Papa Wheelie

With the Boise weather taking a turn for winter, I am contemplating picking up a SS. Why? I don't know....

I tell myself that it is a good way to keep my Titus out of the slop, but is there more to it?

I commute to work (1.3 miles each way) daily, so I will get a little spin on it daily, but I am also intrigued with taking it to the trails on dry days.

It will force me to get tougher with my climbing skills, right?

And if I go rigid on the front, my line choice will get better, right?


I posted a "WTB" ad on the local website, and I have had two offers come up.

A Kona Unit, 29'er that is fully rigid, and a Haro Beasley, which is on the 27.5 platform. I don't know if it has a suspended fork or not.

Do it? Or is it a waste of resources?

Thanks!

Doohickie

It's hard to justify a SS bike. Until you get one. They are a different beast from geared bikes (fixed gear even more so). Until you get one, it's hard to understand why you need one. After you get one, you may rarely ride your geared bike because SS bikes can be that fun.

Daspydyr 

I haven't owned a SS since I was a teenager so I am having trouble thinking how it would be any different than just not shifting? What am I missing.

Doohickie

I could lay out several logical differences and you would be unimpressed until you tried it. It's something that needs to be experienced first hand. Nevertheless, I'll state some of the differences:

. The WEEE! factor. When you max out the gear and you have no choice but to coast. You don't feel guilty, thinking you should be upshifting, you just enjoy it. (Particularly fun on downhills.)
. Climbing. When climbing a hill, you can't just downshift to the granny gear and take half an hour to get up it. You have to approach it differently- gather momentum at the bottom if possible, push the pedals hard for as long as you can, then stand up at the right moment and "walk" up the hill by mashing the pedals. If it's a steep enough hill, you have to pull up on the handlebars to push down on the pedals.
. The silence. No derailleur cog sound, no clicking of an IGH. Just the single gear engaged with the hub. (On a FG bike you get that silence even when "coasting.")
. The mental game. There is a different thought process involved. I find riding a geared bike to be kind of mindless. Too hard to pedal? Downshift. Spinning to fast? Upshift. All that kind of happens as a reflex, no thought involved. When you ride a SS bike, you have to think more about how you approach the hills. You size it up: Can I just push through this from the seat, or am I gonna have to stand? At what point should I go ahead and stand up? Instead of using a whole toolbox of gears you have just the one and have to be a little more imaginative in its use, proactively thinking it through instead of just reacting by shifting a gear.
. Variance in cadence. With a geared bike, there is some level of maintaining a constant cadence, changing gears to achieve it. With a SS, you vary your cadence, your posture, your seating position more frequently. It exercises the muscles differently.
. The machismo of it all. Sure, you can do all this same stuff on a geared bike and just not change gears. But on a SS bike, you HAVE TO. It's either HTFU or get off the bike. There's some satisfaction in that.
. Bragging rights. A friend of mine did a century on a fixie...much more impressive than on a cushy geared bike.

The total effect of all these aspects (and more that I'm sure I could come up with if I thought about it more) is much greater than the sum of the individual parts. It's a total package of riding that's different from geared riding. Geared riding is fun, too, but until you give riding SS or even FG a try, you don't know what you're missing.

Doohickie

Another thing: earns this old guy a certain level of respect from the fixie hipster punks.

corvuscorvax

You don't have to know why. Singlespeeding is not about such things.

Papa Wheelie

Gears? We don't need no stinkin' gears. Not where we are going!

dminor 

Your line choice will get 'better' specific to riding a rigid, yes.

Daspydyr 

OK doohickie, I can get it somewhat. The childhood fun before gears were so abundant. I remember me and a couple friends riding up South MT in S. Phx on our paperboy bikes just for the Whee factor coming down. Plus they had better brakes than our cheap 10 speeds. We could actually make that climb fixed gear.

ed 

I don't understand why people get singlespeeds when the snow starts flyin'. That's when you need gears the most. On a SS...you have to stand up and honk up that hill. When the ground is all slicker'n'snot...you need to lean back, keep that weight on the rear wheel and spin smooth circles. Hard to do this standing up b/c your body shifts over the front wheel and you pedal in surges.

