Originally Posted by
msu2001la
Hey thanks! And totally agree about the technical bike handling vs. power thing. I grew up riding BMX and mountain bikes, and usually do pretty well in the more technical twisty sections.
This post makes me wonder if it's possible to convert my current bike (Cannondale CAADX) to a single speed? This would give me a great excuse to buy a new geared race bike, and start doing two races on Sundays.
I might have to do some research into this.
Its not hard, or expensive. If you don't have sliding dropouts then you can get a tensioner which is like a blank derailleur. Single speed conversion kits have these. They are like 25-50 bucks and come with a gear or two. Mostly around here people are running 2.2-2.3 ratio.
I have a Ren Ivan frameset with rocker dropouts so I just took the derailluer off, taped the cable to the seat stay, and got a new chain. I tension is via the rocker dropouts. I've got a few gear choices now but overall it would take me about 10 min to switch back. Pretty simple....
If you have PF30 then you can get an eccentric bottom bracket to tension the chain.