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All the rage is single speed mountain bikes. Seems folks are digging the simplistic value of a bike that has no gears. I haven’t exactly got with program of building or buying myself a single speed bike. I kind of like shifting through the gears when I need to. I thought about converting my old 26 inch Giant mountain bike to a single speed but figured what’s point. I live in suburbia where tooling around on a single speed bike in the city is just not happening. If I go mountain biking I get the challenge of making your way over the trails with a single speed but the reality is I’d probably end up pushing up the hills so what’s the point? If I manage to find the time to ride I will most likely be on the road where I like to train so riding a single speed is not really my interest. When I do hit the trail I want to ride my Gary Fisher 29er.
If I had the time and money I would like to have a nice single speed 29er. Sure. It would be fun. But the reality is I don’t have cool inner-city places to ride a single speed. I can’t imagine tooling around the country-side for 50-60 mile training rides on a single speed. So that leaves riding trails on a single speed. I think riding down forest service roads would be fun on a single speed mountain bike. But hilly trails on a single speed just does not appeal to me at this point.
I’m not sure what to make of the single speed mountain bike interest right now. If you check out the tweets for “29er” or “mountain bikes” the rage is single speed. Everyone is posting about getting themselves a new 29er but many are saying they want it to be single speed. Guess these folks have more money to burn that I do. It’s a de-evolution back to when your folks bought you that BMX bike or gave you that hand-me-down single speed that was 20 years old. I had those when I was young.
Personally I love my Gary Fisher HiFi Pro 29er. I also love my Trek road bike. Both geared. I can’t imagine waking up and needing or wanting another choice to go for a ride on. The only caveat I would say is that if I did a lot of casual riding. Like in the city or on bike paths to chill out, then a single speed would be great. Not sure if I would want a single speed mountain bike over a road or hybrid bike, but in that case it would be cool.
After I got my 29er I told my wife that I was going to build my old mountain bike into a single speed. She asked why? I said because it’s cool. Or everyone is doing it. Or something. I haven’t done it yet. I mean, I haven’t figured out what the point would be.
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It’s funny, I thought the same thing. What’s the point? Well last winter I found out. I was bored and unable to ride due to an unusually snowy winter so I decided to convert my 1990 Mtb to a single speed for the hell of it. Turns out that it was the best thing that ever happened to my mtbing life. Without exaggeration I ride my old rigid single speed 90% of the time and it’s not casual riding. We hammer the trails with our SS. We have plenty of hills here and the singletrack tends to be technical. You have to work to get flow.
My Stumpy and geared hardtail collect dust.
Riding fire road sucks on any bike. Geared or not.
The point to singlespeeding:
It’s simple, quiet, fun, and challenging
My next new bike will be a singlespeed. Don’t knock it until you try it. One is all you need.
I’m not knocking it at all. I watched this dude from Michigan ride our local trail on a single speed bike. Every big climb he’d sprint up to it like hell to keep his flow going. Never missing a beat. Smoked my ass on the trail. I think the simplicity and efficiency is definitely a selling point. Maybe we will devolve to riding nothing but single speeds on the trail. Not having to think about gearing is very liberating. As it is now, living in the Nashville area, it’s hard enough to find the motivation to ride the few trails we have local as it is, much less burning through more cash for another bike. Lugging another bike 3-4 hours to decent trails just doesn’t sound too appealing. Single speed or not.