syncromark

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?

EpicSchwinn

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

ddeadserious

highonpez

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

GriddleCakes

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.

hairnet

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

tombc

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

hairnet

it depends, like so many other things cycling

Dannihilator

Imagine the bottom bracket size.....

EpicSchwinn

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

cruiserhead

LOL
most perfect gif ever

Kayce

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

ThermionicScott 

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

Jaytron

Sorry man, I think somebody beat you to that.



Duh.

LesterOfPuppets

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.

theblackbullet

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

thirdgenbird

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.

Scrodzilla

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

markaitch

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

FKMTB07

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.

tombc

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

syncromark

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.

cruiserhead

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
https://www.bikesdirect.com/products/...kilott_s3x.htm

syncromark

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.

cruiserhead

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