Thinking of buying a single speed bike for commute

stuaff

ride_whenever wrote:

stickman wrote:

Pashley Guv'nor

Heathen, the phantom is the only pashley that should be ridden, think a big chrome guv'nor...

I can't see a Pashley without the words 'I'm a lady!' springing to mind. Might be a good workout bike for a masochist, I suppose.

snailracer

Rolf F wrote:

Clever Pun wrote:

I was told at a bike shop that the belts last 9 times as long as chains

Interesting - in the case of cars, timing chains last far longer than belts. Still, different application....

As an engineer who works with drives, both anecdotes are likely correct.

On a bike, grit wears and "stretches" the chain. The stretched chain then eats the sprockets. Belts do not stretch, even in the presence of grit, so belts do actually last much longer than chains on a bike.

Grit rubbing on the actual cog surfaces is not a significant source of wear. On a belt drive, the grit embeds in plastic belts and so does not press hard on the cog. On a chain drive, grit is squeezed out of the sides of the cog. It is only the grit trapped within the crevices in the chain that causes significant wear, to the chain.

A car timing chain is continuously lubricated with filtered oil, so there is no grit and no wear. Plastic timing belts are broken down by heat - there is no oil to carry it away from the hotspots, and oil would weaken the belt material in any case.

SimonAH

Hi LIT, spinny...

Regarding the belt, not sure what the gearing is on the District but I've clocked 43mph which aint bad... I would perhaps like slightly taller gearing (I'm more of a power rider than a high cadence rider) and have sent an enquiry to Fixie Inc to see if they can supply.

Did a 35 mile ride the other day with a super fit tennis playing friend riding my 18 gear road bike and had to stop for him fairly regularly.

Trek by the way are not at all helpful (suspect it's because they've got a fixed version of the district in the pipeline and don't want anyone beating them to the punch).

In terms of sheer joy to ride though I've not had as much of a grin on any of my bikes as the district gives me. Very light, agressive handling, total silence and really low rolling resistance. In traffic it's a fantastic weapon.

I could however see that if the belt broke it would be an arse to have to wait for one to be ordered - when / if I go fixed or flip flop I think I'll buy a spare just in case.

fastbatard

Kiblams wrote:

I am likely to get slapped for suggesting this! but I am getting one of these soon to replace my aging SS Raleigh with almost the same frame. But then I enjoy going down steps etc on my jourey home through the city so need speed and durability

I picked one up at the weekend, mainly for pulling a trailer with my 1yr old daughter in it. Had a good ride round Clumber Park and it was great, didn't miss the gears at all. Not sure I'd enjoy it so much on my hilly Sheffield commute but great for knocking around on.

For less than the price of a good night out you can't go wrong.

wgwarburton

lost_in_thought wrote:

Re. belt drives, can you get different sprockets for them if you want to change your gearing? All the belt drive bikes I've seen look spinny as hell, and much as the belt drive appeals, I don't care for spinny....

They make fronts in 50, 55 & 60 teeth, rears in 20, 22, 24, 25, 28 & 32 (depends a bit on your other components, I'm assuming a 130mm "Shimano std" road crank) so that makes the biggest ratio 3:1, equivalant to a 48x16 (roughly 80").

Don't know how easy it is to get parts, belts etc. The belts are fixed size (that seems obvious to me, but might not to non-techies?) so there may be some corner-cases where the chainstay length means the right belt isn't available for a particular combination. I doubt it, though, because the system seems well thought out (Gates know what they are doing, it's not an amateur working out of a garage).

You could compensate a good deal by compromising elsewhere- eg get 165mm cranks and run traditional 27x 1 1/4" tyres (630-32 cf. 622-25).

EDIT: Just checked a Peacemaker review- it comes with a non-standard 21-tooth pulley, giving a 75" gear. Not too spinny, as the poster commented (55:16 sounded wrong to me).

I really want to like the Peacemaker, but it's made of 4130 and comes with straight forks & flat bars... not what I'd be wanting for over a grand, sadly...


Cheers,
W.