Singlespeed... with a twist

[Elvota]

Thought you guys might get a kick out of this.

Maybe 10 years ago I bought a 64 tooth chainring at the Denver bike swap. It was only five bucks and totally useless. Originally Paragon Machine Works built them for the Kamikaze race in Mammoth. This monster rings has just been sitting on the garage wall since that time amusing and bewildering all those that gazed upon it... until now.

I needed a bike to commute. Not just any bike though, something unique, fun... and black.

Here is what I came up with:

It's an old specialized frame with the rear dropouts cut off and track dropouts very poorly welded back on. Got an old Cannondale Pepporoni rigid aluminum fork guided by some ancient Syncros stem I had lying around. So, 26" frame and fork... but running 700c wheels (I don't care for road bikes, but can see their purpose).

Rear brake:

Front brake:

Gearing is an awe inspiring 64/26. I have spun it around the neighborhood and seems to be a really good ratio. Plus it's just plan ridiculous to look down and see a chainring almost as big as your 175mm crank arms:

Oh.. .and the coolest part is this old skull I hd that some long forgotten bike company used to make for headtubes. Didn't fit on this bike, but mated to the seat tube perfectly:

Anyway, pretty stoked how it turned out. Will be looking forward to riding it to work now that the temps have cooled off a bit. All this wrench turning had me inspired to bring back the Soulcraft I had gathering dust. The fork was blown, so I am going to try fully rigid for a while:

I always have this to fall back on should the bumps get to tiring:

 

[DaveInDenver]

Neat, really dig the dinner plate front chain ring. Cool bikes.

FWIW, that PMW 64/26 gearing is around 69 gear-inches on 700Cx44 with 175mm cranks, so it looks crazy but is actually pretty typical for a road beater. Same as roughly a 2.5:1 ratio on a 26" single speed or in the range of big ring (say 44 teeth) and around 7th (about 16 teeth) on the cassette of a standard MTB drivetrain on 26x2.1 tires. Tall would be like the track guys use, 52x12, 54x14, etc. Those are in the range of 108 gear-inches, like the big ring/small cog on a road drivetrain. Crazy.

 

[SOAZ]

Thought you guys might get a kick out of this.

Maybe 10 years ago I bought a 64 tooth chainring at the Denver bike swap. It was only five bucks and totally useless. Originally Paragon Machine Works built them for the Kamikaze race in Mammoth. This monster rings has just been sitting on the garage wall since that time amusing and bewildering all those that gazed upon it... until now.

I needed a bike to commute. Not just any bike though, something unique, fun... and black.

Here is what I came up with:

Nice. I love it. If you are sitting around making cool bikes we might as well go and ride some!

 

[RHINO]

thats cool, i have several bikes and mucho parts laying around that i need to build something usefull.

 

[Elvota]

Neat, really dig the dinner plate front chain ring. Cool bikes.

FWIW, that PMW 64/26 gearing is around 69 gear-inches on 700Cx44 with 175mm cranks, so it looks crazy but is actually pretty typical for a road beater. Same as roughly a 2.5:1 ratio on a 26" single speed or in the range of big ring (say 44 teeth) and around 7th (about 16 teeth) on the cassette of a standard MTB drivetrain on 26x2.1 tires. Tall would be like the track guys use, 52x12, 54x14, etc. Those are in the range of 108 gear-inches, like the big ring/small cog on a road drivetrain. Crazy.

Whoa... that there is a lot of math, but glad to know my guess at gearing wasn't to far out of the ballpark. It feels pretty good just cruising around. Hoping to do my first commute this Saturday and just keep spinning into work with the current setup if the gearing feels decent.

Nice. I love it. If you are sitting around making cool bikes we might as well go and ride some!

Hmmm... actually ride them... novel idea. :smilies27

Will you be in town this week? What about Thursday morning at South Mountain or heading to Prescott on Friday? I'll ride FS gears at SoMo but plan to take the SoulCraft up to Prescott.

thats cool, i have several bikes and mucho parts laying around that i need to build something usefull.

