Single speed ... +1?
 

This is my first post: be gentle. I've been riding my single-cross for about a year with 42/18 ratio. Love it, except the 'normal' bike guys fly by me on the flats and downhills. What if a guy could easily add another ratio [say 54/18] just by changing his left crankarm, and adding a chain [using flip-flop hub] ... and what if he could shift on the fly, by clicking a lever with his toe. Not for purists, and maybe [maybe] slight weight penalty ... but if the price were right, what do you think? Would anyone bite?
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/...e/IMG_1156.jpg
http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/...e/IMG_1152.jpg

http://i843.photobucket.com/albums/z...JagsFanWTF.gif

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hub_gear

:lol::lol:

Wait, wait. Think about it, every photo would be drive side.

There's a Swiss outfit called Schlumpf that makes a two speed crankset with a foot shifter, but they cost around $700 and I have no idea where you'd get one in the US.

OR

you can get an internal 3 speed

or weirder, you can ride with two chain rings, a front derailer, and rear derailer - for chain tension. then you'll ride and think about the wonders of 5,6,7,8,9,10,11 gears

riding two different drive cranks with differing q factors must be good for your knees

it depends, like so many other things cycling

Imagine the bottom bracket size.....

This reminds me of a thread a while back: A small drive side freewheel and a large non drive side freewheel on backwards with a two sided crankset. High ratio for accelerating and low ratio for decelerating. High top speed with good stopping power. Somehow it got proved impossible though :p

LOL
most perfect gif ever

Youd either have to find an old tandem crank, or risk unthreading your pedal.

And find a freewheel that works in the opposite direction, *and* then engineer a way to lock/unlock them on the fly...

Sorry man, I think somebody beat you to that.

http://www.xtremecycles.co.uk/images...-39t-43414.jpg

Duh.

I remember seeing one crazy rig that had a normal freewheel on the right side and a "backwards" freewheel and a reverser gear on the left side, so that if you pedaled forward you had one gear and if you pedaled backwards you had another gear, that was still a forward gear.

I believe you are thinking of a "retro-direct drive" bike

not that i am condoning any activity in this thread but we have got a tandem in our family that has had non tandem crank arms for almost 20 years. the bike has more miles on it than i care to imagine and no pedal has ever come loose. keep in mind the stokers right hand pedal is the only "correct" pedal of the four.

i read in one book that the only reason pedals were revers threaded to begin with was to prevent ankle breakage on a bike with no freewheel. if the pedal bearings lock up your pedal theoretically will unthread from the crank arm. on a bike with a freewheel (like our tandem) you would just stop pedaling. regardless of the reason, a properly installed pedal will run "backwards" for thousands and thousands of miles with no issue. i have tried and tested proof. yes, i am fully aware of sheldon browns stance on the topic...

italian bottom bracket cups are also right hand thread on both sides. once again, properly installed they wont back out.

Agreed. A pedal installed with the correct amount of torque isn't going to somehow magically unthread by pedaling in reverse.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=229147

white ind double/double
and the double chainring works well with a dingle cog if you want fixed

My dingle setup I ran on my fixed on/off-road go-anywhere fixed gear was a Sugino RD2 crank w/ Surly 39 and 42t chainrings and a 17/20t Surly dingle track cog on a Formula fixed hub w/ a 9-speed chain. Everything lined up, nothing rubbed, and 3 of 4 ratios were useable for a given length of chain and the amount of slack the dropouts on my Cross-check could take up. That was a super fun, versatile setup. Commute during the week, hit trails and long gravel rides on the weekend, etc. A bit heavy tho, given the amount of steel on the drive-train (2 Surly chainrings and a Dingle cog), but that bike certainly wasn't a featherweight.

here's another 2 speed you can pedal backwards to get a lower gear on from jan heine's book.

http://i.imgur.com/uTghl.jpg

Thanks for the input! To summerize, I'm hearing: snore,wtf? and, why? To a lesser degree, I'm hearing: a few people have played with different ways of doing this, which says there's at least some minimal interest in the world.
To clarify a few points: the idea is to create a robust, simple, clean, retro-fit-able, selectable-on-the-fly, inexpensive 1+1 speed.
My idea uses no fussy, expensive, delicate planetary gears in either hub or bottom bracket, nor long chain or droopy tensioner/deraliuer. It uses an untouched stock bottom bracket, common flip-flop hub and [latest rev] standard [but modified] left-side crank arm, i.e., standard left pedal threads. And no pedalling backwards.
Would sell for < $100.
I'm on the 3rd revision ... putting miles on the bike [Portland, OR], and it works great. I think a giant single chainring on the 'wrong' side looks awesome, but admit that it's subjective ... you have to look pretty hard to even notice the bilateral drive, and then it's a fun 'wtf' conversation. And of course I now blow by other single-speeders if it's flat or downhill ... which was the whole point.

http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/...e/IMAG0006.jpg

You are not riding a singlespeed bike. In fact, I think you're missing the entire point of riding ss.

A regular geared bike is no heavier and has a lot more gearing flexibility than yours.
Even this is a much more elegant solution and still has 3 gears
http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/...kilott_s3x.htm

That Mercier IS very cool, and elegant ... and you're right, i miss-spoke when i said OTHER single-speeders: mine is no longer. Further, I genuinely appreciate the candid responses to my query: I asked for it!

Having said that, let me say this: your [anyone's] 'entire point' of riding a ss is probably different than my 'entire point'. My 'entire point' is: simplicity, robustness, uniqueness and speed. [And somewhat surprisingly: cardio conditioning - much better workout for me now that I can push myself beyond the 42/18t spinning speed.] My invention only intends to address these -unique to me - constraints. My question was: is it interesting to anyone else?

You're undoubtably a more experienced and serious cyclist ... I'm driven by a compulsion to make things better [for me] and unique: I'm an industrial designer, and I happen to cycle as one of my interests.

42x18 - no wonder you're so slow on the flats.
so get a bigger chainring or smaller cog. $15-$60. Problem solved.

I thought your entire point was to blow by ss riders on the flats and downhill?
If it's now simplicity, robustness, speed and being unique... well you failed on 3 of the 4.

Just because you're an ID doesn't mean it's a good idea.
I'm an ID too, i've had more bad ideas than good- but sure was passionate about it at the time.
Fun to try stuff out and out of the box thinking and maybe this will be a stepping stone and lead to something worth developing.
It's all a process but you also should look at how the compromises outweigh the benefits and if it's actually an improvement at all.

just my lame opinion