Single Speed on the Cheap

when i did this with my old bike recently,i couldnt get the front one off cleanly becaause the bolt was rusted hard onto the nut.i couldnt find a hacksaw,so i used pliers to get a few of the importand bits off and then used a big hammer to force the rest off.lol

generally, those who remove the rear brakes do so because their bike is set up "fixed gear" style, so the fact that they provide rear wheel braking by resisting on the pedals deems a rear brake assembly unnecessary.

are you some kind of special stupid? listen to tradtimbo

Are people still doing this? This instruct-able needs to be removed. It just makes a bike more dangerous. If you want one gear, do a proper conversion, or don't shift. read more here: http://thesustainablecyclist.com/2009/05/24/single-speed-bicycles-the-wrong-way/

http://thesustainablecyclist.com/2009/05/24/single-speed-bicycles-the-wrong-way/

i just got done doing this to my bike. thanks for the tips!

On the note of this becoming less dangerous, anyone know how to remove gears from a cassette or freewheel. Or if this is even possible.

It has been a while since you have posted this but if you still need an answer perhaps this will help.
www.sheldonbrown.com/images/freewheel-vs-k7.jpg
As you can see it depends on which set up you have. If you have the older set up where stuff threds onto the hub then it should not be a problem. I know this because I just changed two wheels down to single speed this way. One of them I welded into a single speed fixed gear hub, so far so good. If I like the fixed setup I am going to make a proper fixed gear wheel.
If you have the new set up with a free hub and cassette then you can buy spacers and a special cog and just get rid of the whole cassette. Check out Charley the bikemonger on YOu tube he does a better job showing rather then me telling. I hope this helped.

thanks for the idea. got an 86 mesa runner from my neighbor and its been years since i rode a bike. i live in florida we have zero hills. the terrain is flat, flatter, flattest, and then a few bridges which i have to walk it over anyway so a single-speed is perfect... AND I LOVE BACK PEDDLING! i understand the risk of chain pop and slippage from gears meant to have a chain slip off but i was not about to drop 40 bux or more buying s.s. gears before i find my comfort zone. so again... thanks man.

This is a dangerous setup, and you should not promote it. People have gotten hurt using this setup. Please read the following: http://timmcgivern.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/single-speed-bicycles-the-wrong-way/

Thank you

In the link I provided to the blog there is a link to a BikeForums BikeForums discussion on this very thing. Two users in the conversation, including myself, have had accidents with this set up. The axle bolts were very tight on the bike I used because I wanted to keep the tension tight. The bike folded. Steel bike chain stays are not designed for that moment (force x distance) at the joint. Chains are very very strong in tension because this is the force they are designed to take.

If your chain tension is good and the larger cog adjacent to the cog you have the chain on is a few teeth larger, then your probably ok as you said. final point: It doesn't make much sense to make a bike potentially more dangerous if your not really making it lighter. The freewheel is the heaviest component removed in a conversion. I want people aware of the danger.

I use coffee ground.

working on your bike, on your bed? crazy! ;)

Bit harder to bust your knuckles on the bed when you slip with a wrench though.

Wish I'd thought of that. Bruised mine pretty well taking apart an old tire on a wooden floor.

That sounds like fun. Better bruised than busted, though. At least it wasn't concrete or asphalt.

For more tips on How to use a chain tool

Personally, the ONLY time I use the front break is when I need more stopping power than my rear can produce alone. I don't hit the front break by itself.

Gravel's not my favorite flavor. lol

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html

You'll never have to taste gravel or asphalt if you follow this great advice=]

No, I like the taste of asphalt. Just not gravel. lol

Actually, there is some very sound advice on that site.

gojo orange hand cleaner.

nuff said.

seriously, GoJo is lightweight compared to laundrey detergent like he said. Give it a shot you will be amazed.

not to be nasty or anything but why would you want to just want to have one gear?

well, for one thing...simplicity, not having to worry about gears or accidentally jamming your chain. you won't ever really have to do anything to it ever....maybe the occasional grease. but really i think one of these would be ideal for say a city biker or any place that is level. its not a bad idea..its just nicer in my opinion to just have something simple....but instead of all the hastle why not just put the chain on the gear ratio you were thinking about for a single speed on your current bike and leave it that way for like a week? and not even bother to remove the gears. i mean, i makes no sense really to downgrade you know? there is only one good reason to really have a single speed bike. and thats if its a junk bike, like on bre pettis's weekend projects thing. he made a junk bike and that would be the only true gain i foresee. cheap, reliable, and fun....but not so efficient... sorry but its true.

i see, it would be good in a town area, but not in a hilly area

I usually only use the highest gear, but I was wondering the same thing.

