This might sound strange but as the gym is shut and thus heavy squats are off the menu, my legs can handle gearless life, but I’d rather not make the change to singlespeed and back too time-consuming.

I did think about just sticking it in the 18 tooth cog on the cassette but then realised I’d probably destroy a rather expensive GX Eagle cassette prematurely.

So can I get a singlespeed cog kit to go on the XD driver and leave the shifter and mech in place but in the middle gear that lines up?

Probably, there is a gusset singlespeed kit.

Just get a tensioner and a cheap chain to run on it, for the sake of £20 extra it’ll stop you twiddling the levers by accident.

That and do you really want to risk your daddy batteries on a chain and sprocket with mismatched wear?

Yep. Tape up the shifter or just remove it and use a shortened cable on the derailleur to hold it in position.

Gusset make a SS kit for XD driver, XD 1-er, it’s £30 ish, but that’s a lot cheaper than a full cassette when you wear out the 18t cog, as you’ve said.

Either use the existing shifter, but tape it up, or use a proper tensioner. The tensioner route will be more hassle to swap between SS and geared.

Or just buy another bike, it’s the most sensible option.

So I took that hardtail the fun way to work today. I had completely failed to consider that a singlespeed MTB which is geared to handle MTBing would be completely annoying for the flat and moderately downhill road parts of my commute, and I do often commute on it. Doh!

I did 300ish miles on 32-20 last year riding to SSUK. I agree, it sucks!