Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - What's the best SS set up?

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Haptown
02-20-07, 03:30 PM
I'm planning to convert my old Fuji tourer into a single speed but cant decide what size cog to put in the back and what size chain-ring to put up in the front. I've never done this before. The areas I typically ride are a pretty good mix of flats and hills (no monster hills). I live in an inner city neighborhood and I'm using this bike as a daily commuter bike.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

mander
02-20-07, 03:34 PM
Depends totally on your fitness, local terrain and how fast you like to ride. 42*15, 52*20 are two good places to start that you can probably find among your existing cassette and chainrings, but you have to tweak it for yourself from there.
nexus6
02-20-07, 04:59 PM
I run 48 x 18 on mine and find it's fast enough for the flats and ok for the couple of small hills I ride every day.

Natron
02-20-07, 06:32 PM
I went with 48 x 19 to try and keep the number of skid patches as high as possible. Since you're going single speed and not fixed, I'd say 48 front and 17-19 rear would work well for most applications. I don't know how steep the hills are near you though. The only suggestion I can make is to find the one gear on your current bike or a friend's bike that lets you get around with relative ease and then calculate the same gear ratio into a single speed setup using available sizes for that application.

I suppose it'll be a little bit lighter and a little bit more efficient as a single speed so you may be able to get away with a slightly higher gear ratio because of that....