composed  says:
7 months ago

Good stuff.

Nice that you don't confound ss with fixed... not that it really matters in the whole scheme of things, but still!

Thorne  says:
7 months ago

Master Mo i used all stock components and a bmx freewheel. i wanted to do the conversion without putting too much money into it. Pictures of the khs gran sport on there way.

Dave Hughes  says:
6 months ago

I recently completed a SS conversion on a '79 Suburban, and have been very happy with the result. Sure, it's pretty heavy for a stripped-down road bike (28#), but Boy, does it ride nice! Good, solid feel, yet with good handling. And of course those old Schwinn electro-forged frames are totally bulletproof.

I removed all cable stops, the entire kickstand and its mounting (that took off about 3# alone!), and any other unnecessary protuberances. And of course I repainted it. I put in a 175mm 'cruiser crank' in it with a Wald 44T chainwheel, found some 27" wheels with Sun Mistral rims, Maillard hubs, stainless spokes, & QR's. I put a 18T BMX freewheel on it with 1/8" chain. You may think 44/18 gearing is a little easy, but if you lived in hilly Austin, Texas, you'd understand. I used an old 21.1mm welded tubular steel ATB type stem from a 'X-mart' bike, which has a nice long reach to help with the notoriously short top tube dimensions on those frames, and a matte-chrome steel 'Mary' bar. One brake, on the front, an old Dia-Compe caliper much like what came on the bike, with a MTB lever.

Once I got my 56-year-old legs used to the SS, I hardly ever ride my multispeed bike anymore. I love the purism and simplicity of SS! No worrying about whether I'm in the right gear, or when I should shift...just move my feet in circles and keep up the spin rate. I'd never been very comfortable with getting out of the saddle to slam up a hill, but now I'm blasting up the rolling hills around here like crazy. I get to/from work even faster than on the multi-geared bike because of that.

Not only is my bike converted to singlespeed...I am, too!

The Capn'  says:
5 months ago

A subset of single speed bike is the fixed-gear bicycle. The difference is that a fixed-gear bike does not have freewheel mechanism to allow coasting.

Keep it SS for SS! (safety's sake) I've road-chomped many a shin on my old fixxxie.

Dave Hughes  says:
3 months ago

Actually, I believe my bike is (was) a Varsity, not a Suburban. At any rate, I'm still lovin' it. If I come across something else I can ride to work for a while, I'll take the Varsity down again, blast all that Rust-O-Leum paint job I did off of it, and get it powdercoated some cool color (like maybe UT Longhorn burnt orange or a 'root-beer' metallic). Then I'd build it all back up again and add fenders and a rack, for what would be my near-ultimate commuter bike. Oh, and I'd also probably put some Velo Orange 'porteur' bars on it this time, with some of those lovely cork grips and one of their ultra-cool 'retro' touring brake levers.