Single speed - why?
Comments
-
If you can ride it geared without mashing then you can ride is single-speed, with enough fitness. You end up getting up hills a lot quicker and pushing yourself a lot harder because you have to.0
-
When I ride with geared riders that mostly ride seated I can ride with them untill it gets so steep that they are in ther 22:32 granny ring or 22:28 second ring. Then I have to walk but at that speed walking is just as fast or faster. (less energy consuming too as you aren't using all you energy keeping the front wheel down keeping your balance and stopping the back wheel spinning out while going nowhere fast)
Before I ditched gears I rode with a 11-25 road casette on my mountain bike too for that same reason.0 -
So can we agree:
It helps with strength and fitness. (Particularly anaerobic fitness and upper body strength)
It makes the bike lighter.
Everything else is down to personal experience and values, so we could argue about it all day.
However, Youtube can provide the ultimate unchallengable answer
Job done!Proved by testing to be faster than a badger.
The world's ultimate marmite bike0 -
Walking ain't MTBing!
Lol
My brother can jog round some trails faster than he can ride them, but he does like to ride ;-)0 -
The walking/Granny spinning comparision was just an example. The guys I ride with are strong riders. When they are in their granny ring then it is on sections that beginner and average riders wouldn't have a chance of getting up (both steep and technical)
And these sections make up about 0.01% of all trails in my area (Black Forest) and almost never get ridden (uphill, that is).
Walking isn't riding but it is part of MTB'ing (even geared riders take a few steps once they get off their bikes at the top of a hill to lie ther bikes up against a tree, or walk their bikes out the front gate). And less fit/experienced geared riders walk up some hills too.
You will even see elite racers getting off their bikes on extreme technical decents or climbs over muddy roots to save time and energy.0 -
Yet Elite racers all use gears ;-)0
-
supersonic wrote:Yet Elite racers all use gears ;-)
No Doubt
But then they probably get given a brand new drive train for every race they do.
So as ease of maintenance and reduced costs is one argument for singlespeeding then you comment looses impact.
0 -
Hehe.
Fixies are even worse ;-)
*runs*0 -
supersonic wrote:Yet Elite racers all use gears ;-)
Elite SS racers don't use gears.
(Well one, actually)
0 -
-
DMRSS wrote:_Ferret_ wrote:No offence to any of you, but you wouldn't be able to ride half of my trails on a SS, one gear just isn't gonna cut it round here, hence there aren't any! Everyone would have to get off and push and I don't have a bike so I can push it up the hills...
It seems that I've got the wrong terrain here, so maintainance would be the only advantage..
BUT you might be different - If I still lived in the UK I might give it a try...
It is surprising what you can ride on a singlespeed. I live in Freiburg and ride my singlespeed here without problems. Kandel, Roßkopf, Kybfelsen etc are all rideable on a singlespeed.
32:18 is the perfect ratio for the black forest if you want to try it out.
Fair play for getting out on those trails with a SS, and there are a few steeper sections on those trails that I can't imagine anyone getting up on a SS. In fact, I've never seen a SS rider here in the black forest!
How do you get on with Schauinsland or Hinterwaldkopf, these are no steeper than your other routes but more of a slog (plus much better downhill sections).
I'll be even more impressed if you managed to get out recently on a SS... Not really active0 -
Big Southern Jesse wrote:So can we agree:
It helps with strength and fitness. (Particularly anaerobic fitness and upper body strength)
It's been said already, but in this it does absolutely nothing that gears can't do, just by electing not to use them- I was doing that a bit at the weekend. Bikes aren't automatics...Uncompromising extremist0 -
And the flip side of that is you can use gears to do sustained interval training during a ride which you couldn't necessarily do without them. Without them I couldn't have lost a stone in weight and maintained it last year.Northwind wrote:Big Southern Jesse wrote:So can we agree:
It helps with strength and fitness. (Particularly anaerobic fitness and upper body strength)
It's been said already, but in this it does absolutely nothing that gears can't do, just by electing not to use them- I was doing that a bit at the weekend. Bikes aren't automatics...0 -
_Ferret_ wrote:Fair play for getting out on those trails with a SS, and there are a few steeper sections on those trails that I can't imagine anyone getting up on a SS. In fact, I've never seen a SS rider here in the black forest!
How do you get on with Schauinsland or Hinterwaldkopf, these are no steeper than your other routes but more of a slog (plus much better downhill sections).
I'll be even more impressed if you managed to get out recently on a SS...
Yeah I havent seen any other SS riders either... I guess it hasn't really caught on in southern Germany. I am still having trouble convincing others that it is a good idea.
The Schauinsland is no problem and I also did a trip over to the Feldberg and then down via Hinterwaldkopf. To be honest I haven't ridden the trail from Kirchzarten up to the top of the Hinerwaldkopf yet. It would be a bit of a slog I guess but a good challenge.
I was on top of the Roßkopf two Fridays ago. It was a walk up, though with 10cm of new snow but the ride down was fun!0 -
blister pus wrote:
And the flip side of that is you can use gears to do sustained interval training during a ride which you couldn't necessarily do without them. Without them I couldn't have lost a stone in weight and maintained it last year.Northwind wrote:Big Southern Jesse wrote:So can we agree:
It helps with strength and fitness. (Particularly anaerobic fitness and upper body strength)
It's been said already, but in this it does absolutely nothing that gears can't do, just by electing not to use them- I was doing that a bit at the weekend. Bikes aren't automatics...
Fair points, the fitness topic goes into the "debatable" section!
I'll stand by my final answer: I enjoy it and I want to!
And I have a full set of SLX in it's boxes for when I get bored or want to race in a geared competition. :oops:Proved by testing to be faster than a badger.
The world's ultimate marmite bike0 -
I am still having trouble convincing others that it is a good idea.
For a lot of riders it isn't. Definitely something to try out.0 -
Big Southern Jesse wrote:I'll stand by my final answer: I enjoy it and I want to!
What better reason? (but some people don't like to admit that they don't have a "good" reason to do things so make up mad ones ) Uncompromising extremist0 -
Hoping to avoid the fray, but I don't think it's been mentioned yet. In addition to the other pro-SS comments, I also love the near dead silence of the tranny. It adds to the sense of euphoria on the trail.0
