Bike rebuild - single speed?

Whitesnake

Hi all,

Having recently brought a fantastic Commencal Meta 5.5 team as an all rounder (sorry, "all mountain"), I have stripped my 10 year old Team Saracen Dirt trax ( with lots of upgrades but all old now) into the various components. I would like to rebuild this as an ongoing/winter project and am undecided to go for a single speed bike for riding around canal paths/bridleways with the wife (with rigid forks for that retro feel) or go the front suspension new group set route and have a second XC biased bike. Either way it would be built to a fairly low budget (max £200-£300) and I wonder what other forumites think regarding which path to follow?

Thanks for any opinions

supersonic

Gears can be very useful! I think a lot of people go single speed because it has become the 'cool' thingto do lol. Sure, you get simplicity and lower weight, but less efficiency in many circumstances.

Your budget is easily enough for some rigid forks and drivetrain parts.

northstar

Change to single speed, gears are overated for most mountain biking, maybe all.

Kiblams

northstar wrote:

Change to single speed, gears are overated for most mountain biking, maybe all.

Sweeping statement of the day :shock:

For canal paths you will only need a single gear really, canal paths tend to be flat by nature

northstar

A sweeping statement based on experience

Kiblams

Experience in Surrey

northstar

Surrey Hills

snotty badger

The average biker needs gearing- I've built a SS and its nigh on useless for 99% of the stuff I normally ride up here in the lakes. It is nice on the flatter stuff though, with slight inclines.