Crappy weather calls for a granny gear. (unless you don't have any climbs to speak of)








IMO




edit: for non-techy XC...rigid SS is fun. To be able to 2:1 your way up that freakin' hill while your riding buddy is spinning it out 100ft behind you...hard work, but fun.

LesterOfPuppets

This is my favorite part. Primarily the lack of Chainslap, though. Makes me wanna bunnyhop all the time knowing I won't hear chainslap.

I'm with ed on gears in the wintertime. If you have hills to ride you want gears in the slick stuff. Just make 'em cheap gears. Like if you're running fancy stuff on your main bike like $200 derailers and $200 cassettes you'll not want to be grinding them up slogging through snow and slush.

Set up a snow rig with cheap to replace 7-speed or 8-speed shifters and cassette. Cassettes are $20, derailers $30, shifters $40, chain $15.

pablosnazzy

riding my single speed has taught me three things:
A - it taught me to stand up and pedal going uphills. it made me a much stronger rider.
2 - it taught me to pick the best line and to flow, to not waste any momentum or energy.
the third - it taught me gears are probably the greatest invention mankind has ever seen. i love my gears.

singlespeeds are fun and you don't have to worry about derailleurs or such nonsense. they will make you a better rider. if you want one, get one and enjoy it. if you don't ride one, you aren't missing anything.

Papa Wheelie

Around these parts, they frown upon riding the trails when they are wet, muddy and snotty. I won't be riding the trails in that.

I will commute on it though, regardless of weather.

ed 

Around here...when it's snowy...the ground is frozen and there is no mud. I actually haven't seen any place where it snows above freezing on a regular basis.

Papa Wheelie

The riding here in Boise is primarily in the foothills. Up high, it snows, and sticks. Down low, closer to town, it goes through a frozen/thaw/refreeze process, almost on a daily basis. If you go early in the morning, when the ground is still frozen, you can get a ride in. Wait until the middle of the day, you will likely be tearing up the trail.





The Boise Ridge to River trail system is pretty clear that they want you to STAY OFF when it is muddy.

Papa Wheelie

Here are my choices that I am contemplating:
Soul Cycles ICON


Haro Beasley


and Kona Unit.


I must admit, I am *SMITTEN* with that Soul ICON.

dsprehe89

Here in STL we get most of our snow when it is right around 31-34 degrees, and there is usually a lot of ice/sleet mixed in with it. I would never ride our trails with snow, but that is just because I know how our snow and ground usually are.

Mr.Auer

Single speed is not a fad, it is where biking started originally. Or fixed and single speed.

I got my first single only recently (within a year or so), a steel fully rigid 29er mtb singlespeed. I was blown away by how much fun it was to ride - I have been riding mtb's generally for some 10 years. I like how simple it is - no thinking of gear changes, and it forces me to read the terrain better and tackle objects with more concentration, and attack uphills with a much larger cadence / power ratio than one would use with geared bikes - it is always easy to drop down a few notches with gears, with one speed you just pick up the pace before a hill and hammer it up. Using much more power from the legs than with gears.

I noticed my leg muscles gaining new strength within just a few weeks (and hundreds of kms) of riding singlespeed, and my usual average cadence also rose, while riding geared bikes as well. Hill climbing ability improved, and the fully rigid bike also improves riding technique on any bike. I do loops of up to 60-70 km with the single, equipped with 22 cog at back, and 38 up front. It is a gear low enough for trails, but a bit too low for extended gravel road stints, but still keeps me close to 25 km/h on roads as well on avg.

For longer rides than that, or a lot of difficult trails, I will pick either a geared hardtail or my xc full suspension bike (which I recently converted to 1x9 gearing, since the extra front chainrings went mostly unused for a long time). Only the hardtail xc rig has full 3x9 gears, also my rigid steel old skool mtb commuter has just a 1x8 gearing, with the lowest rear cog limited out of use. In general, I feel most people have a lot of extra gears they really don't need with their riding style, ie. keep it simple.

