The Great SS Experiment

A couple of years ago, curious about all the passion some people exhibit for singlespeeds, I bought a conversion kit and turned my old commuter into a model of simplicity.

My old Stumpjumper was a great mountain bike its day, but after years on singletrack it had slowly evolved into a stripped-down, fully rigid and fender-equipped town bike, so taking it singlespeed seemed like the next step. Every few months, I still conduct a mental inventory of the pros and cons of having only one gear. For quite a while, I kept thinking that as time passed, singlespeeding might grow on me.

Sorry, derailleur haters, but that hasn’t happened. I even tried taking my SS for a trail ride once. And once was enough.

There is only one advantage to going shifter-free: I get to mostly ignore bike maintenance in the sloppy, wet weather of autumn and spring. Other than some occasional chain lube, I don’t do much of anything to my bike.

But here’s the rub: I wasn’t spending much time on maintenance when my commuter bike had derailleurs. All I had to do was occasionally wipe off some gunk, lube the chain and squirt a drop or two of TriFlow in a few key spots. Maybe install some new cables and housing every couple of years.

For a little extra effort, derailleurs allow me to gear down and pedal through three inches of wet, spring snow without abusing my knees at the end of a long day. They allow me to move a little faster when I’m running late. They help me glide up hills when I’m hauling cargo like a lock, cans of Diet Coke and/or a container of lasagna that I plan to eat for lunch.

Singlespeeders love to brag about spending less time on maintenance, but I’d be willing to bet that, over the course of a year, derailleurs save far more time than they cost. Hell, now I have to disassemble the Surly Singleator and reverse its spring tension if I switch from a 16-tooth summer cog to an 18-tooth winter one, not to mention changing chain length every time I mess with the gearing. I never had to do those things with a derailleur.

The old Stumpjumper will remain a singlespeed for now, because my commute is short and fairly flat, leaving me little motivation to blow a few bucks on a new drivetrain. But if I suddenly found myself facing a longer ride to work, one of the first things I’d do is re-install a full range of gears.

Singlespeeding is still silly.

The Verdict

My singlespeed trial is now several months old, and the jury (of me) has returned a verdict.

Last winter, I converted my ’96 Stumpjumper to a singlespeed because its old drivetrain was pretty much worn out and I figured it was a good time to find out what the SS believers were all excited about. And it has been nice having a one-gear in the mix.

So am I a convert? Hell no. My commute is short and pretty flat, so it’s suited to a single gear. And there’s a certain attraction to a bike that requires not even the slightest adjustment for weeks at a time. A little chain lube from now and then, and some air in the tires, and you’re golden.

But my defense of multi-geared bikes remains as strong as it has always been: As soon as hilly terrain comes into the picture, good derailleurs make life better, boys and girls, and they aren’t hard to maintain. There’s nothing so reassuring as dropping into the granny gear when things get steep. Technology can be our friend.

In the end, the SS vs. Gears debate comes down to the old truth that any well-built bike is a good bike. Which one is best depends on how and where you use it. Sticking exclusively with a rigid bike, or a suspended bike, or a geared bike or a singlespeed is just silly.

My singlespeed will stay. It has a future. But only as a commuter and town bike.

When rubber meets dirt, I’ll be twisting the Grip Shifts every time.

Nobody cares

I rolled up to a traffic light on my way home tonight, and spent a couple of moments chatting with a lean, somewhat-older guy about the warm weather and the slushy spring conditions. Actually, I was the one who mentioned the slop—he was smiling and happy to be riding on a 40-degree afternoon instead of a 5-degree morning.

As the light turned green and he rolled out onto Dimond Boulevard, I noticed the sticker on his dirt-covered rear fender: "Nobody Cares That You Singlespeed."

That sticker had me smiling for about a mile. I've never cared for the haughty attitude that seems to be common among SS riders, and this guy—with his skinny-studded cross bike, orange safety vest and mirrored ski goggles—clearly didn't have time for anyone's silly pretensions.

I thought about asking him to pull over so I could shoot a quick picture of his sticker, but I couldn't. By the time I crossed Dimond, he had already opened a gap on me.

Couldn't have been too hard. I was on a singlespeed.

Walk on the wild side

A week into my singlespeed experiment, I was staring at the minimalist drivetrain on my Stumpjumper while removing my shoes a couple of days ago. How would I explain this behavior when confronted with the question my wife had already asked: “Why would you take the gears off your bike?”

I was partially motivated by the lure of increasing strength, and minimizing bike maintenance during the season of sloppy springtime commutes. But mainly, I felt like I should expand my horizons by sampling the singlespeed subculture. Mountain biking is the closest thing I have to a religion, and I’m interested in all of its various factions.

In the Church of Cycling, singlespeeders are the fundamentalists. You see, fundamentalism has been described as “strict maintenance of ancient of fundamental doctrines of any religion or ideology.” And what could be more ancient and fundamental than a bike with only one gear?

Most SS riders are devoted to the cause. They often hold their own races and festivals, separate from those of us in the multi-geared world. They proselytize. They are definitely a nonconformist sect. Heretics, if you will.

In the interest of solidarity and self-improvement, I have opted to dabble in their unorthodox practices. But I remain orthodox at heart.

Somebody stop me

"You may ask yourself, am I right? Am I wrong?
You may say to yourself, my god, what have I done?"
—Talking Heads, "Once In a Lifetime"

Holy shitballs, I must be out of my mind.

After years of calling singlespeeds a dumb fad, I've broken down and converted my old Stumpjumper so that I can see what all the excitement is about.

I'm not a convert, just an experimenter. Like most people, the first bikes I rode as a kid were singlespeeds. We didn't call them that, they just were. And I remember pushing a bike up a steep hill every hot summer afternoon on my way home from the town swimming pool.

That's why I place good derailleurs somewhere up there with vaccines and indoor plumbing. They make life better.

But I've known too many people who added a singlespeed to their collection and found that they loved it, so now I have to give it a try. They say this will make me stronger, and I like the sound of that. I'll have to wait and see how my knees like the extra work.

My goal is to make it through the sloppy mess of spring without worrying about gunked-up derailleurs, and then decide how I feel. For all I know, the new Surly Singleator and other bits will be in a spare-parts box by July, and I'll be pulling out my cable cutters and re-installing a drivetrain for sane people.

For now, well ... it does look kinda cool.