I can see where it's more stable on the rock-shock (center spring)bikes. They always seem to have a crappier gear system that wears easy.

Like the mongooses (mongeese? :-P) with plastic tension gears. What's that about.

Still, I like the option to shift down a gear or two when going up a 30 degree grade that's a quarter mile long. But, it'd be good exercise.

i will always have as much gears as possible because im lazy, the plastic tension gears are for downhill, downhill bikes somethimes dont have gears and so they have a tensioner instead of a derailleur cage.

The one I had was a 21 speed mountain bike, But with the center hinge.

It was a Mongoose, and I've noticed a lot of their multi-speeds have the platic tensioner.

I'd prefer the tensioner be a metal gear. Like my old huffy.

i just completed this project in a little over an hour. I've never used a chain tool before and this guide was helpful. The bike just feels better now and the chain doesn't fall off randomly like it used to when a gentle breeze would caress the ole stem shifters. However my gearing now leaves something to be desired at 40/22, so until I get the flip flop hub i want and new crankset i'll be spinning away

Did this to my 21 spd Mtn Bike. My rear derallieur, long suffering and original to the bike (almost 15 years old now) finally ended up jamming and binding to the rear sproket. So my bike sat in the corner waiting for me to 1. get the time and 2. find my chain tool to do something about it.

Saw the tutorial and decided to give it a go. Ordered a new chain tool and went to work today. About an hour's worth of work (i'm slow). Bike runs fine. I'll be keeping it this way for a while. Thanks for the inspiration. And to the nay sayers - i did it just to get my hands dirty and my wheels back on the road.

is it possible to remoove all the other gears? this way it makes it look EVEN COOOLER!!

great instructable... befor i read this i was considering buying a expensive single speed bike. thanks for saving my wallet :]

i found , on two separate occasions, two really old huffy bikes. One had everything(wheels, bars, fork, seat), but was an old single speed granny gear coaster brake beach cruiser. The other had only the fork and headset, the pedals and front sprockets, and the derailers, but was a better bike (lighter). I'm currently putting all essential parts onto the lighter (and higher gear, 56 tooth front sprocket) and i hope to make some bullhorn bars from electrical conduit, replacing the current cruiser ones. I'm was thinking of making it a fixie, but realised the trouble and cost. Nearly finished, i haven't spent a penny.

not sure about road bikes, but when i made my mountain bike 1 speed i removed the extra gears in the back.
the cassette was made up of the gears with plastic spacers between them. i basically took a few scrapped wheels and harvested the plastic spacers. that way i picked the exact gear i wanted on back and used spacers to line it up with the front chainring. the cassette was held together with 4 or 5 rivets, nothing that a bench grinder could not handle.
i once found a bike shop's site that sold the spacer rings (plastic or aluminum), but i can't remember who that was. it may be cheaper to find some trashed mountain bike wheels (like when cars back into locked up ones?). i once got a few sets of spare MTB wheels at a university auction. those poor kids that just lock up the bike's wheel not understanding "quick release".
sorry i don't have any pix of the bike if that made no sense. hopefully by now you figured all this out?

Usually ten speed bikes have rear gears set up in a "cassette" which is 5 gears welded together-

if you go to a bike shope they can "spin" the casette off for you probalby for free and then you can SPIN on a single gear ( about 10 bucks)

Only drawback-- You'll have to "re-dish" the wheel to get your chainline straight-

Lots of sites online explain how to do this-

I did it myself with no prior experience in about an hour-

U can also add a fixed gear after spinning off that nasty casette but you'd better have someone braze it on for you since backpedalling may cause it to unscrew.

what exactly is the point of modding your bike to be single geared if its not gonna be fixed gear. all you do is surrender a demension of control and cause yourself problems when you hit a hill.

single speed is just more efficient. less friction, less adjustments, less parts to mess with. riding fixed is a whole different world.
when my old city "mountain bike" (cheaper than my off road one) had 21 gears i never use them. i always left it in one setting, so i eventually stripped it down to one speed.

Single speed is more laid back because it allows coasting.

Single speed bikes is more gentle on the knees because it allows coasting and all braking is done mechanically.