Indeed. It's kinda cool to search through the bins of forgotten bits and pieces and come up with something that's unique and fun to ride.

 

[SOAZ]

Talking about guys with a lot of parts. This buddy of mine Luis has so many his house is filled and two storage units and a van too. I need to get him to start putting some bikes together!
he has some pics of the glutton of bikes at www.karmaracer.com

 

[Speaker]

Cool. When the page loaded, I thought it was the DH bike that you converted. I am thinking of converting my DH to SS, but can't find a reasonable way to do it. I really want to lose the derailleur because the hanger breaks all the time. But, if the derailleur's gone how can I get chain tension while still allowing articulation in the rear. It's a dilemma.

 

[29er]

There may be something to that huge chainring. This may be old school time trialist pseudo-knowledge (and Flounder the Time Trial Specialist can shed some light on this) but when I was road racing, everyone used to say that having a larger chainring, even with identical gear-inch measurments, gave you more leverage and great power output.

I think about that a lot because in single speed circles, it's generally assumed that a smaller chainring is preferable because it reduces chain and chainring wear (thus everyone running 30T or 32T chainrings). But I keep thinking that maybe the increased wear on a larger chainring is because of an increased power output.

Yours in Science,

Dr. 29er, PhD. :sunny:

 

[Speaker]

29er, There's a XC local endurance racer up here that uses the same logic. He runs a 42x28 or something on his SS

 

[DaveInDenver]

I think about that a lot because in single speed circles, it's generally assumed that a smaller chainring is preferable because it reduces chain and chainring wear (thus everyone running 30T or 32T chainrings).

I run a 34/20 (on 26" wheels, 175mm cranks) to decrease wear. More teeth engaged, less load per tooth/link, more length of chain engaged, etc. seemed logical to me at least. I dunno. I figure the larger issue on one speed component wear is running a narrow chain (which I happen to do) and not paying attention to chain line more than the number of teeth on each end. But bigger gears also mean more friction, so that's I think the trade-off.

 

[Christophe Noel]

If I were in a time trialing mood, which I'm not, I would prefer to be yarding on a big ring than a small ring any day, even with the same gear inches. Why? I have no clue. It does seem to feel as if there's more umph in a big ring, but I always assumed that was just because ripping along at 28mph, the chain was in better alignment in the big ring when in the smaller ranges of the cassette.

As for big ring, small ring wear, I was always told that larger rings lasted longer since the pressure of the chain was wrapped around a larger surface area. That's for rings. However, for cassettes, the inverse is usually true. I would assume that is because more torque (at the chain) is applied to those larger cogs out back and more high rev power dumped into the big ring up front.

Me don't know. All I know is I'm a total slacker these days and have not put nearly enough wear on any bike parts lately.

 

[29er]

Me don't know. All I know is I'm a total slacker these days and have not put nearly enough wear on any bike parts lately.

Yeah, whatev. The size of your *ss may change from season to season but what never changes is that I always see it pulling away from me on the hard climbs.

 

[RHINO]

the chain wear ideas are interesting, i would think the bigger gear would produce less wear but hey, i dont know either.


i have two projects i want to get started on, one will be a fixxy bar hopper styled like an old school 3 speed and the other will be a 26" bmx bike.

 

[Elvota]

Well, I used the conglomeration for a commute to work today and it was a lot of fun. I think the gearing works well, I may even reduce the rear cog by a tooth or two but still figuring things out. The route is basically flat and I am spinning more than I thought.

So incredibly quiet. I have only ridden singlespeed mountain bikes in the past and have always enjoyed the stealth they provide. Add 700c slicks and asphalt to the equation and you are like a ninja traveling along at 20 miles per hour.

I must say I haven't held a job for a while where a bike commute was possible.

Had forgotten how nice it is to skip the car and pedal. :sombrero:

 

[xcmountain80]

Pretty sweet ss I love the monster ring.


Aaron