On the full susser I have a 36 tooth front ring combined with an e13 chain gate that simply keeps the chain on the ring from the above (XCX guide). On the commuter, I used an old LX front shifter with no cable, limit screws set so it keeps the chain on the only, middle ring, and in place of the large ring I have a lightweight aluminum bashring to keep the chain on even better. It has never come off like this.

I also ride in lots of snow, and I expect to like the 29er there too. Thinking of getting the new Schwalbe Ice Spiker Pro 29ers for it when the snow falls this winter - it is quite late already, and the previous winter we had close to a meter of snow cover by midwinter
I think I will be fine with just the one gear on the 29, though usually I do rather ride bikes with low gears available in the winter. But if the one gear is low enough, it is no problem...

Mr Pink57

I don't know where some of you ride but the snow get's bad enough here that it will render your der useless midway through. Snow will pack right into your cassette and der wheels then you will be forced into SS.

I ride SS exclusively in the dirt and do have a winter beater setup SS. It's hard at first but it only gets easier. I've pretty much gotten to a point where a lot of geared riders are eating my dust.

A word of advice if you do a group ride on a SS with geared riders, get in front of them! These guys will sit and spin up a hill and just kill all momentum you had. My roommate does this a lot so one day I tried it on him, I pedaled really slow up one of our short steep hills he was pretty pissed but I told him that's what it's like behind him

Papa Wheelie

I purchased the Soul Icon. Bought it on Wednesday night, and rode it Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I am guessing that it weighs 22 or so, geared at 36/22 on 650B wheels.

I cannot do my "7 Wonders of the Foothills" (7 hillclimbs that I string together in about 8 miles of singletrack) loop, but I have done the first half of it 4 days in a row.

I cannot believe how big of a difference the 650B wheelset makes.

I believe that my Titus RacerX is on notice.

lubes17319

Dirty, stinkin' PBR-drinkin' hipsters!

Glynn Sluder

Papa Wheelie

Did you buy it locally from someone or get it shipped? I have been looking around for already built singlespeeds, but when I google it I don't get very good results.

Where do you shop for these other than ebay? Multi city and state CL?

Looks like a cool ride, how's it set up component wise?

I found the build in a search. Nice snag.

Papa Wheelie

Hey Glenn,
I bought it from a cycle shop owner in Bend, OR.

I started my search locally, on CL, by posting a "Wanted to buy" ad. I had several people come forward with great bikes. A Haro Beasley, Kona Unit, and a Felt SomethingorOther. After kicking those tires (they were all in the $500 range), I went to a couple of LBS, and looked (at brochures) a Cannondale and the Redline Monocog.

I was leaning towards buying new, but then did an ebay search for singlespeeds, and found the Soul. He was asking about $500 more than the Cannondale or Redline "Flight" would have been, but I thought the build warranted the price he was asking, so I shot him an email.

As it turns out, he was heading from Bend to Salt Lake City for the Thanksgiving holiday, so he brought it to Boise for me to kick the tires.

I ended up paying him about $300 more than the Redline Flight would have been. I think I got a great deal.


Where did you find "the build" in a search? I cannot really find much information on the Icon.

As I stated, he owns a bike shop, and I think he built it up with some goodies that he had laying around. Here is what I got:
Soul Icon frame: 18"
Easton MonkeyLite carbon bars
Thompson Elite stem
Avid BB7 brakes
Oury lock-on grips
Cane Creek bar ends
Cane Creek headset
Ritchey seat post
SDG BelAire RL seat
Rock Shox U-Turn fork (80mm - 125mm)
RaceFace Next carbon/aluminum cranks
Velocity Blunt 650B rims
XT hubs
extra dropouts so that I can slap gears on it if I choose......

I went on a 20 mile trailride on Friday, mighta gained about 1,800 feet of elevation. Climbed some stuff that I thought was going to give me problems. I am REALLY liking this bike!!!

Glynn Sluder

Pic looked the same, figured it was your bikes build.

Seems like a cool bike, a little off mainstream, nice parts and 650b to boot. Couldn't ask for more.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Soul-Cyc...-/220871156377

commo_soulja

650B SS is ace son!

What gearing are you using? I went with 32/18 on mine and it works well for the hilly terrain I ride.