Single speed is less hard core (people do not place you in the same group with the fixed gear fundamentalists).

I'm riding a FG road bike and a SS mountain bike.

Because fixies aren't as safe in traffic ;)

I really don't understand why you would want to do this! If you want only one speed just don't shift the gears.

works as advertised. it's great.
here's my single speed testimony:
my previous bike got stolen recently and i had to get a new one. i looked all
over town (Hamburg, Germany, to be exact) for a cheap cross bike or the
like, with the boundary condition that it must be convertible to a single speed.
then - after about a dozen dealers tried to sell me overpriced and useless
mountain (!, the next mountain is about 1000km away) bikes with 2000 gears
in a city that is as flat as it gets - i found out there is a workshop just
across the street where handicapped people make new bikes out of
scrapped parts. and they had the perfect bike that looks almost exactly like
the black one in the photo above - except that they had installed everything,
like a rack, dynamo lights, gears etc.
so this weekend i took all that off, almost exactly like in the instructable here
and have the perfect bike now. lost about 2.5 kg in the process (the bike)
i left the cassette with the gears on so i could switch higher eventually when
getting fitter after a while (i hope). this works with no problem whatsoever
because the bike has horizontal dropouts AND quick releases (almost an
automatic still). unfortunately i couldn't get it below 11kg yet
which is the official upper limit for battery-powered lights allowed, but i got
some ideas were to reduce already (each wheel is almost 3kg).

Need to share the news...

My Sub10 is now truly a Sub10 kg bike!

I'm SO happy it hurts.

Awesome piece of machinery. I've got the best bike (or best Subby) in old Sydney town.

Was running an XT group set (26' wheels, my 700c's are being hand built as we speak), though now have ripped it all off, WHAT A WASTE OF MONEY.

Am learning to spin and loving it.

Sam.

Need to share the news...

My Sub10 is now truly a Sub10 kg bike!

I'm SO happy it hurts.

Awesome piece of machinery. I've got the best bike (or best Subby) in old Sydney town.

Was running an XT group set (26' wheels, my 700c's are being hand built as we speak), though now have ripped it all off, WHAT A WASTE OF MONEY.

Am learning to spin and loving it.

Cool-- it's a great instructable!
We need more bike projects and more single-speeders in the world!

I actually have had good luck converting vertical-dropout bikes to single-speed. If you have a closely spaced set of rear cog sizes and a chain half-link, you can usually find one combination (with or without the half-link) that just *works*-- and it's great and reliable when it does.

i have also had luck with verticals. Mostly because of my impatience, however.

I had the gearing i wanted, but the chain was a half link too short. so I took a roughcut file to the inside of the dropouts and filed off just enough so that the axle barely fit in, then cranked down the quick releases and it was good.

Have you had any problems over time of adjusting to the inevitable chain stretch?

Baking soda also has this amazing effect. Sprinkle a teaspoon full in your hand and mix with your regular soap when washing and it'll even get the grease under your fingernails.

the automatic shift thing has ben around for a while,my inlaws gave me 2 "auto bikes"last year the shifting is done by way of weights on the spokes of the rear wheel.the only problem and the reason i received said bikes is unless you live in a very clean area the spokes get dirty or rusty and the shift is a bit rough...wd40 to the rescue!!i rode a single speed for many years made from an old 10 speed the trick to the chain length is not to make it tight just snug then you can change gears with a screwdriver.just lift the chain and pop it up to the next gear.i found 3rd was best for all around.a little cooking oil on your hands before working helps cleanup!

Hi. Don't take this the wrong way: it's genuine curiosity, not a snide remark. Why would someone want a single-speed bike? Is it part of a "minimalist subculture retro movement" of some sort? Or what else? I spent my childhood pushing single-speeds up hills while wishing for a ten-speed....while wealthier friends whizzed by me on their 10 speeds. Doesn't seem to be a reliability issue -- I have so far spent 4 months bike-camping in Ireland on pretty rough roads, so I have some experience with bikes to draw on. During my first trip in 1980, Ireland's ubiquitous heavy black single-speeds were running the country (also, early 1970s Honda step-through 50s, those work-horses of the world!), and they were great things for parts commonality and ruggedness, though I didn't see anyone not wanting a multi-speed. So, I would love to be instructed about this (cultural?) phenomenon. (If the reply in lengthy, feel free to privately e-mail me through Instrucables or wtarzia@nvcc.commnet.edu).