Wahey! I've just made a dinglespeed!

I mostly ride my Cotic Soul singlespeed – 34:18 is the magic ratio with a nice sturdy KMC half link chain that doesn't seem to be stretching yet.

But this Saturday we're all out on a family bicycle treasure hunt with a load of neighbours in our road, and having slogged from my house to Cannock Chase and back last night, I will want a higher gear, and my daughter's boyfriend will have to use my other bike.

So, I just tried a 36 chainring on the outside of the chainset and a 16 sprocket on the outside of the freehub and lo and behold…that's a magic ratio too!

No doubt something will fail catastrophically about 10 miles from home on Saturday, but until then I'm a happy chappy!

Did you plan that magic ratio, or was it just coincidence?

Um, coincidence really. I had 34:18 on my previous bike.

Although with a new chain on a Soul I need to let the axle sit at the bottom of the dropouts (i.e. not fully nestled "home" and with the QR done up really tight) until it stretches a tad.

Or I could say that I worked it all out using Pi and Cosines etc and scoured the market till I found a bike with correct length chainstays.