Just been looking on their website and noticed there’s a tenner off the Oval NW chainrings making them less than £20, so ordered myself one.

Linky

Most of the other chainrings are discounted too.

Round ones less than £20 also, quite tempted myself, but I’ve only just installed my £15 superstar special.

Cassette expanders a good price too.

Really like my Works Oval, shame they don’t make a Cinch version or I’d probably get a couple more.

Ordered cheers, have one running on my Salsa Spearfish so this is for my kona honzo. Great PSA

Been oval curious, will have a go in the new year, top PSA, spiderless too, no issues with dropping my top chain guide at the same time then?

Nice PSA, thanks, that will solve my ovality curiosity

Will oval maintain an even chain tension on a single speed?

Will oval maintain an even chain tension on a single speed?

Probably but it will cost you less than £20 plus a bit of quality bike fettling time to find out for sure.

that will solve my ovality curiosity

Same here ,read lots of reviews and been umming and ahhing for a while so when I saw they were reduced seemed like the ideal opportunity to test one.

32t oval black out of stock (for the singlespeed)

34t round black out of stock (for the Alfine’d full suss)

I notice you can pre-order other stuff at ‘introductory’ pricing but they obviously don’t want me to get a sale price on popular options 🙁

Alfine’d full suss

Not many of them about

Will oval maintain an even chain tension on a single speed?

Have been running one of Tazzy’s 34T One-Key rings on my ss for quite a while with no issues of chain dropping, etc.

It’s probably a bit tighter than optimal in the tightest position and looser than optimal in the loosest, but the difference isn’t huge. You have to remember, although a 34T oval has effectively a 36T diam at the highest and a 32T diam at the lowest part of the range, the chain’s still going round half the chainring – there isn’t a 4T change at any point on the amount of chainring being used, it’s just how it’s being used

spooky_b329 – Member

Will oval maintain an even chain tension on a single speed?

You can see the mech bob as the cranks turn so I’m going to say no, though it’s not very much.

No, not sure why, I love it 🙂 Faced with buying a whole new 3×9 drivetrain or bodge a lonely alfine onto the bike with a jury rigged rear mech, never thought it would work but it does. Doesn’t need any sort of chain device with a NW ring but my first Works ring is pretty worn now so was going to grab a spare. The chain is shocking, chain checker waggles all over the place, I measured it with a ruler a while back and it came to something like 3% ‘stretch’, the downside is it runs noisy as the rollers move around.

On the chain tension thing, thanks guys. I was going to go for it until I noticed its out of stock, they reckon its close enough to your average chainring, i.e. there will usually be a tight spot but not enough to cause an issue.

I notice you can pre-order other stuff at ‘introductory’ pricing but they obviously don’t want me to get a sale price on popular options

32T were on sale last week so probably just sold out. 34T is a new item (theyve not done that size previously) and it says in the info that its not due till Jan.

spooky_b329 – Member
Will oval maintain an even chain tension on a single speed?

Northwind – Member
You can see the mech bob as the cranks turn so I’m going to say no, though it’s not very much.

I confirm Northwind’s observations re the rear mech bobbing slightly with an oval ring, so not therefore likely to be suitable for SS without a tensioner.

I used to run an Alfine of a Giant Trance, I liked it but ended up going SS HT then standard geared HT.

Ecky, how much does your mech bob back and forth? 2-3mm or more pronounced?

I confirm Northwind’s observations re the rear mech bobbing slightly with an oval ring, so not therefore likely to be suitable for SS without a tensioner.

2 years of experience running an oval ring on a SS suggests you are wrong.

Great PSA- cheers unovolo.
Just ordered a oval ring for post winter refresh. Will be a few months before I can see what the hype is about.

O.P. – yer PSA sent me rushing of as I’d been thinking about trying this anyway. I smiled when I saw they only had the purple oval left in stock, but my buddy is riding an oval 1 x 10 and swears it’s helps his climbing so What-the-Hell…I got one despite the colour. Just how bad can purple look on my raw Ti rigid Salsa??? I await riding results with interest. 😀

Woo! Perhaps they have been browsing this thread as I just got an email alert that the 32 oval black was back in stock…its not but they are taking pre-orders for January and thats good enough for me 🙂

Going to take my chances on the singlespeed, saw a video of an absoluteblack oval ring and the mech movement was just perceptible, certainly no more than I’d expect to see on a round ring.

(34t round is still OOS but that was more of an impulse purchase anyway)

34T oval’s also available for pre order here

Rich said that the 32T ovals will be back from anodizing this week then posted out.

I wanted black but they were out of stock so I though I’d pre-order & wait but then forgot and ordered silver.

[video]http://vimeo.com/106824486[/video]

Another:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQVSMAz0bTo[/video]

This one has a (fixed) chain tensioner in so it isn’t moving to take up slack, so any variation is in the actual tension in the chain rather than moving a derailleur type arm, and hence the same if you have slot or slidey or EBB tensioning.

fair enough theotherjonv, looks like you can run SS with an oval. 🙂

I also run 2 singlespeeds with oval rings, no issues there.

A round ring will give a bit of mech bob as they’re almost never either completely round or more likely installed precisely concentric.

Because I’m bored / boring – I just measured the eccentricity of my 34T oval.

The biggest radius is ca 73mm, the smallest about 68mm. Contrast to a C-C length between axles (crank to rear wheel) of ca 440mm. Now do some pythagorean trig to find how much ‘longer’ the chain is when at the two extremes…… and it comes out at about 1mm.

That surprised me too…..

I don’t know why it surprised me – when tensioning a chain with my slidey dropouts, even small adjustments make a substantial difference – so even that 1mm means there is still a noticeable tightening and loosening of the slackness of the chain as you spin the crank, but it’s nowhere near enough to make it unuseable.

FWIW, I have vertical dropouts on my hub gear commuter, which has a round round ring on the front, and looking at the sprung tensioner on the rear I can see a little tensioner bob, I haven’t measured it but I may get a video sometime, but I doubt it is much different to an oval ring.

I think I’m going to give the oval 32T a go, will be interesting to see how it compares. I don’t think it it will be be a case of better or worse, just different.

I resisted and resisted but the lure of an oval ring got me in the end

Thanks OP

I used to run an old commuter with a 46×16 set up using an old bio pace outer ring.

It ran fine for as long as I used it.

When I finally stripped it to sell I noticed the rear sprocket had become equally oval!

I’d put it down to my enormous power output but more likely the cheap pressed steel nature of the sprocket – impressive nonetheless 🙂

Just had a email to say mine (32t Oval)has been dispatched, now just need to get rid of this shitty chest infection so I can get out on the bike.

I’ve just realised that the 32T oval goes as large as 34T, meaning I’m going to be very tight in terms of frame clearence.

Running a 32T round up front now and the gap is rather small, this isn’t the best pic in the world I’m afraid:

Anyone want to hazard a guess weather a 32T oval will fit?