my bikes have been stolen (again). I have to decide on a replacement. I am fed up of broken parts keeping me off the trail. I want to go singlespeedt. Im asking for encouragement.

How hilly is it where you are?

Singlespeed is best if you’ve got mostly hills. It gets you fitter and faster and simplifies your bicycling experience.

Also attractiveness of a mountain bike to a chav is greater with more gears*, so just one gear is a bit rubbish innit.

*Made up fact.

Single speed is a job half done.

Go fixed my friend and free your mind!

It can be steep but I tend to pick a gear and plug away. I live near kirklees and tend to ride locally

You will instantly become more attractive and sexy

You should have sufficient hills round Wakey to keep it interesting. Might be worth starting with 32/18 or 32/19 and see how it goes.

Edit: Doh! Kirklees is Huddersfield etc isn’t it. Even better, but maybe try a slightly easier ratio to start with.

What type of beard were you thinking of?

does it say good things about me then that every bike I love the look of lacks gears and cables. Im not really in it for the fitness. Just the experience.

beard wise I have gone for the unshaven look. Wife says I look like a tramp but I like it. Goes well with laderhosen

Im not really in it for the fitness. Just the experience.

I’m afraid you won’t have much choice with the former. IME, you will have a hard step up (fitness and strenth) that you’ll need to achieve but once you do it’ll all feel fairly natural again. You’ll need to learn to attack hills rather than plod up them, which gives a fitness boost as well as a different experience.

I found the experience element was at it’s best on level-ish flowy stuff where you’re just not having to think about gearing and you can concentrate 100% on the trail. Admittedly I’m rubbish with gears so that may be a factor.

And Wakefield was right. live in ossett and spend most of my time on the KERRS

Don’t forget that on a SS you still have three gears – sitting, standing and pushing 🙂
There’s no way I would consider myself particularly fit but I’ve only ridden SS for the past 18 months. Its partly a mental thing (in both senses…) not to be defeated by what’s in front of you and to forget that another gear was ever an option. You also use muscles in a different way and develop different techniques for dealing with hills or technical bits. If you only ride SS its easier to maintain this.
I really like the lack of clutter, noise and breakdowns. You’re also immune from this years must have technology and can get on with enjoying your bike.
Is that enough encouragement? Go for it and enjoy.

+1 for what Andy said.

+ 1 here for what Andy said too.
I loves it.

Single speed for the trails, fixed for the road, simple is as simple does…Oh and it makes your facial hair resistant to razors!

beard wise I have gone for the unshaven look. Wife says I look like a tramp but I like it. Goes well with laderhosen

Sounds like you’re 9 Tenths of the way there already! Time to whip them gears off! 😉

Imagine jumping on a nice cheaply built, light weight bike and accelerating away up to full speed in just a couple of pedal strokes, flying up hills and attacking technical sections of trail like an ape shit mother f*****g killing machine. Then you get home and throw your bike into your shed and when you get back to it it’s ready to ride and there’s nothing wrong with it, infact it never goes wrong. This my friend is single speeding. NB. You need to find a suitable gear for where you ride and work at it to get fit and up the hills.

Would you class 36:16 as an easy ratio in singlespeed terms?

Not for hills. You wouldn’t get up many hills with that. I started off with a 2 to 1 ratio but went even easier than that as there’s lots of hills here and I find it easier for technical riding too. It’s a bit spinny on the road but my commute is only a mile and it’s ok round town.

accelerating away up to full speed in just a couple of pedal strokes

where full speed = 8 mph

SS makes your arms ache more than legs at first as you wrestle the bike up hills, so you get an all over workout rather than just leg exercise that weirdy geardies get when they sit and pedal

Rocketdog speaks the truth , you’ll need wide bars for leverage
with bar ends 🙂

I’ve just built a cheapo one up. Got a Kona Fire Mountain frame for £45 and had some brakes and cranks sat on the bench doing nothing. Did splash out on a carbon fork as I thought it was the best place to put some money. When I say splash, out they were £100.

Holy sh*t it builds into a light, fast(accelerating) and agile bike. The first thing I noticed when going for a ride was how much more you sit up and look around the countryside. Thinking about your bike less and which gear to be in, travelling slower all equates to looking up and around more. I even found a couple of trail entrances in the woods I had ridden past before.

Enjoying it so far, although early days, seems to get back to why I starting biking, fast, simple, light bike to get you into the country and soak it up.

No facial hair yet…….

Do it!

I improved my lower back pain by beefing up my core muscles SSing in S. Wales Valleys. Long ploddy hils are best avoided but short, sharp, steep hills teach you to just keep going and get your breath back at the top; often passing your mates who frantically crashing down through the gears.

SS is great in winter – virtually zero maintenance, but I like a proper bike and some gears when it’s dry. I hate spinning out at slow speeds (I’ve a poor spin so that’s REALLY slow in my case)

I found singlespeeding on 29ers a lot better than on a 26er
just seems right , if you know what I mean .

Freaks…. The lot of you!

Why singlespeed?

So you can get held up by your mate on a geared bike dropping it into granny in front of you and causing you to lose all momentum needed for the steep climb?

So your mates with gears can really rip the piss out of you when your “no maintenance” bike breaks down?

So you’ve got another excuse to get off and push?

But most people do it for the “I’m much harder than you geared riders” and “look at me, no gears” reasons.

You will instantly become more attractive and sexy

… to other singlespeeders!

Mmm… this thread is reminding what I loved about singlespeed, the quietness of the ride in particular. Just thinking what a beauty of an s/s my Whyte 905 would build into…

For a truly pimp yet exceptionally functional tensioner, get an old, short cage road mech and bodge a couple of those bright orange, rubber chain device rollers in place of the jockey wheels, looks pimp and actually works unlike any of the aftermarket tensioners I ever tried..

s – Member
Freaks…. The lot of you!

Probably (29″ 32×18 rigid freak in my case)

Why?
Because Delamere is on my doorstep, & it’s flat..
I’m not fit by a long way, but as a lot of my riding is in the Forrest, well, it just seemed logical.
Oh, & it was a good excuse to build a new bike up..

st people do it for the “I’m much harder than you geared riders” and “look at me, no gears” reasons.

I did it for maintenance reasons (why pay £100’s for a drivetrain that wears out and doesnt shift hat well anyway when covered in mud). It is f***ing anoying when other riders declate you must be super fit and a hard man and then up the pace on the first hill to try and drop you, inevitably this means you get up the hill last. On the upside everyone else has blown up and you’re no more knackered than normal and can proceed with the usual ass-whoopin* on future climbs.

*when I’m in any way fit, i’m a fat knacker and can’t SS at the moment

I have to say after 18 months of nothing but SS Mtbing I am tiring of it, however I do not have the free cash to do anything about it, so I’ll keep on grinding I guess.

‘Tiz 1 of 3 bikes in the stable and drifts in and out of favour(XC HT and AM FS being the others). Agree with much of what has been said about ss shifting the focus from kit/bike to simply riding. Zero-maintenance is another definite bonus. In the right terrain it’s as quick as a geared bike and usually better on the short hills due to the attack, attack, attack attitude you can’t help but develop. Currently loving it!

I recently acquired an Alfine 8-speed which I love. Stealthy, mud-proof, low-maintenance, no beard or real ale habit required.

Isn’t that all the benefits of SS without the drawbacks?

Real ale is a drawdack?

In my book it’s the drawdack to end all drawdacks 😉