The One On Single Speed Project
For those of you that dont know a single speed is exactly what it says, a one speed bike. 'Whats the point?' is the question that most people ask next. Well the idea of a single speed MTB is simplicty, no gears at the back at the back or the front to maintain or make a racket when the going gets rough. The riding is a different style as well, its great, you dont need to worry about being in the right gear all the time, you just pedal (and brake if you're a girl).
I had a bodged single speed made up from my old Rockhopper but I just couldn't get the chain to stay on (explanation later). Anyway I picked up a bargain On One Single Speed Inbred frame from a web shop for a measley £150. Sweet.
The Build
Unfortunately I didn't decide to blog the build until after I started the build so I don't have a picture of the bare
frame. Anyway the first thing to do was put the headset in, this is a Cane Creek S2 I picked up off ebay years ago
and never got around to fitting. I used a homemade headset press
Its just a long coach bolt, two massive square washers and nut on the bottom with
a normal round washer each side of square ones.
You do on cup at a time threading the long bolt through the headtube of the frame like so (though this shows both cups in
place.
Because the bolt is not the same diameter as the cups and headtube
it proved tricky keeping the cup straight as I tightened the bolt. I had to keep tapping it with a small pin hammer
and when it was difficult to see by eye I used my vernier calipers.
It was well fiddly but really important to get it right. The cups have to be absolutley parallel especially as the S2
uses cartridge bearings. I think it looks pretty good, the black contrast on the white frame. Anyway the finished article
looks like so.
Ok so with the headset in place we can start on the rest of bike. There is no exact order that things must be done
in but there are definitley certain bits that have to go on before others! For instance you can't fit cranks without
a bottom bracket.This is just a standard shimano square taper.These things last forever because the seals are so good.
Also I am resuing the crank off the Rockhopper which is the square taper style.
I decided to put the front end on next. Basically, handlbars, brake levers and forks. I knew the forks (which are Kona Project Two by the way) would be a pain in the arse because I had to put the new crown race on from the S2 headset. Getting the old one off was easy but I tried every method under the sun to get the new one on without damaging it. In the process I used, two different hammers, an old cassete (the bike kind), a metal tube from a portable fan, an old headset spacer and an extension bar from a socket set. In the end I used the heaset spacer on top of the race and then the socket extension bar being tapped with the hammer. I managed to remove quite a bit of paint from the steerer tube in the process (forgot to take a photo, honest!).
The front end has pretty much been lifted straight off the Rockhopper
so it was just a case of fitting the rest of the headset and and slotting the stem with the handlbars and brake levers
still in place over the top of the steerer. The handlebars do look a bit naff because they've got big specialized logos plastered
across the from of them which was fine on th Rockhopper but looks daft on this bike. Also a bit of research suggests that the stem from
the spesh is going to be a bit long too but I dont want to buy a new one until I've ridden it so I get an idea of what size I should be aiming
for. The levers are Shimano LX ones which are pretty nice as they have some beefy springs built into the levers. Having measured the headtube on
the inbred when it arrived I knew that the steerer tube of the forks was going to stick to out a bit more than on the spesh so I'd ordered extra
headset spacers. I considered cutting the tube but this would have dropped the handlebars down an inch or so which could potentially make the
handling a bit iffy, especially on steep downhills.
Here's the front from a slightly different angle:
Now we have forks with V-brake bosses on them I can fit the V-brakes. I got some new ones cos the bushes on the old shimano's were as rattly as
a rattlesnake in a washing machine. Got some Avid Single Digits off Chain Reaction Cycles. I think
they were like £15 or something. Bargain.
There's not really a hell of a lot you can say about fitting v-brakes to a bike. A bit of grease on the bosses, slide the brake arms on and tighten up
the bolts. Thats it really. Here's another pic with the brake cable attached.
And the back brakes, also purchased from Chain Reaction for a good price. Another gratuitous pic of the front end, finished, dull eh?
Remember the cranks well, here they are. Think they are specialzed Forarms or something like that. To be honest there is absolutley nothing wrong with them other
than a few scuff marks from my shoes. So, until they break they'll do just fine. The chainring is a truvativ 44 Tooth
outer ring from the old triple chainset. As the big ring doesn't get used off road much there is still a bit of life
left in it.
Crank means we can fit the chain and the back wheel.
Again its the old wheel off the rockhopper. To make it a single speed the cassette (the cogs) is removed and single
used in its place. A couple of spacers are used to make sure it lines up with chainring at the front. The eagle eyed
among you (ie geeky bike spotters) will have spotted that the chainring is in fact too big for use off-road and the
tyres are the slick type. This is in fact cos I will use this bike for commuting in the winter to protect the Bianchi
which seizes up at the first sign of rain or salt. The rear cog is an 18T which I find a good compromise between hill
climbing and not spinning out too much.
You see on a normal mountain bike you have the rear derailleur which not only changes the gears for you but also keeps the chain in tension. So when I removed the derailleur from the Rockhopper (even though i'd bodged the frame a bit) the chain kept dropping off. The On One is a specific single speed frame and therfore has horizontal dropouts and these, combined with two tug nuts attached to the rear axle mean its easy to keep the chain in tension.
The idea is that you tighten up the wee bolts you can see sticking out and they push against the frame, in turn pulling the
wheel back in the frame with the end result of a perfectly tensioned chain. Then you just tighten up the lock nuts.
Here's a funky view from the back. Also a nice shot of Simon's bike stand, cheers mate, a godsend when building a bike
from scratch.
Thats it really here's the finished bike. Check back soon for a few pics of it in its offroad setup (complete with
On One stem and seatpost, nice.
Ok so I've got some pics of the Inbred the way its supposed to look, an off road weapon! Check em out.
Looks much better like this eh?
Had to go for an On One seatpost, £35 and pretty much similar
in design to a Thompson. I know the saddle looks a bit tatty, its off the spesh again and is totally fucked from the
odd 'incident' or two I may have had over the years.
As you can see its got some cool laser etched graphics on it, including the wee 'Inbred' dude and height marking which unhelpfully all say 'twelfty' meaning there is no reference point if I move the saddle.
Remember I waffled on above about stem length and stuff. Well when I took it off road for the first time with the old stem the steering was a bit on the sluggish side. I could tell the frame was capable of more but the stem was letting me down. So On One do their own stems (surprise) and as you can see their pretty nice. Its much shorter and has a touch more rise.
I also treated the rear hub to a high quality Surly CNC'd steel 19T rear sprocket. This bad boy should last a while, it has a wider base on it which stops the sprocket trashing the freehub body (bikers only!) and you can see its drilled out as well to save a bit of weight. Think I got it from Billy's which is an ok online shop for Single Speed stuff.
