Originally Posted by
DiabloScott
Rivendell used to have a bike like this - the Quickbeam - it had track ends, a flip-flop hub, and a two-ring crank. I don't think it ever got very popular but I saw Grant himself riding it once on Mount Diablo - he got to the top of the climb and got off and changed to the downhill gears by flipping the wheel and manual redistribution of the chain.
Very interesting, google took me to
Sheldon Brown's Quickbeam. Chainrings of 40/32 (I was surprised at such a large difference -- must use the extremes of the track ends), and SB gained himself a third gear by leaving the provided 18t on the flipside, and switching the flopside to a 14t (which he can only use with the 40, 32/14 would require shortening the chain -- but a 32/14 would be fairly close to 40/18 anyways).
I especially like how he highlighted the lugs by painting white outlines -- with white-out!