 25, 2007)

When is the detail coming Damon?:lol:


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## Bigpikle (May 21, 2007)

kp 115 said:


> Before you ride it I would seriously lower the stem as it's well above the safe height mark that showing.
> 
> It's got to be a fixed for single speed only need 1 brake for the road,
> none on the the velodrome, excellent behind a derny 40mph & no brakes!!
> ...


yep - the stem is properly adjusted now 

I'm not ready for a fixie just yet and this was just a cheap conversion using the hubs etc already on the bike. Its a road bike rather than a velodrome bike so I'll stick with the 2 brakes for now...



RosswithaOCD said:


> When is the detail coming Damon?:lol:


I forgot the before pics Russ, but its had a pretty full detail to get it to the state its in now :lol: When I get it finished it'll be having a respray/powder coat so will get properly detailed then


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## DrumMonley (Dec 11, 2007)

lovely bike


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## chunkytfg (Feb 1, 2009)

Stunning Bigpike. 

Never seen a chain tensioner like that before. a very neat idea.


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## Bigpikle (May 21, 2007)

chunkytfg said:


> Stunning Bigpike.
> 
> Never seen a chain tensioner like that before. a very neat idea.


those little tensioners are quite widely available now as singlespeed bikes have become fashionable. This one mounts on the derailleur hanger and just solves the problem of vertical dropouts on the frame. As the hub cant be moved back and forth to tighten the chain properly as you can on a frame with horizontal dropouts, some clever so and so came up with a little tensioner to solve the problem. It takes away a little of the purity of a singlespeed but means I can reuse this frame with a £10 tensioner without the need for a £125 special eccentric hub and wheel rebuild :thumb:


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